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Not exactly the same, but it wouldn’t be the first time Apple did something like this. For example, Apple shows a scary “Do you consent to TRACKING” dialog for

Not exactly the same, but it wouldn’t be the first time Apple did something like this. For example, Apple shows a scary “Do you consent to TRACKING” dialog for third party apps, but for their own tracking, presents a “is it okay if we use just a bit of your data to personalize your experience”?

sandworm101 4y ago
But Apple, as the device owner/operator, can do all sorts of tracking that cannot be accomplished by anyone else. They know when your phone is on or off. They know how often your battery runs flat. They know how bright your screen is. Apple surely uses this basic data in creating products. Telemetry isn't content tracking, but it is still tracking.
- dwaite 4y ago
  My understanding from talking is that internally they set a high bar for telemetry data, which includes non correlatable data through techniques like data slicing and differential privacy. In the case of private relay, I believe they are using privacy pass such that a token indicating authorization is anonymous on use. So say, Apple knows who someone is, but Cloudflare and the like who do the actual producing can only tell that Apple authorized proxy access and (for HTTPS) what domains are being accessed. So Cloudflare in this example may be able to get some statistics of use and share them with Apple, but it will be more about the relative popularities of pornhub.com and cnn.com, and not what percentage or who frequent both.
- s3p 4y ago
  Some people here need to read Apple's privacy policy. They go to extreme lengths to make sure no identifiable information leaves the device. Often times where Google sends information to the cloud to be processed (e.g. Photos data), Apple does the computation on-device. This is true for many things: analysis of photos, voice recognition, ML tasks, etc. Take a look at their approach to differential privacy if you are still convinced their data collection is egregious: https://www.apple.com/privacy/docs/Differential_Privacy_Overview.pdf https://www.apple.com/privacy/docs/Differential_Privacy_Over...
- sholladay 4y ago
  When I set up macOS recently, telemetry was off by default; it was opt-in. Not sure about iOS, but I presume it is the same. So you are correct that device makers collecting telemetry have a certain advantage, but most app/content tracking systems I have interacted with are opt-out and therefor, in my view, are more invasive. The app tracking dialog on iOS is technically opt-in, but the way it is written reflects that the system and the user have limited control, the "Ask App Not to Track" button implies that Apple acknowledges that their attempts to block tracking are best effort and are not guaranteed to work, because new and clever ways to implement tracking are being created on a regular basis.
  - GekkePrutser 4y ago
    Even when turning telemetry off there's still a huge amount of data going to apple. For example the gatekeeper revocation check leaks a lot of data about what kind of apps you run. I'm sure some departments of apple really care about privacy but it's a big company and clearly not all of them do.

sandworm101 4y ago

But Apple, as the device owner/operator, can do all sorts of tracking that cannot be accomplished by anyone else. They know when your phone is on or off. They know how often your battery runs flat. They know how bright your screen is. Apple surely uses this basic data in creating products. Telemetry isn't content tracking, but it is still tracking.

dwaite 4y ago
My understanding from talking is that internally they set a high bar for telemetry data, which includes non correlatable data through techniques like data slicing and differential privacy. In the case of private relay, I believe they are using privacy pass such that a token indicating authorization is anonymous on use. So say, Apple knows who someone is, but Cloudflare and the like who do the actual producing can only tell that Apple authorized proxy access and (for HTTPS) what domains are being accessed. So Cloudflare in this example may be able to get some statistics of use and share them with Apple, but it will be more about the relative popularities of pornhub.com and cnn.com, and not what percentage or who frequent both.
s3p 4y ago
Some people here need to read Apple's privacy policy. They go to extreme lengths to make sure no identifiable information leaves the device. Often times where Google sends information to the cloud to be processed (e.g. Photos data), Apple does the computation on-device. This is true for many things: analysis of photos, voice recognition, ML tasks, etc. Take a look at their approach to differential privacy if you are still convinced their data collection is egregious: https://www.apple.com/privacy/docs/Differential_Privacy_Overview.pdf https://www.apple.com/privacy/docs/Differential_Privacy_Over...
sholladay 4y ago
When I set up macOS recently, telemetry was off by default; it was opt-in. Not sure about iOS, but I presume it is the same. So you are correct that device makers collecting telemetry have a certain advantage, but most app/content tracking systems I have interacted with are opt-out and therefor, in my view, are more invasive. The app tracking dialog on iOS is technically opt-in, but the way it is written reflects that the system and the user have limited control, the "Ask App Not to Track" button implies that Apple acknowledges that their attempts to block tracking are best effort and are not guaranteed to work, because new and clever ways to implement tracking are being created on a regular basis.
- GekkePrutser 4y ago
  Even when turning telemetry off there's still a huge amount of data going to apple. For example the gatekeeper revocation check leaks a lot of data about what kind of apps you run. I'm sure some departments of apple really care about privacy but it's a big company and clearly not all of them do.