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Companies love data. Every last of one of them from your local grocery store to Apple. Love it, want as much of it as possible. Heck, most of the major publiciz

Companies love data. Every last of one of them from your local grocery store to Apple. Love it, want as much of it as possible. Heck, most of the major publicized features of iOS 5 put your data on Apple's servers (iMessage: your texts and MMS; Siri: pretty much every thing including searches, calendars, and email; iCloud: it is called iCloud). Long and short of it is that if you want privacy beyond "I'm boring, so no one cares", a device that holds pretty much every important bit of info about you made by large corporations that is nearly always connected to the internet via carriers isn't really for you.

Samuel_Michon 15y ago
If you are not paying for it, you're not the customer; you're the product being sold. That's why I don't use Gmail. When I pay for cloud services (like MobileMe, now iCloud) I feel more confident that my personal information isn't analyzed, sold, and used to manipulate me. Apple doesn't need to sell my data to profit from me. I value my privacy but I'm not Richard Stallman. I carry a cell phone, so there's a chance I'm being tracked. I like viewing web sites in a graphical web browser (not Chrome) -- it has JavaScript permanently turned on, I accept some cookies, and I find the geolocation service convenient. I understand I'm giving up some privacy by doing all that.
- Xuzz 15y ago
  Okay, so you say "not Chrome". You realize that Chrome is pretty completely open source and does not send browsing history back to Google?
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - molesy 15y ago
    Chromium is open source. Chrome is mostly open source. Both send a significant amount of data to either Google or your default search provider by default unless you tell them not to. I primarily use Chromium and I've been through the process of disabling all of its reporting several times - it seems to get easier over time, though following the code that might call out gets significantly more difficult. I currently have my default search provider set to Bing because I hate searching from the navigation bar anyways and it really annoys me that there's no way to turn it off. I suppose that's the price I pay for using a browser built by a search engine. I fondly remember the days when Michael Arrington was some corporate puke working for RealNames, a search-from-the-URL-bar concept that everyone outside of RealNames and Microsoft hated. Literally. Everyone. Google made Mozilla profitable by paying them to be the default search engine. The moment they figured out that worked was probably the last moment browsing was safe anywhere - and the last moment being a Mozilla employee was safe as a long term goal for anyone, oddly enough.
    - guelo 15y ago
      Great analysis. This reply is mainly so that I can find your comment again in the future.
    - mda 15y ago
      Chrome is Chromium, the only difference is branding and dynamically linked plugins (PDF, flash) which you can disable from about:plugins or delete, then you have identical binary to chromium. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3034628 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3034628 Also if you want to change any privacy settings go to preferences->Under the Hood->Privacy thats it. You don't have to change your search engine.
      - Xurinos 15y ago
        This is partially true. At one point I was trying to figure out how much I would enjoy Chrome, and one test I do with my applications is to have tcpdump in the background running while I run them. Whenever I went to any site, internal, external, or whatever, Chrome phones home to specific google sites. I think the published reason has to do with faster DNS lookups, but when I looked the sites up, they seemed attached to ad-related services. I searched around and could not find any setting to disable this feature. No, "Preferences > Under the Hood > Privacy" has nothing for disabling this feature. I think this phoning home was still there for Incognito mode, but time has left my memory fuzzy on that detail; Incognito mode is useless if you want to actually use cookies to maintain some session anyway, and why should I tell google about what accounts I hold across the net? For the wiseguy who picks up on that last comment, my preference is Firefox with NoScript, AdBlock, and a disinclination for downloading sex.exe, so no, the common tracking systems do not know much about me. However, my ISP is quite familiar with my habits. Someone recommended to me Chromium, claiming that it was stripped of this nonsense. So I tried that. Chromium did not phone home in my tests. It also lacked a few nice features that Chrome had, as if it were at least a version behind; I cannot remember what they were, only that at that point, I was sick of the hassle and ditched both pieces of software. If you are concerned about apps phoning home, just run tcpdump/wireshark/whatever and watch. The extra paranoid will route their connections through a box with these tools. My tests were within two months ago, so I feel the claim is pretty relevant.
- mingramjr 15y ago
  I pay for Google Apps, does that mean I'm in the clear?
- joebadmo 15y ago
  This trope is so tired. If not totally wrong, it's at least misleading. http://blog.byjoemoon.com/post/9910020865/you-are-the-product http://blog.byjoemoon.com/post/9910020865/you-are-the-produc...
  - nodata 15y ago
    So to summarise his argument: google still requires happy end-users or the advertisers will be unhappy. In other words, advertisers come first. Since advertisers don't have the same priorities as end-users, I don't find the argument very compelling.
    - VMG 15y ago
      In other words, advertisers come first. Your summary is incorrect. Advertisers and users are mutually dependent. If the advertisers priorities clash with the users priorities, it is not at all obvious that the advertisers will win. The fact that Google mail doesn't have flashy colored intrusive ads is testament to that.
      - Someone 15y ago
        In the zoo/Jurassic park/a fish restaurant selling life lobster, visitors and animals are mutually dependent, too, but the animals _are_ the product.
        VMG 15y ago
        Okay, by this definition, the Rolling Stones are "the product" too then. In what way does this name help explain the relationship?
        danparsonson 15y ago
        The fans pay money and get the Rolling Stones in exchange - it's abstract (obviously you don't actually get the band members to take home with you) but nonetheless sums up the relationship quite neatly in my opinion.
- billybob 15y ago
  "If you are not paying for it, you're not the customer; you're the product being sold." The galling potential of this story is that even though you're paying for your cell phone and service, you are potentially still the product being sold.
ugh 15y ago
Why do they love data? What do they use it for?
- still 15y ago
  BI. Looking at the past to guide future strategies.
  - marchdown 15y ago
    Does BI stand for Business Intelligence here?
    - maigret 15y ago
      Yes it does.
  - ugh 15y ago
    But a keylogger? I can understand how information about which apps crash, where calls and messages are dropped can be valuable but beyond that?
    - deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
    - pohl 15y ago
      Not trying to be an apologist here, but I can imagine this data would be useful to anyone trying to design ways of entering text, such as on-screen-keyboard layouts.
ajross 15y ago
I think that's way too cynical. Yes, that's what the manufacturers and carriers want. No, they don't "have" to get it. They don't get it in other consumer product areas. We can roll over or we can complain and fix it. This fight is winnable and worth having.

Samuel_Michon 15y ago

If you are not paying for it, you're not the customer; you're the product being sold. That's why I don't use Gmail. When I pay for cloud services (like MobileMe, now iCloud) I feel more confident that my personal information isn't analyzed, sold, and used to manipulate me. Apple doesn't need to sell my data to profit from me. I value my privacy but I'm not Richard Stallman. I carry a cell phone, so there's a chance I'm being tracked. I like viewing web sites in a graphical web browser (not Chrome) -- it has JavaScript permanently turned on, I accept some cookies, and I find the geolocation service convenient. I understand I'm giving up some privacy by doing all that.

Xuzz 15y ago
Okay, so you say "not Chrome". You realize that Chrome is pretty completely open source and does not send browsing history back to Google?
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- molesy 15y ago
  Chromium is open source. Chrome is mostly open source. Both send a significant amount of data to either Google or your default search provider by default unless you tell them not to. I primarily use Chromium and I've been through the process of disabling all of its reporting several times - it seems to get easier over time, though following the code that might call out gets significantly more difficult. I currently have my default search provider set to Bing because I hate searching from the navigation bar anyways and it really annoys me that there's no way to turn it off. I suppose that's the price I pay for using a browser built by a search engine. I fondly remember the days when Michael Arrington was some corporate puke working for RealNames, a search-from-the-URL-bar concept that everyone outside of RealNames and Microsoft hated. Literally. Everyone. Google made Mozilla profitable by paying them to be the default search engine. The moment they figured out that worked was probably the last moment browsing was safe anywhere - and the last moment being a Mozilla employee was safe as a long term goal for anyone, oddly enough.
  - guelo 15y ago
    Great analysis. This reply is mainly so that I can find your comment again in the future.
  - mda 15y ago
    Chrome is Chromium, the only difference is branding and dynamically linked plugins (PDF, flash) which you can disable from about:plugins or delete, then you have identical binary to chromium. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3034628 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3034628 Also if you want to change any privacy settings go to preferences->Under the Hood->Privacy thats it. You don't have to change your search engine.
    - Xurinos 15y ago
      This is partially true. At one point I was trying to figure out how much I would enjoy Chrome, and one test I do with my applications is to have tcpdump in the background running while I run them. Whenever I went to any site, internal, external, or whatever, Chrome phones home to specific google sites. I think the published reason has to do with faster DNS lookups, but when I looked the sites up, they seemed attached to ad-related services. I searched around and could not find any setting to disable this feature. No, "Preferences > Under the Hood > Privacy" has nothing for disabling this feature. I think this phoning home was still there for Incognito mode, but time has left my memory fuzzy on that detail; Incognito mode is useless if you want to actually use cookies to maintain some session anyway, and why should I tell google about what accounts I hold across the net? For the wiseguy who picks up on that last comment, my preference is Firefox with NoScript, AdBlock, and a disinclination for downloading sex.exe, so no, the common tracking systems do not know much about me. However, my ISP is quite familiar with my habits. Someone recommended to me Chromium, claiming that it was stripped of this nonsense. So I tried that. Chromium did not phone home in my tests. It also lacked a few nice features that Chrome had, as if it were at least a version behind; I cannot remember what they were, only that at that point, I was sick of the hassle and ditched both pieces of software. If you are concerned about apps phoning home, just run tcpdump/wireshark/whatever and watch. The extra paranoid will route their connections through a box with these tools. My tests were within two months ago, so I feel the claim is pretty relevant.
mingramjr 15y ago
I pay for Google Apps, does that mean I'm in the clear?
joebadmo 15y ago
This trope is so tired. If not totally wrong, it's at least misleading. http://blog.byjoemoon.com/post/9910020865/you-are-the-product http://blog.byjoemoon.com/post/9910020865/you-are-the-produc...
- nodata 15y ago
  So to summarise his argument: google still requires happy end-users or the advertisers will be unhappy. In other words, advertisers come first. Since advertisers don't have the same priorities as end-users, I don't find the argument very compelling.
  - VMG 15y ago
    In other words, advertisers come first. Your summary is incorrect. Advertisers and users are mutually dependent. If the advertisers priorities clash with the users priorities, it is not at all obvious that the advertisers will win. The fact that Google mail doesn't have flashy colored intrusive ads is testament to that.
    - Someone 15y ago
      In the zoo/Jurassic park/a fish restaurant selling life lobster, visitors and animals are mutually dependent, too, but the animals _are_ the product.
      - VMG 15y ago
        Okay, by this definition, the Rolling Stones are "the product" too then. In what way does this name help explain the relationship?
        danparsonson 15y ago
        The fans pay money and get the Rolling Stones in exchange - it's abstract (obviously you don't actually get the band members to take home with you) but nonetheless sums up the relationship quite neatly in my opinion.
billybob 15y ago
"If you are not paying for it, you're not the customer; you're the product being sold." The galling potential of this story is that even though you're paying for your cell phone and service, you are potentially still the product being sold.

ugh 15y ago

Why do they love data? What do they use it for?

still 15y ago
BI. Looking at the past to guide future strategies.
- marchdown 15y ago
  Does BI stand for Business Intelligence here?
  - maigret 15y ago
    Yes it does.
- ugh 15y ago
  But a keylogger? I can understand how information about which apps crash, where calls and messages are dropped can be valuable but beyond that?
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - pohl 15y ago
    Not trying to be an apologist here, but I can imagine this data would be useful to anyone trying to design ways of entering text, such as on-screen-keyboard layouts.

ajross 15y ago

I think that's way too cynical. Yes, that's what the manufacturers and carriers want. No, they don't "have" to get it. They don't get it in other consumer product areas. We can roll over or we can complain and fix it. This fight is winnable and worth having.