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> It seems to me that they do care about user privacy. I haven't seen any evidence yet to suggest that they don't. I think it's about priorities. The way you

> It seems to me that they do care about user privacy. I haven't seen any evidence yet to suggest that they don't. I think it's about priorities. The way you can tell when a company cares about something is when you see them give up something else they want to have it. In the case of privacy, they could show that they care by not collecting gobs of telemetry about every time a user plugs in their laptop, every time an executable is run, and exactly what a user looks at in their app store, and for how long. But they do collect all this data because it helps them both with advertising and with "improving" the product (using scare quotes because it's not clear to me what metrics are used to gauge "improvement"). I don't see _any_ effort made to protect Apple's users from Apple itself, and that's the core privacy problem: the mere existence of a massive store of all this data presents a very real risk to users. > Where do you get the idea that they're not subject to the same restrictions? The lawsuit alleges that Apple is not subject to the same restrictions it imposes on others. From the article: > Apple’s iPhones and other devices contain settings that purport to disable all tracking and sharing of app information, but the tech giant continues to collect, track, and monetize their data even after consumers have chosen to disable sharing, it said. Logically, this suggests that iOS will restrict other apps from tracking behavior across apps/sites, but Apple is leveraging its privileged position as the device and OS manufacturer to remain immune to those exact restrictions.

dkonofalski 4y ago
>the mere existence of a massive store of all this data presents a very real risk to users You're assuming this massive store exists with no evidence for it. One of Apple's central tenets with regard to privacy is that all the telemetry is done on device and never leaves the device except in an anonymized form. Based on what's been shown, this is still accurate. Apple is able to still collect data about how its users behave without any data that's tied to an individual. >The lawsuit alleges that Apple is not subject to the same restrictions it imposes on others. That is not evidence that this is true. From the lawsuit itself, they seem to be misunderstanding both how that info is used and how users have consented to it. I don't have enough information to say for certain but, based on the way the article and others are talking about the data and the video that's been presented that shows what data is being sent, there seems to be a misunderstanding between the settings that Apple provides that are meant to prevent cross-application and cross-site data collection with data collection from a single source. Additionally, I think they're making an assumption that the IDs being sent to Apple are shared across applications because I haven't seen any evidence to suggest that that's the case. That means that, unless some evidence is presented that proves it is being shared across apps, Apple is being truthful in what it's saying. It's collecting anonymized data that is then aggregated. >to remain immune to those exact restrictions. Again, that's not what has been shown so far. Until it's actually shown, rather than assumed, that Apple is using this tracking information across apps or across sites, Apple is doing what they say they're doing in their privacy policies.

dkonofalski 4y ago

>the mere existence of a massive store of all this data presents a very real risk to users You're assuming this massive store exists with no evidence for it. One of Apple's central tenets with regard to privacy is that all the telemetry is done on device and never leaves the device except in an anonymized form. Based on what's been shown, this is still accurate. Apple is able to still collect data about how its users behave without any data that's tied to an individual. >The lawsuit alleges that Apple is not subject to the same restrictions it imposes on others. That is not evidence that this is true. From the lawsuit itself, they seem to be misunderstanding both how that info is used and how users have consented to it. I don't have enough information to say for certain but, based on the way the article and others are talking about the data and the video that's been presented that shows what data is being sent, there seems to be a misunderstanding between the settings that Apple provides that are meant to prevent cross-application and cross-site data collection with data collection from a single source. Additionally, I think they're making an assumption that the IDs being sent to Apple are shared across applications because I haven't seen any evidence to suggest that that's the case. That means that, unless some evidence is presented that proves it is being shared across apps, Apple is being truthful in what it's saying. It's collecting anonymized data that is then aggregated. >to remain immune to those exact restrictions. Again, that's not what has been shown so far. Until it's actually shown, rather than assumed, that Apple is using this tracking information across apps or across sites, Apple is doing what they say they're doing in their privacy policies.