4 ms·

Genuine question. Does Apple just not do these things? Is my privacy actually protected better with an iphone? I still have to use Google Mail for work and oc

Genuine question. Does Apple just not do these things? Is my privacy *actually* protected better with an iphone? I still have to use Google Mail for work and occasionally use Google Maps to find things.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
flatiron 4y ago
Apple makes their money on their products and not your data. Google is “free” because it makes its money off your data.
- Operative0198 4y ago
  This position is outdated. Apple now makes (some) money from your data with advertisements.
cavisne 4y ago
Google Maps on iOS asks to track your location in the background by default. Apple tracks your location as long as Location Services is turned on.
- alwayslikethis 4y ago
  You can't truly turn off location on iPhone. Find My iPhone still works even if you, which demonstrate that your location is still going to them. In fact even if you turn the phone off, it still has bluetooth on, acting like Airtags.
dwrodri 4y ago
Apple does this, but to a lesser extent. I think the important distinction is in the business reasons that Apple and Google collect data. When Google collects data on you, it's mainly so they can let other companies interact with you (ads), and those companies pay Google so that Google makes money. When Apple collects data on you, it's mainly so that Apple can interact with you, and get you to pay Apple so that Apple makes money. The existence of that third party in Google's motive (i.e., advertisers) incentivizes Google to collect data more aggressively, because as long as the people using Google are "happy enough" to not leave the platform, Google stands to benefit from collecting more data for advertisers. And "advertisers" isn't a well-defined demographic. Apple's cost-benefit analysis when it comes to collecting user data is much ore clear-cut. If they can't tie data they're collecting to more revenue, there's not as much incentive for them to collect that data. In my opinion, that's why the reporting earlier this year about Apple's pivot towards advertising is such a big deal[1]. It completely changes the relationship it's users have with the company. 1: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2022-08-14/apple-aapl-set-to-expand-advertising-bringing-ads-to-maps-tv-and-books-apps-l6tdqqmg https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2022-08-14/apple-...
- moonfern 4y ago
  Also to consider: Wifi networks are used for tracking. Google and Microsoft offer methods for disabling this for the network that you control. (_nomap/website) Apple does not. Also Google makes it not impossible to stop tracking ( F-droid/Netguard/Superfreezz) on your phone. Pro iphone: Apple does not share access to an advertising id for monetization without user consent. Apple guards application boundaries.
  - withinboredom 4y ago
    I believe most of it is actually Mozilla, and not either one of those companies. Looking at DNS lookups, 2/3 of all DNS requests on my network go to location.mozilla.com
sowbug 4y ago
Find My Friends exists. Therefore, Apple has access to a pipeline providing real-time location data of your whereabouts, if you use that feature. Apple's privacy policy confirms that they collect "Precise location only to support Find My, and coarse location." Apple complies with law-enforcement subpoena requests about 90% of the time in the US (https://www.apple.com/legal/transparency/us.html https://www.apple.com/legal/transparency/us.html). For comparison, Google's compliance rate is about the same, at 84% (https://transparencyreport.google.com/user-data/overview https://transparencyreport.google.com/user-data/overview). I wouldn't expect those rates to be substantially different; they're both US companies subject to US law. In other words, cops interested in your whereabouts probably don't care much if you have an iOS or Android-based product. Moreover, the easier subpoena target is your wireless carrier. For their service to work, your carrier must map your billing info to your SIM IMEI (I say "must" lazily; I could imagine a ZKP system that gave out certificates showing that a randomized IMEI is paid up. But the angry privacy mob doesn't seem to be focused on carriers right now, so I don't see why they'd change). According to anecdotes on the web (I am not a customer of Apple), Find My Friends uses IP geolocation as a GPS fallback. It stands to reason that Apple's ad network has built a similar database. I believe both major networks allow individual users to opt out of that database being used to serve them ads, but I don't know whether that means that the ad networks do not still know where that user is.

Genuine question. Does Apple just not do these things? Is my privacy *actually* protected better with an iphone? I still have to use Google Mail for work and oc

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

flatiron 4y ago

Apple makes their money on their products and not your data. Google is “free” because it makes its money off your data.

Operative0198 4y ago
This position is outdated. Apple now makes (some) money from your data with advertisements.

cavisne 4y ago

Google Maps on iOS asks to track your location in the background by default. Apple tracks your location as long as Location Services is turned on.

alwayslikethis 4y ago
You can't truly turn off location on iPhone. Find My iPhone still works even if you, which demonstrate that your location is still going to them. In fact even if you turn the phone off, it still has bluetooth on, acting like Airtags.

dwrodri 4y ago

Apple does this, but to a lesser extent. I think the important distinction is in the business reasons that Apple and Google collect data. When Google collects data on you, it's mainly so they can let other companies interact with you (ads), and those companies pay Google so that Google makes money. When Apple collects data on you, it's mainly so that Apple can interact with you, and get you to pay Apple so that Apple makes money. The existence of that third party in Google's motive (i.e., advertisers) incentivizes Google to collect data more aggressively, because as long as the people using Google are "happy enough" to not leave the platform, Google stands to benefit from collecting more data for advertisers. And "advertisers" isn't a well-defined demographic. Apple's cost-benefit analysis when it comes to collecting user data is much ore clear-cut. If they can't tie data they're collecting to more revenue, there's not as much incentive for them to collect that data. In my opinion, that's why the reporting earlier this year about Apple's pivot towards advertising is such a big deal[1]. It completely changes the relationship it's users have with the company. 1: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2022-08-14/apple-aapl-set-to-expand-advertising-bringing-ads-to-maps-tv-and-books-apps-l6tdqqmg https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2022-08-14/apple-...

moonfern 4y ago
Also to consider: Wifi networks are used for tracking. Google and Microsoft offer methods for disabling this for the network that you control. (_nomap/website) Apple does not. Also Google makes it not impossible to stop tracking ( F-droid/Netguard/Superfreezz) on your phone. Pro iphone: Apple does not share access to an advertising id for monetization without user consent. Apple guards application boundaries.
- withinboredom 4y ago
  I believe most of it is actually Mozilla, and not either one of those companies. Looking at DNS lookups, 2/3 of all DNS requests on my network go to location.mozilla.com

sowbug 4y ago

Find My Friends exists. Therefore, Apple has access to a pipeline providing real-time location data of your whereabouts, if you use that feature. Apple's privacy policy confirms that they collect "Precise location only to support Find My, and coarse location." Apple complies with law-enforcement subpoena requests about 90% of the time in the US (https://www.apple.com/legal/transparency/us.html https://www.apple.com/legal/transparency/us.html). For comparison, Google's compliance rate is about the same, at 84% (https://transparencyreport.google.com/user-data/overview https://transparencyreport.google.com/user-data/overview). I wouldn't expect those rates to be substantially different; they're both US companies subject to US law. In other words, cops interested in your whereabouts probably don't care much if you have an iOS or Android-based product. Moreover, the easier subpoena target is your wireless carrier. For their service to work, your carrier must map your billing info to your SIM IMEI (I say "must" lazily; I could imagine a ZKP system that gave out certificates showing that a randomized IMEI is paid up. But the angry privacy mob doesn't seem to be focused on carriers right now, so I don't see why they'd change). According to anecdotes on the web (I am not a customer of Apple), Find My Friends uses IP geolocation as a GPS fallback. It stands to reason that Apple's ad network has built a similar database. I believe both major networks allow individual users to opt out of that database being used to serve them ads, but I don't know whether that means that the ad networks do not still know where that user is.