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"Harvesting user data" doesn't make money. The reason people think this is that on HN people have main character syndrome that makes them think their personal d

by astrange 10mo ago

"Harvesting user data" doesn't make money. The reason people think this is that on HN people have main character syndrome that makes them think their personal data is interesting, plus an assumption that making money is evil therefore anything you can think of that is evil would make money. (Google and Facebook don't make money by "harvesting" or "selling" user data, they make webpages you spend a lot of time on then put ads on them.)

bigyabai 10mo ago
No, I think the reason people on HN think this is because Apple, Google and Microsoft have all been caught harvesting user data: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/12/apple-admits-to-secretly-giving-governments-push-notification-data/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/12/apple-admits-to-...
- astrange 10mo ago
  That is a government using a court order to get access to something?
snowwrestler 10mo ago
The data that Google and Meta harvest are your interactions on other websites and apps that are loading a Google or Meta JavaScript, or have a back-end data integration with them. I don’t know if Apple has client-side ad scripts like those, but in decades of building websites I’ve never been asked to implement one.
Eisenstein 10mo ago
If it isn't worth anything then why do they want it?
array_key_first 10mo ago
Pretty much nobody's personal info is valuable by itself, but it's EXTREMELY valuable in aggregate, because it lets you target advertisement. Like, so valuable it's on the order of tens of billions.
- isodev 10mo ago
  Indeed, and the entire concept of smarter Siri, chatGPT integration as well as apple's ever-increasing Ad surfaces ... is powered by aggegading more and more usage analytics from users. There are so many that come on by default when you install macOS/iOS.
  - astrange 10mo ago
    No, you don't need usage analytics for Siri. (You need it for music to fulfill your contracts with the artists though.)

bigyabai 10mo ago

No, I think the reason people on HN think this is because Apple, Google and Microsoft have all been caught harvesting user data: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/12/apple-admits-to-secretly-giving-governments-push-notification-data/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/12/apple-admits-to-...

astrange 10mo ago
That is a government using a court order to get access to something?

snowwrestler 10mo ago

The data that Google and Meta harvest are your interactions on other websites and apps that are loading a Google or Meta JavaScript, or have a back-end data integration with them. I don’t know if Apple has client-side ad scripts like those, but in decades of building websites I’ve never been asked to implement one.

Eisenstein 10mo ago

If it isn't worth anything then why do they want it?

array_key_first 10mo ago

Pretty much nobody's personal info is valuable by itself, but it's EXTREMELY valuable in aggregate, because it lets you target advertisement. Like, so valuable it's on the order of tens of billions.

isodev 10mo ago
Indeed, and the entire concept of smarter Siri, chatGPT integration as well as apple's ever-increasing Ad surfaces ... is powered by aggegading more and more usage analytics from users. There are so many that come on by default when you install macOS/iOS.
- astrange 10mo ago
  No, you don't need usage analytics for Siri. (You need it for music to fulfill your contracts with the artists though.)