3 ms·

Why bother with all that cloak and dagger stuff when they can just buy the data? You believe Apple and/or Google isn't selling it? I have some land in Florida I

Why bother with all that cloak and dagger stuff when they can just buy the data? You believe Apple and/or Google isn't selling it? I have some land in Florida I'd like to talk about.

appplication 5mo ago
Having worked at Apple, I will say I firmly believe they do not sell data. I worked in data science and we had the shittiest inference because we had essentially no access, even internally, to longitudinal or cross-app user data. Best we had was 15 minute rotating sessions for a single app. There are internal teams dedicated to deanonymizing data to try to narrow down users - if they can successfully do so, and relevant fields that lead to deanonymization get permanently purged from internal logging. I can’t speak to the current architecture but Apple has shown a consistent willingness to sacrifice access to user data in the name of selling privacy instead at a premium price (you could argue precisely because no one of their competition have any meaningful posture on this). I do believe they are quite serious in their commitment to that, as they have found this strategy to be more valuable than the data itself.
- tjoff 5mo ago
  But sending sensitive private audio recordings to the lowest bidder is par for the course? https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-49502292 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-49502292
  - silvandeboer 5mo ago
    This comment makes it sound like they sold private recordings to whomever was willing to pay for them, but they paid third parties to evaluate Siri recordings.
    - tjoff 5mo ago
      Don't really agree with that, that would have been highest bidder if anything. And it wouldn't have been much worse compared to be as careless as they have been.
- wartywhoa23 5mo ago
  > Having worked at Apple, I will say I firmly believe they do not sell data. Selling data is so shabby! Why sell when you can just give it away to letter-soup friends?
  - fragmede 5mo ago
    Because that's not legal, so they sell it to third party data brokers and it gets resold to someone the TLAs can buy it legally from.
    - wartywhoa23 5mo ago
      Illegal to share data with entities that are themselves law enforcement, and which they are known to be demanding, not just asking to share out of good will?
    - yencabulator 5mo ago
      US wiretapping operations are not bound by publicly-visible laws. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intelligence_Surveillance_Court https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intellig... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Intelligence_Surveillance_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Intelligence_Surveilla... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA_warrantless_surveillance_(2001%E2%80%932007) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA_warrantless_surveillance_(... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A
cheriot 5mo ago
Apple/Google make less money if they sell the data because their ad product would no longer have an advantage. So no, I don't think they do that.
boringg 5mo ago
Apple's incentives don't align to sell private data as their whole thing is privacy. They do that they tank their business. If you have proof that they are doing it -- I'd love to see it. (*3rd party actors from an app re-selling data doesn't count) Google is 100% doing that because thats their entire incentive for the business. They sell low cost software / subsidized hardware on the grounds that you pay with your sharing data. That's the implied cost. Show me the incentives - I will show you the outcomes.

Why bother with all that cloak and dagger stuff when they can just buy the data? You believe Apple and/or Google isn't selling it? I have some land in Florida I'd like to talk about.

appplication 5mo ago

Having worked at Apple, I will say I firmly believe they do not sell data. I worked in data science and we had the shittiest inference because we had essentially no access, even internally, to longitudinal or cross-app user data. Best we had was 15 minute rotating sessions for a single app. There are internal teams dedicated to deanonymizing data to try to narrow down users - if they can successfully do so, and relevant fields that lead to deanonymization get permanently purged from internal logging. I can’t speak to the current architecture but Apple has shown a consistent willingness to sacrifice access to user data in the name of selling privacy instead at a premium price (you could argue precisely because no one of their competition have any meaningful posture on this). I do believe they are quite serious in their commitment to that, as they have found this strategy to be more valuable than the data itself.

tjoff 5mo ago
But sending sensitive private audio recordings to the lowest bidder is par for the course? https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-49502292 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-49502292
- silvandeboer 5mo ago
  This comment makes it sound like they sold private recordings to whomever was willing to pay for them, but they paid third parties to evaluate Siri recordings.
  - tjoff 5mo ago
    Don't really agree with that, that would have been highest bidder if anything. And it wouldn't have been much worse compared to be as careless as they have been.
wartywhoa23 5mo ago
> Having worked at Apple, I will say I firmly believe they do not sell data. Selling data is so shabby! Why sell when you can just give it away to letter-soup friends?
- fragmede 5mo ago
  Because that's not legal, so they sell it to third party data brokers and it gets resold to someone the TLAs can buy it legally from.
  - wartywhoa23 5mo ago
    Illegal to share data with entities that are themselves law enforcement, and which they are known to be demanding, not just asking to share out of good will?
  - yencabulator 5mo ago
    US wiretapping operations are not bound by publicly-visible laws. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intelligence_Surveillance_Court https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intellig... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Intelligence_Surveillance_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Intelligence_Surveilla... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA_warrantless_surveillance_(2001%E2%80%932007) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA_warrantless_surveillance_(... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A

cheriot 5mo ago

Apple/Google make less money if they sell the data because their ad product would no longer have an advantage. So no, I don't think they do that.

boringg 5mo ago

Apple's incentives don't align to sell private data as their whole thing is privacy. They do that they tank their business. If you have proof that they are doing it -- I'd love to see it. (*3rd party actors from an app re-selling data doesn't count) Google is 100% doing that because thats their entire incentive for the business. They sell low cost software / subsidized hardware on the grounds that you pay with your sharing data. That's the implied cost. Show me the incentives - I will show you the outcomes.