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“I’m speaking to you from Silicon Valley, where some of the most prominent and successful companies have built their businesses by lulling their customers into

“I’m speaking to you from Silicon Valley, where some of the most prominent and successful companies have built their businesses by lulling their customers into complacency about their personal information,” “They’re gobbling up everything they can learn about you and trying to monetize it. We think that’s wrong. And it’s not the kind of company that Apple wants to be.” This is a great strategy to win the hearts and minds of privacy advocates like me and take shots at companies like Google at the same time.

mkozlows 11y ago
It's also, more cynically, trying to cast Apple's business model as a moral issue. I mean, to be fair, Google does this too -- their emphasis on openness with Android, or "the next billion" with the low-cost, low-margin devices they enable are casting their business model as more moral than Apple's -- but advocating for the moral superiority of spending high-end money, as Cook is here, always strikes me as kind of gross. (Also, when he implies that Google sells your data, he's just wrong. Google uses the heck out of it, but they don't sell it -- why would they? It's their competitive advantage, they don't want other people having direct access to it.)
- deleted 11y ago
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  - pervycreeper 11y ago
    >You're arguing over semantics. Selling a product (ads) that is a direct result of having that data is basically selling that data. For some definition of "basically" that means "not whatsoever". Selling involves exchanging money for goods or services with another party (to paraphrase Homer Simpson).
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
- damon_c 11y ago
  I agree with what you said here but I think that when Google, in the pursuit of their primary revenue stream, sells an ad targeted at you, they can only do that because of what they know about you and your search history. That is very close to the same thing as selling your data is it not?
  - kbenson 11y ago
    No, because the relationship is between Google and you. The advertiser doesn't know the criteria that leads Google to show the ad to you, they just pay Google to know what they are doing and deliver relevant leads.
    - MCRed 11y ago
      I know exactly the criteria google uses to show the ad to someone, because that's what I buy when I buy keywords. That google found those keywords in some poor souls email, and I don't have access to the email, doesn't make it any less the case that google is selling that poor souls info to me. Edit: New policy. I won't respond to responses when my comment is negative. HN is rife with people who are just down voting anything based on ideology, or in a lot of cases, straight up hatred and bigotry. (IT's not question Google zealots hate Apple, and are irrational in this.) I won't be the queer in your game of smear the queer. I don't care how rational the response is. I'm not saying you downvoted me, just that I'm done putting effort in when it's the comments are literally rendered unreadable and censored by people who don't care about rational discourse. So why participate?
      - kbenson 11y ago
        That doesn't seem all that different than advertising in the yellow pages to me. You have to ask the customer how they heard about you, but if they mention the yellow pages, you're pretty sure you know what they were looking for, because you picked the section(s) you advertised in. To my knowledge, Google doesn't tell you where the keyword was found, or even if it was an exact keyword match or something they deemed similar enough to show (but I'm by no means an expert in Adwords). At some point you just have to accept that when you call a plumber, the plumber going to have a pretty good base to assume you need a plumber, and this is releasing some information to them. Without that, communication would be impossible.
- govindkabra31 11y ago
  How do you define "sell"? Adsense and Adwords - can very well be argued as selling the distilled gist mined from troves of data collected from your search history, email, photos, android app usage.
- msabalau 11y ago
  Cynically, and hypocritically. Just checked, the Facebook app is still in the store. Apple has been happy to take the search payments from Google from the first iPhone. Astonishing how Cook's "morality" has no practical implications that require his company to do anything.
  - MCRed 11y ago
    If you're going to call someone a hypocrite, and immoral, you should put up evidence of such. Apple may send traffic to google, but it has privacy protections in place, anonymizing the traffic from the browser. I don't see how the Facebook app being in the store makes Apple immoral or hypocritical, especially compared to google.
- justaman 11y ago
  > ... trying to cast Apple's business model as a moral issue. This was the idea behind the famous 1984 commercial. Creating a sense of societal urgency and philosophical crisis.
bla2 11y ago
I don't know, it looks pretty obviously like he's talking his book. I care about privacy, but Cook using it to sell me Apple products is a turn-off to me.
zak_mc_kracken 11y ago
But it's still mostly bullshit, though, especially coming from a company using closed source software for most of its products. Nobody can really tell what they are collecting, what they do with it and how much of it they share with third parties (including governments). If you google a bit, I bet you will find similar speeches from every single big company CEO these past years: "Privacy is our number one priority, blah blah blah". If you think Apple is different just because Tim Cook has great speech writers, you're being naive. All these companies are in it to win your private information, and we are all prepared to give them some of our private information if what we get in return is worth it. That's the game, simple.
- MCRed 11y ago
  It's funny how Google advocates always "bash" apple for being "closed source" when this company ships the most popular Unix in the world... and all of their products, even the watch, are based on it. Yes, they do keep the Application/UI layer closed source, but so does google ("Google Apps"). Yet google has spend years propagandizing that they are "open" while Apple is "closed" and that plays right into the latent desire to hate Apple from those who got a PC instead of a Mac when they were a kid. Apple is different because for nearly 40 years they have been honest and forthright and treating people different. Google says "don't be evil" and then goes out and does evil. Apple doesn't say it, they just don't do it. The idea that all these companies want private info and thus are all going to be evil is cynical. And it ignores the fundamental truth: Apple's product is really nice software sold in a hardware box. Google's product is your private info. The business models couldn't be more different.
  - zak_mc_kracken 11y ago
    > The idea that all these companies want private info and thus are all going to be evil is cynical. "cynical: believing that people are motivated by self-interest" In a free trade, capitalistic society, companies are by definition cynical, because the ones that are not go bankrupt. > Apple is different because for nearly 40 years they have been honest and forthright and treating people different. Google says "don't be evil" and then goes out and does evil. Apple doesn't say it, they just don't do it. I was with you until that last part. I would totally be on board with you if you say Google and Apple are both equally evil because they are looking after their own interest. The fact you think that google is doing evil and Apple is not makes me think you're a bit too far gone on the fanboy side.
vacri 11y ago
Perhaps a privacy advocate should be wondering about the 'sniff test' of the speech. What does “Like many of you, we at Apple reject the idea that our customers should have to make tradeoffs between privacy and security” mean? That there's a serious argument that less privacy is more security? Aren't they functionally the same thing in this context - 'security' here is about maintaining privacy. It's also a bit rich that Cook is talking about other entities gobbling up your data for themselves, when Apple is the epitome of the 'walled garden'. Apparently being in control of your own information is only what Apple wants if it's concomitant with their control of your information. Cook isn't being morally upstanding here. He's just reframing his company's position to make the other guy look bad. It's the traditional pattern of hide your weaknesses and expose those of your competition.
pen2l 11y ago
> “I’m speaking to you from Silicon Valley, where some of the most prominent and successful companies have built their businesses by lulling their customers into complacency about their personal information,” That is just really, really, REALLY RICH, coming from the company who's behind this kind of shit: http://i.imgur.com/1lGp7ps.jpg http://i.imgur.com/1lGp7ps.jpg Yep, to turn off ad-tracking, you have to go to... Settings... then 'General'... and then... About. Wait, "About"? Yes, "About", then "Advertising" ... and then do "Limit Ad Tracking". "Limit Ad Tracking", what a wonderfully clear label huh! Of course that's coming to you form the individual who likes to give lofty speeches about how he and Steve Jobs led in 'advancing humanity through the equality of all its employees' [1]. Because let's please just forget about how Apple had its part in collusion over hiring policies [2]. [1]: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/15/technology/tim-cook-making-apple-his-own.html http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/15/technology/tim-cook-making... [2]: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/04/23/what-the-apple-wage-collusion-case-says-about-silicon-valleys-labor-economy/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/04/23...
- DigitalBison 11y ago
  Not sure how recently it was changed, but on my phone running iOS 8.3 that setting is under Privacy -> Advertising.
  - dirtae 11y ago
    Yeah, that screenshot is from a very old version of iOS. It's now under Privacy > Advertising, which is right where I'd expect it.
- supercoder 11y ago
  That feature is there to let you improve your privacy, not to trick you in to taking it away. http://appleinsider.com/articles/12/09/13/apple_adds_new_limit_ad_tracking_feature_to_ios_6 http://appleinsider.com/articles/12/09/13/apple_adds_new_lim... The problem is legacy, a bunch of stuff was probably going to break if they just enabled that en-mass.
kriro 11y ago
As long as Apple heavily relies on closed source technology I'm fairly skeptical about their commitment. Additionally being a US based company all it takes is a friendly government agent showing up and I'm sure they'll hand over stuff without putting up too much of a fight I'd also guess that they do use cookies for their website and pay for web based advertising (thus being an enabler). Siri also makes me rather uncomfortable. Don't get me wrong, better privacy is an important issue and if Apple sees it as a potential competitive advantage that's pretty good (as it'll force others to improve there as well). I'll be very interested in seeing how much they push this as a general strategy. [sadly I'd argue it's not really all that great of an idea because if push comes to shove most people will readily give up privacy for convenience (imo)]

mkozlows 11y ago

It's also, more cynically, trying to cast Apple's business model as a moral issue. I mean, to be fair, Google does this too -- their emphasis on openness with Android, or "the next billion" with the low-cost, low-margin devices they enable are casting their business model as more moral than Apple's -- but advocating for the moral superiority of spending high-end money, as Cook is here, always strikes me as kind of gross. (Also, when he implies that Google sells your data, he's just wrong. Google uses the heck out of it, but they don't sell it -- why would they? It's their competitive advantage, they don't want other people having direct access to it.)

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
- pervycreeper 11y ago
  >You're arguing over semantics. Selling a product (ads) that is a direct result of having that data is basically selling that data. For some definition of "basically" that means "not whatsoever". Selling involves exchanging money for goods or services with another party (to paraphrase Homer Simpson).
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
damon_c 11y ago
I agree with what you said here but I think that when Google, in the pursuit of their primary revenue stream, sells an ad targeted at you, they can only do that because of what they know about you and your search history. That is very close to the same thing as selling your data is it not?
- kbenson 11y ago
  No, because the relationship is between Google and you. The advertiser doesn't know the criteria that leads Google to show the ad to you, they just pay Google to know what they are doing and deliver relevant leads.
  - MCRed 11y ago
    I know exactly the criteria google uses to show the ad to someone, because that's what I buy when I buy keywords. That google found those keywords in some poor souls email, and I don't have access to the email, doesn't make it any less the case that google is selling that poor souls info to me. Edit: New policy. I won't respond to responses when my comment is negative. HN is rife with people who are just down voting anything based on ideology, or in a lot of cases, straight up hatred and bigotry. (IT's not question Google zealots hate Apple, and are irrational in this.) I won't be the queer in your game of smear the queer. I don't care how rational the response is. I'm not saying you downvoted me, just that I'm done putting effort in when it's the comments are literally rendered unreadable and censored by people who don't care about rational discourse. So why participate?
    - kbenson 11y ago
      That doesn't seem all that different than advertising in the yellow pages to me. You have to ask the customer how they heard about you, but if they mention the yellow pages, you're pretty sure you know what they were looking for, because you picked the section(s) you advertised in. To my knowledge, Google doesn't tell you where the keyword was found, or even if it was an exact keyword match or something they deemed similar enough to show (but I'm by no means an expert in Adwords). At some point you just have to accept that when you call a plumber, the plumber going to have a pretty good base to assume you need a plumber, and this is releasing some information to them. Without that, communication would be impossible.
govindkabra31 11y ago
How do you define "sell"? Adsense and Adwords - can very well be argued as selling the distilled gist mined from troves of data collected from your search history, email, photos, android app usage.
msabalau 11y ago
Cynically, and hypocritically. Just checked, the Facebook app is still in the store. Apple has been happy to take the search payments from Google from the first iPhone. Astonishing how Cook's "morality" has no practical implications that require his company to do anything.
- MCRed 11y ago
  If you're going to call someone a hypocrite, and immoral, you should put up evidence of such. Apple may send traffic to google, but it has privacy protections in place, anonymizing the traffic from the browser. I don't see how the Facebook app being in the store makes Apple immoral or hypocritical, especially compared to google.
justaman 11y ago
> ... trying to cast Apple's business model as a moral issue. This was the idea behind the famous 1984 commercial. Creating a sense of societal urgency and philosophical crisis.

bla2 11y ago

I don't know, it looks pretty obviously like he's talking his book. I care about privacy, but Cook using it to sell me Apple products is a turn-off to me.

zak_mc_kracken 11y ago

But it's still mostly bullshit, though, especially coming from a company using closed source software for most of its products. Nobody can really tell what they are collecting, what they do with it and how much of it they share with third parties (including governments). If you google a bit, I bet you will find similar speeches from every single big company CEO these past years: "Privacy is our number one priority, blah blah blah". If you think Apple is different just because Tim Cook has great speech writers, you're being naive. All these companies are in it to win your private information, and we are all prepared to give them some of our private information if what we get in return is worth it. That's the game, simple.

MCRed 11y ago
It's funny how Google advocates always "bash" apple for being "closed source" when this company ships the most popular Unix in the world... and all of their products, even the watch, are based on it. Yes, they do keep the Application/UI layer closed source, but so does google ("Google Apps"). Yet google has spend years propagandizing that they are "open" while Apple is "closed" and that plays right into the latent desire to hate Apple from those who got a PC instead of a Mac when they were a kid. Apple is different because for nearly 40 years they have been honest and forthright and treating people different. Google says "don't be evil" and then goes out and does evil. Apple doesn't say it, they just don't do it. The idea that all these companies want private info and thus are all going to be evil is cynical. And it ignores the fundamental truth: Apple's product is really nice software sold in a hardware box. Google's product is your private info. The business models couldn't be more different.
- zak_mc_kracken 11y ago
  > The idea that all these companies want private info and thus are all going to be evil is cynical. "cynical: believing that people are motivated by self-interest" In a free trade, capitalistic society, companies are by definition cynical, because the ones that are not go bankrupt. > Apple is different because for nearly 40 years they have been honest and forthright and treating people different. Google says "don't be evil" and then goes out and does evil. Apple doesn't say it, they just don't do it. I was with you until that last part. I would totally be on board with you if you say Google and Apple are both equally evil because they are looking after their own interest. The fact you think that google is doing evil and Apple is not makes me think you're a bit too far gone on the fanboy side.

vacri 11y ago

Perhaps a privacy advocate should be wondering about the 'sniff test' of the speech. What does “Like many of you, we at Apple reject the idea that our customers should have to make tradeoffs between privacy and security” mean? That there's a serious argument that less privacy is more security? Aren't they functionally the same thing in this context - 'security' here is about maintaining privacy. It's also a bit rich that Cook is talking about other entities gobbling up your data for themselves, when Apple is the epitome of the 'walled garden'. Apparently being in control of your own information is only what Apple wants if it's concomitant with their control of your information. Cook isn't being morally upstanding here. He's just reframing his company's position to make the other guy look bad. It's the traditional pattern of hide your weaknesses and expose those of your competition.

pen2l 11y ago

> “I’m speaking to you from Silicon Valley, where some of the most prominent and successful companies have built their businesses by lulling their customers into complacency about their personal information,” That is just really, really, REALLY RICH, coming from the company who's behind this kind of shit: http://i.imgur.com/1lGp7ps.jpg http://i.imgur.com/1lGp7ps.jpg Yep, to turn off ad-tracking, you have to go to... Settings... then 'General'... and then... About. Wait, "About"? Yes, "About", then "Advertising" ... and then do "Limit Ad Tracking". "Limit Ad Tracking", what a wonderfully clear label huh! Of course that's coming to you form the individual who likes to give lofty speeches about how he and Steve Jobs led in 'advancing humanity through the equality of all its employees' [1]. Because let's please just forget about how Apple had its part in collusion over hiring policies [2]. [1]: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/15/technology/tim-cook-making-apple-his-own.html http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/15/technology/tim-cook-making... [2]: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/04/23/what-the-apple-wage-collusion-case-says-about-silicon-valleys-labor-economy/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/04/23...

DigitalBison 11y ago
Not sure how recently it was changed, but on my phone running iOS 8.3 that setting is under Privacy -> Advertising.
- dirtae 11y ago
  Yeah, that screenshot is from a very old version of iOS. It's now under Privacy > Advertising, which is right where I'd expect it.
supercoder 11y ago
That feature is there to let you improve your privacy, not to trick you in to taking it away. http://appleinsider.com/articles/12/09/13/apple_adds_new_limit_ad_tracking_feature_to_ios_6 http://appleinsider.com/articles/12/09/13/apple_adds_new_lim... The problem is legacy, a bunch of stuff was probably going to break if they just enabled that en-mass.

kriro 11y ago

As long as Apple heavily relies on closed source technology I'm fairly skeptical about their commitment. Additionally being a US based company all it takes is a friendly government agent showing up and I'm sure they'll hand over stuff without putting up too much of a fight I'd also guess that they do use cookies for their website and pay for web based advertising (thus being an enabler). Siri also makes me rather uncomfortable. Don't get me wrong, better privacy is an important issue and if Apple sees it as a potential competitive advantage that's pretty good (as it'll force others to improve there as well). I'll be very interested in seeing how much they push this as a general strategy. [sadly I'd argue it's not really all that great of an idea because if push comes to shove most people will readily give up privacy for convenience (imo)]