1846
Apple says it will remove services such as FaceTime and iMessage from the UK rather than weaken security if new proposals are made law and acted upon. (www.bbc.com)
submitted 3 years ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
345 comments fedilink hide all child comments
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 500 points 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago) (55 children)

This is the correct response. Either everyone has protection or no one has. Not that I'd trust apple anyway but by pulling the service your average person is likely to make some noise because they can feel the effect.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • hideshow 55 child comments
    •
  • [–] 107 points 3 years ago* (47 children)

    I'm not even an Apple user but somehow I still feel like Apple is one of the very last companies where privacy and the security of your data is more worth than a dime.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 47 child comments
    •
  • [–] 37 points 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago) (35 children)

    Nope, Apple sells your data just as much as Google does: https://www.insiderintelligence.com/content/apple-ad-revenues-skyrocket-amid-its-privacy-changes https://www.vox.com/recode/2022/12/22/23513061/apple-iphone-app-store-ads-privacy-antitrust#luMMel

    While people noticed their new policies against 3rd party apps, that masked the fact that those policies carved out an exception for first party apps, meaning they collect (anonymous) data on you through Health, Journal, Music, etc. just like every other company. "Trusting them more" is simply a result of you and everyone else getting hit with their privacy ads recently.

    Edit: "just like every other company" meant Google and Microsoft, i.e. the other big equivalent tech companies, my fault for not being specific.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 35 child comments
    •
  • [–] 143 points 3 years ago (4 children)

    While I’m all for calling out companies for abusing your privacy, your own links show that they don’t collect as much data as google. They could (and should) be better though.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
    •
  • [–] 83 points 3 years ago (3 children)

    Nope apple is literally worse than hitler, spez, and elon musk confirmed. Tim apple fucked my wife in front of me.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
    •
  • [–] 89 points 3 years ago (13 children)

    Anonymous data is actually pretty different to the data everyone else collects, which literally has your name and picture

    Apple’s data is useful for trends but it can’t be used to study who I am.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 13 child comments
    •
  • [–] 11 points 3 years ago (11 children)

    This comment needs to be further up rather than the idiotic takes that don’t understand the difference between anonymized data collection (Apple) vs identifiable data collection (Meta/Google/most other tech).

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 11 child comments
    •
  • [–] 8 points 3 years ago (10 children)

    Well, then there's also the people that don't realize that there are all sorts of programs out there that will try to take that "anonymized" data and then tie it right back to a persons profile.

    For example, you can anonymize GPS location data, but just because you strip away identifying information doesn't mean that you're truly anonymous. It can still be obvious where you live and where you work. And once you figure out where they live (again based on anonymous data) you can tie that information right back into their profile and continue to track them as if nothing has changed. https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/security/a15927450/identify-individual-users-with-stravas-heatmap/

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 10 child comments
    •
  • [–] 10 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    That won’t work on Apples data - they group all the data into cohorts, so the anonymising isn’t reversible.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
  • [–] 18 points 3 years ago

    There is a massive leap between collecting data and selling your data.

    I am against both but in the digital age actually knowing who has your data is such a relief. My old email got sold to third party’s a bit to many times and to this day 80% of the incoming messages are blatant generic America targeted phishing.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 11 points 3 years ago (6 children)

    Health is on-device, and is E2EE. To my knowledge, that's always been the case. They do allow optional data linking services, but those need to be setup by the end-user. Apple should have no knowledge of this data, by default. Notes can be E2EE (with ADP), and with Journal (a new iOS feature) being E2EE. Music is a paid for service, with no ads, and is one of the more privacy respecting options. Data is needed for Music to help serve the user, and suggest artists/songs... it's literally one of the platforms benefits, over self-hosting.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 6 child comments
    •
  • [–] 4 points 3 years ago (5 children)

    None of the major players literally sell your true name and address. All mask the data, and then do stuff with it like create trends to know which ads to display to "users that search for tiktok on the app store/play store"

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 5 child comments
    •
  • [–] 6 points 3 years ago* (4 children)

    Apple does not sell user data. By all means, look at their Privacy Policy (it's easy to read), and show me where this is mentioned. They do collect it, and use it for their own marketing platform, but they don't sell/trade it. In fact they DO anonymise the data they collect. Take a look: https://www.apple.com/privacy/docs/Differential_Privacy_Overview.pdf This is just one document, found after a quick search. They also disclose other details on their security, and other privacy (or lack thereof) aspects.

    Now show me where other ad agencies, not just one or two, that goes to the same lengths, while also giving decent documentation. I'm not saying Apple is perfect (far from it).

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
    •
  • [–] 5 points 3 years ago (3 children)

    They do collect it, and use it for their own marketing platform

    Right

    but they don’t sell/trade it

    Then what are they collecting it for? To line their servers? It's being used to train services, and those services that have ads have those ads targeted using the data collected in the first sentence I quoted.

    In fact they DO anonymise the data they collect

    So does google. Again, to the broader thread audience replying to my original comment, what is the difference?

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
    •
  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago

    I recently learned that one method for companies to get around data selling laws is to give the data away for free in order to attract certain types of advertisers, then, they sell ad slots for people with specific demographics or interests.

    They don't sell the data because that is harder to do with laws restricting it, so they just use it as advertiser bait in ways that bypass the law.

    Further reading: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/03/google-says-it-doesnt-sell-your-data-heres-how-company-shares-monetizes-and

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 0 points 3 years ago*

    The difference is that there are actually companies out there that will sell you the raw data they collected. E.g. your name and address if they have, your browsing history obtained through shady extension and so on.

    So there is a difference between selling the data and hoarding it to show targeted ads.

    And while both may not be cool, to me anyone with some money being able to buy my data is clearly worse. So it's helpful distinguishing there. It's not all "selling your data". You are also doing your argument a disservice by lumping it all into the same bucket.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago

    @zettajon @hardypart there is nothing stating that Apple is using your data, selling your data, or even getting your data. While it did create a situation where ad dollars are going to App Store it’s still not targeted other than by search. Your own posted link says nothing about what you claimed. There are plenty of issues to bring up about Apple without the need of fabricating one.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
    • load more comments (2 replies)
    • load more comments (11 replies)
  • [–] 31 points 3 years ago (5 children)

    iMessage isn’t a big loss in the UK. FaceTime would be.

    WhatsApp pulling out of the UK would have the biggest impact. Almost everyone uses it here.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 5 child comments
    •
  • [–] 7 points 3 years ago (2 children)

    Can confirm, it had swipe to reply for a while now, it’s coming to iMessage in next iOS… The only thing that annoys me about WhatsApp is the high picture compression resulting in low quality images.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •