Apple Privacy Ping!
If you want on or off the Mac Ping List, Freepmail me.
Posted on 06/26/2014 2:26:01 AM PDT by Swordmaker
In the days and weeks since Apple’s WWDC keynote, something’s been bugging me, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Then, recently, while sitting at the airport, I launched Safari and pulled up Apple’s official privacy policy. At first glance, it seemed to be the standard boilerplate issued by the gray suited legal department of a large enterprise, full of the same legalese you see on nearly any site that collects your personal information.
But then I focused on some of the details, and a certain simplicity emerged:
Personal information will only be shared by Apple to provide or improve our products, services and advertising; it will not be shared with third parties for their marketing purposes. (Emphasis mine.)
and
Opting out through oo.apple.com applies only to Apple advertising services and does not affect interest-based advertising from other advertising networks. However, if you select Limit Ad Tracking on your mobile device, third party apps are not permitted by contract to use the Advertising Identifier
(Excerpt) Read more at macworld.com ...
"This is a company that destroys the keys to its encryption hardware after setting them up in the data center, just in case an employee decides to sneak in a back door or hand the keys off to a government agency. It designed systems like iMessages that a government could technically force them to sniff, but only with a fundamental change to the system architecture."
If you want on or off the Mac Ping List, Freepmail me.
That’s great, I had no idea. Now I’m going go read the entire article thanks for posting
Apple didn’t always place privacy so front and center. Most iOS privacy features only appeared in iOS 6, and only after some very public (albeit overhyped) abuses by certain apps. OS X only gained location privacy in Lion, and a full privacy center in Mountain Lion. Apple provided nearly no security or privacy details on iCloud until earlier this year. Apple still owns an advertising network.Veeerrryyy interesting!The issues of safety and security—and by extension, privacy—provoke visceral emotions in people. Apple has always tried to build an emotional connection between its devices and customers. With its increasing focus on privacy, it’s clear that Apple not only sees privacy as important to maintaining this bond, but as a means of differentiating itself from the competition. For a variety business and technical reasons, it’s an advantage that will be hard for Apple’s competition to duplicate.
Comments at the source point out that Apple hasn’t advertised this, and the article points out the creepiness factor of targeted advertising. That “creepiness” seems, IMHO, to be the way to point out the problem if AAPL does publicly promote this "advantage that will be hard for Apple’s competition to duplicate.” But before they do undertake that, "Apple still owns an advertising network” would, IMHO, have to go.
The other problem is, of course, that while all of us want privacy, some of “us” are also terrorists whose privacy is a danger to us.
Why do you consider that to be a problem. It's simply the price of freedom. The threat posed by your own government is far greater than the threat posed by a few demented hate filled religious fanatics. In the 20th century over 60,000,000 people (some say 80,000,000) were deliberately killed by their own governments, and if 0 and his fellow Democrats could get away with it they would have a final solution to the white middle class gun owner problem implemented PDQ.
I'll take my chances with the terrorists over tyranny any day.
“The other problem is, of course, that while all of us want privacy, some of “us” are also terrorists whose privacy is a danger to us.”
Here’s the problem I have with that statement, and the approach taken after 9/11: the terrorists who committed those acts were foreign nationals. Not a single American was involved. The organization(s) responsible were clearly of foreign origin.
Surveil foreign nationals all you want. Send operatives to their countries. If actual evidence points to an American, get a search warrant. There was never even a need for the massive airport security theater which bedevils Americans to this day, at a great cost to the economy. What was needed was a laser focus on those actually likely to commit terroristic acts. Who knows, they might even have caught a few more terrorists!
A focussed effort like that would have been far less costly, far less intrusive, and far more effective. Of course, it wouldn’t have been an excuse to vastly expand government, and condition citizens to accept constant intrusion into their private matters...
Hear, hear!!!
How many terrorists have we caught with our airport security?
ZERO, NONE, NOT A ONE.
Follow the money.
What makes you think it was designed to catch terrorists?
It was designed to condition Americans to a "new normal".
Extremely well said! Worth repeating. Millions of us are terrorized by our government every day for the sake of "protecting us". Whereas the odds of being harmed by terrorists is minuscule in comparison to everyday random accidents. We need our freedom rather than tryranny.
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