“Google Inc. showcased new offerings Thursday designed to embed the Internet giant more deeply into users’ lives,” Alistair Barr reports for The Wall Street Journal.

“Google began in the late 1990s as a search engine harvesting information from websites and presenting relevant answers to queries. That helped build the world’s largest digital advertising money machine. But the growing use of smartphones, and apps, has forced Google to adapt,” Barr reports. “Its main strategy is to extend Android from phones to as many devices as possible… Google has always given away its Android operating system and tried to make money indirectly through advertising and app purchases.”

“Despite a number of announcements, there was no blockbuster new product Thursday. Google shares dipped slightly during Thursday trading, leaving them down 2% over the past year, while Apple Inc. shares have risen 50%,” Barr reports. “Van Baker, an analyst at research firm Gartner, said [Google’s] Photos is part of a long-term Google strategy to use its computing expertise to gather more data. More than a decade ago, Google launched Gmail as a free email service with unlimited storage, gaining hundreds of millions of users. The company now sells ads based on the content in those messages. Mr. Baker expects Google to follow a similar approach with Photos, gaining as many users as possible, then using its computing power to analyze information and devise ways to generate revenue.”

Read more in the full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: Gee, that’s a rather cheap and dusty treadmill in the background of that photo of her. Weight estimated at 180 lbs. Weight Watchers ads.

Hey, look at that pool! Chlorine ads.

Wow, these two have been to quite a few ball games and concerts. Ticketmaster ads.

Oh look, the same little girl over and over. Must be her kid. Age estimated at two. Toys R Us ads.

Hm, the house looked better in 2009; paint’s really peeling in 2015. Paint ads.

Etcetera ad infinitum.

—

A message from Tim Cook about Apple’s commitment to your privacy:

At Apple, your trust means everything to us. That’s why we respect your privacy and protect it with strong encryption, plus strict policies that govern how all data is handled.

Security and privacy are fundamental to the design of all our hardware, software, and services, including iCloud and new services like Apple Pay. And we continue to make improvements. Two-step verification, which we encourage all our customers to use, in addition to protecting your Apple ID account information, now also protects all of the data you store and keep up to date with iCloud.

We believe in telling you up front exactly what’s going to happen to your personal information and asking for your permission before you share it with us. And if you change your mind later, we make it easy to stop sharing with us. Every Apple product is designed around those principles. When we do ask to use your data, it’s to provide you with a better user experience.

We’re publishing this website to explain how we handle your personal information, what we do and don’t collect, and why. We’re going to make sure you get updates here about privacy at Apple at least once a year and whenever there are significant changes to our policies.

A few years ago, users of Internet services began to realize that when an online service is free, you’re not the customer. You’re the product. But at Apple, we believe a great customer experience shouldn’t come at the expense of your privacy.

Our business model is very straightforward: We sell great products. We don’t build a profile based on your email content or web browsing habits to sell to advertisers. We don’t “monetize” the information you store on your iPhone or in iCloud. And we don’t read your email or your messages to get information to market to you. Our software and services are designed to make our devices better. Plain and simple.

One very small part of our business does serve advertisers, and that’s iAd. We built an advertising network because some app developers depend on that business model, and we want to support them as well as a free iTunes Radio service. iAd sticks to the same privacy policy that applies to every other Apple product. It doesn’t get data from Health and HomeKit, Maps, Siri, iMessage, your call history, or any iCloud service like Contacts or Mail, and you can always just opt out altogether.

Finally, I want to be absolutely clear that we have never worked with any government agency from any country to create a backdoor in any of our products or services. We have also never allowed access to our servers. And we never will.

Our commitment to protecting your privacy comes from a deep respect for our customers. We know that your trust doesn’t come easy. That’s why we have and always will work as hard as we can to earn and keep it.

Tim

Source: Apple Inc.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Arline M.” for the heads up.]

SEE ALSO:

Apple CEO Cook: Unlike some other companies, Apple won’t invade your right to privacy – March 2, 2015
Survey: People trust U.S. NSA more than Google – October 29, 2014
Apple CEO Tim Cook ups privacy to new level, takes direct swipe at Google – September 18, 2014
Apple will no longer unlock most iPhones, iPads for government, police – even with search warrants – September 18, 2014
U.S. NSA watching, tracking phone users with Google Maps – January 28, 2014
U.S. NSA secretly infiltrated Yahoo, Google data centers worldwide, Snowden documents say – October 30, 2013
Google has already inserted some U.S. NSA code into Android – July 10, 2013
Court rules NSA doesn’t have to reveal its semi-secret relationship with Google – May 22, 2013
Edward Snowden’s privacy tips: ‘Get rid of Dropbox,” avoid Facebook and Google – October 13, 2014