“Unlike Google, Amazon, and Facebook, Apple is loathe to use customer data to deliver targeted advertising or personalized recommendations,” Julia Love reports for Reuters. “Indeed, any collection of Apple customer data requires sign-off from a committee of three ‘privacy czars’ and a top executive, according to four former employees who worked on a variety of products that went through privacy vetting.”
“Approval is anything but automatic: products including the Siri voice-command feature and the recently scaled-back iAd advertising network were restricted over privacy concerns, these people said,” Love reports. “‘Customers expect Apple and other technology companies to do everything in our power to protect their personal information,’ Cook wrote in a letter explaining the company’s opposition to a government demand that it help unlock the iPhone of one of the shooters in the December attacks in San Bernardino, California.”
“Inside Apple, the trio of experts known among employees as the privacy czars are both admired and feared,” Love reports. “Jane Horvath, a lawyer who previously served as global privacy counsel at Google, is the group’s legal and policy wonk… Horvath works alongside Guy ‘Bud’ Tribble, a member of the original Macintosh team who is venerated by employees as one of the few who ‘had been to the mountain with Moses,’ as one former employee put it, referring to Tribble’s ties to the late Steve Jobs… The third czar, a rising star named Erik Neuenschwander, scrutinizes engineers’ work to ensure they are following through on the agreements – even reviewing lines of code.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Anyone who values their security and privacy would be foolish to use any device that fails to sport the Apple logo.
This is a concept that the Apple haters have a hard time understanding because they are so used to having their personal data mined and sold that they think this is just impossible.
Eric T. Mole’s communications and dealings with The U.S. Government NEEDS to be thoroughly investigated.
Amen MDN i2nd that statement. FU Comey FU .!..
Erik Neuenschwander does indeed sound like a rising star. It would have been interesting hearing now an the now postponed court case today.