“The global forces arrayed against personal privacy are legion. Advertising companies and marketing firms want to track your browsing and buying. Governments want to solve crimes and prevent terrorism whatever the cost. Telecommunication providers monitor all our Internet traffic and locations, just because they can. The financial services industry is sure our data is worth something. And even grocery stores can’t resist offering minor discounts if you just let them correlate all your buying to your phone number. While, theoretically, we have a little control over some of this tracking, practically speaking we have essentially no control over most of it, and even less insight into how it is used. It’s a safe bet that many of these organizations will push back hard against Apple’s privacy promotion efforts, and, by extension, against any of us that care about and want to control our own privacy.
“Calling privacy a fundamental human right is as strong a position as any company or individual can take.”
MacDailyNews Take: This really has been privacy week. We’ve seen plenty of reports of poor or weak treatment of our information. If we want to keep privacy, we may need to fight for it.
Why did the US Congress give away people’s privacy to the corporation and to the US Spy State?
Interesting…
Apple is wasting its time fighting for privacy and security for consumers. The most profitable companies use personal data and are highly praised for doing so. More people hate Apple for selling high-priced products than Facebook or Google for using their personal data. Apple has taken a very unfavorable position and will likely lose out for doing so. Most consumers simply don’t give a damn about security or privacy as long as they get their “free” services. Facebook has had a number of data breaches yet the company is doing absolutely terrific financially. No mass exodus of subscribers, for sure. Definitely no consumers are marching in the streets demanding Facebook be shut down.
Tim Cook needs to give it a rest and spend more time figuring out how to sell more Apple products. Facebook is being pegged to have far greater growth than Apple, so I think there’s a problem with Apple and not Facebook.
Wow, I now know why the word “magnificent” is in your name.
It is because you are magnificently delusional. Wow!
LOL. Most people.
Another person that doesn’t understand Apple.
I wouldn’t say Apple has “raised” the privacy debate, I would say that Apple has leveraged the privacy debate through “virtue signaling” in order to make competitors and potential competitors look bad.
Apple’s products are more private than competitors because their business model sells directly to the consumer. It has been this way since the beginning. Surveillance capitalism is a relatively new phenomenon.
Google and Facebook give away their services seemingly for free, but nothing about them is free. When you use their services, your metadata, personal data, surveillance data, relationship data, and so on are harvested and sold to their real customers I.e. other corporations and governments. Your data and your eyeballs are the price you pay to play.
Imagine how much bigger Apple could be had they exploited consumer harvesting in their business model. Access to info from a vast database of “aspirational” consumers, would be worth a lot of money.
I wonder if Apple ever buys harvested consumer data? As little as they advertise, I’d guess not. It’s funny, but with a little attention their website could be the hottest spot in the net.
A cautionary tale for Google users…
They knew back then.
Facebook got fined $5B. Stock went up 2%. Mark Zuckerberg was laughing. Facebook shareholders were laughing. Why? $5B is chump change for Facebook. They could easily have afforded a higher fine and were basically happy they only got a slap on the wrist. Facebook investors know the company is untouchable, so why should they worry. If Apple got fined $5B for something, I doubt the stock would go up as investors would be dumping Apple out of fear for whatever the reason. The usual, “Apple is doomed” would be all over the internet.
Apple hasn’t raised anything. If Apple wants to demonstrate superiority in privacy and security, it would stop making Google the default search engine. Apple would guarantee data privacy in its cloud, which it also rents from Google. Apple would take a stand against dictatorships and dictator wannabes who abuse what should be citizens privacy. Apple would vastly improve security plugins and options for Safari and its other internet connected apps. The user agreement would be written by a human being instead if a lawyer.
Shall I go on? Apple is like any other mega corporation. It will market itself as “the alternative” by being 0.5% different than the rest of the greedy scum — which Apple supports and treats as partners.