Apple’s WWDC 2021 announcements on Monday showed that Apple’s privacy strategy is now part of its products: Privacy was mentioned as part of nearly every new feature, and received its own slot in the company’s keynote address. New features include ways to stop email tracking, burner emails, and a VPN competitor that obscures IP addresses.
Apple unveiled new versions of its operating systems on Monday which showed that the company’s focus on privacy has taken a new turn. It’s not just a corporate ideal or a marketing point anymore. It’s now a major initiative across Apple distinguishing its products from Android and Windows competition.
Privacy-focused features and apps announced by Apple on Monday for forthcoming operating systems iOS 15 or MacOS Monterey included:
• No tracking pixels. The Mail app will now run images through proxy servers to defeat tracking pixels that tell email marketers when and where messages were opened.
• Private Relay. Subscribers to Apple’s iCloud storage service will get a feature called iCloud+ which includes Private Relay, a service that hides user IP addresses, which are often used to infer location. An Apple representative said it’s not a virtual private network, a type of service often used by privacy-sensitive people to access web content in areas where it’s restricted. Instead, Apple will pass web traffic through both an Apple server and a proxy server run by a third party to strip identifying information.
• Hide My Email. iCloud subscribers will be able to create and use temporary, anonymous email addresses, sometimes called burner addresses, inside the Mail app.
• App Privacy Report. Inside the iPhones settings, Apple will tell you which servers apps connect to, shining light on apps that collect data and send it to third parties the user doesn’t recognize. It will also tell users how often the apps use the microphone and camera.
Americans also say that privacy is factoring into buying decisions. A Pew study from 2020 said that 52% of Americans decided not to use a product or service because of concerns over data protection.
MacDailyNews Take: Average consumers finally seem to be waking up to how “free” services work and what using them actually costs.
Smart people who are concerned with protecting their privacy use Apple products. Certainly not Google and/or Facebook. — MacDailyNews, September 26, 2018
Privacy: A Billion Dollar Feature
Giving New Meaning to Buffett’s “Moat” Principle
Go Apple
Oh, please. Facebook is hoovering everyone’s personal data and is running circles around Apple’s privacy strategy. Big investors love Facebook for tearing down those weak walls of privacy. How does a company make money from protecting privacy? Practically everyone on the planet uses Facebook and that’s many times the users who use Apple products. Most people on the planet don’t even care whether their personal data is being sucked clean and shared with third-parties everywhere.
Facebook is highly loved and respected by users and Wall Street, maybe even more than Apple is. I hear more complaints about the high cost of Apple products more than from Facebook sucking up personal data. It’s all a matter of what users want from a company. I don’t use Facebook, so I don’t care how much personal data they suck up. I use Apple hardware simply because I like Apple hardware.
Apple users are in the minority and Facebook is clearly winning when it comes to making easy money from stealing personal data. I’m sure very few consumers are going to switch to Apple products just because of Apple’s strong privacy policy. Most consumers don’t even concern themselves with the loss of privacy. Practically no one is going to give up Facebook, that’s for sure. Sure, it’s nice Apple is trying to protect user privacy, but Apple will never beat Facebook. Even the Feds can’t touch Facebook or Zuckerberg and stop personal data theft.
You seem to think you are immune because you don’t use Facebook.. There are many 3rd party apps which still feed your information to Facebook even when you don’t have an account. Notable example being a few apps that used to track ovulation/menstrual cycles, intercourse dates, location, etc which feed into your individual advertising profile.
Some people leave their car doors unlocked while the car is parked in the driveway. The practice continues for years until a “security event” occurs.
They are likely to feel foolish when such an event occurs. It’s not unlike the hoards of people you mention….
“Most people on the planet don’t even care whether their personal data is being sucked clean and shared with third-parties everywhere.
Beyond this, there’s A LOT more to security than the marketing sifting FB, Goog and others practice.
I assume you spend a fair portion of $$ on “insurance?” Apple is providing a form of insurance that comes with the price of admission.
Unfortunately most people i know aren’t concerned one bit about security because they are willfully ignorant of how their information is used. It will be interesting to watch the smear campaign from the companies running scared to see what tactics they use to drum up FUD to sway people from using Apple…
This is a very cool idea. It is quite simple, but this is its beauty. Companies like Apple are doing very well or very poorly. And it is important to choose every word and action very literately and clearly.