Apple Registers PrivacyIsImportant.com Domain Name

[pika2000]

Is privacyisnotimportant.com taken? One should buy that and forward it to Google/Facebook.

 

[ocnitsa]

To take your own analogy: say you claim to be the only person who can see that my windshield is cracked and also alone have the ability to fix it. You refuse to do so unless I pay you. Now who is more morally culpable: me for not fixing the problem that I didn't know existed, or you for holding the safety of all those people over my head because you just want to get paid?

Maybe it depends how you market your vehicle/transportation. If you say you have the safest vehicles and great windshields that differentiate you from competitors, then, uncracked windshields are a feature of your business. In that case, maybe you should pay someone to show you a weakness with your windshield, especially if it took knowledge, expertise, or time looking for it in order to find it.

My understanding is that while the generalities people are arguing about here (Apple's responsibility to pay for bug reportage) are up for discussion, one of the firestorms that started it, the dude who wanted a bug reportage program, is out...I just read that he went ahead and reported the bug to Apple without any promise of payment or a bug bounty program.

 

[JTBing]

Maybe it depends how you market your vehicle/transportation. If you say you have the safest vehicles and great windshields that differentiate you from competitors, then, uncracked windshields are a feature of your business. In that case, maybe you should pay someone to show you a weakness with your windshield, especially if it took knowledge, expertise, or time looking for it in order to find it.

My understanding is that while the generalities people are arguing about here (Apple's responsibility to pay for bug reportage) are up for discussion, one of the firestorms that started it, the dude who wanted a bug reportage program, is out...I just read that he went ahead and reported the bug to Apple without any promise of payment or a bug bounty program.

I'd say good for him. I'd also say that Apple should give him a reward for it, because that's how it would be in an ideal world. I don't think a bug bounty program would be a bad thing. It would probably be great! My only point is that I disagree in principle with the idea that someone can do work without such a program in place and then expect compensation or publicly blackmail the company until they agree to pay him. Businesses should never be *forced* to pay people they never hired or made a contract with. Apple should never be *forced* to create this program, and no one should try to force them.

 

[mrex]

Is privacyisnotimportant.com taken? One should buy that and forward it to Google/Facebook.

or just pointing to appstore.

 

[deckard666]

When your products stop selling for themselves, you gotta marketing them up until it sticks.

Which product are you talking about ? I have not noticed any apple products currently not selling....

 

[HacKage]

The blow back they would receive if they removed Facebook from the App Store would FAR outweigh the outrage from keeping it. If you don't want Facebook on your phone... Then don't download it.

The problem is, with the news that apps like Flo sell your personal health data to Facebook even if you don't have a Facebook account, it goes far further than just the Facebook app. The only way Apple will get my full respect over privacy is if they remove the Facebook app and tell people exactly what data is being forwarded and sold to them. It is disingenuous to say that privacy is important while allowing all these vetted apps to sell your private health data to third parties. How is that in any way different from Android/Google?

 

[LargestMoose]

Piracy is important

Oh, my bad

Thanks! Just nabbed that domain.

 

[cmaier]

The problem is, with the news that apps like Flo sell your personal health data to Facebook even if you don't have a Facebook account, it goes far further than just the Facebook app. The only way Apple will get my full respect over privacy is if they remove the Facebook app and tell people exactly what data is being forwarded and sold to them. It is disingenuous to say that privacy is important while allowing all these vetted apps to sell your private health data to third parties. How is that in any way different from Android/Google?

it’s not disingenuous at all. Apple’s policy has always been that App users are free to give up their privacy, if they want to, as long as they give knowing consent. This requires that app developers provide fulsome privacy policies, and abide by them. Apple frequently rejects apps or removes apps when they determine that the app does not comply with its own privacy policy. Apple also has policies and technologies that prevent apps from doing *certain* privacy-invading things even *with* user consent, because these things are so egregious (for example, apps are not allowed to access data outside their app group sandbox. The rationale is that no amount of consent would be sufficient to signify an understanding that an app can root around and look at all the data in your other apps).

This is a self-consistent position, and is not disingenuous. Now, you could argue that Apple should be the privacy police, and should instead create a master privacy policy that all apps must abide by, and reject any app that does not live up to that policy. Though some in this thread would go even further, and make apple remove apps that, themselves, do not violate any privacy policy, just because they are produced by companies that violate your privacy outside the App Store (e.g. via the web, or ad cookies, etc.). That’s a fair enough position, and maybe someday they will do that. But so far they have not, and I suspect people would complain about such a policy much more than the existing policy.

 

[TheMacDaddy1]

That’s a weird position to take. Their stance is fake because their MOTIVE for protecting privacy isn’t one of pure altruism? Why should I care what their motive is?

The fact that they don’t need to monetize my privacy, combined with the fact that they CAN monetize NOT monetizing my privacy, is reason enough for me to trust that they will do what they can not to invade my privacy.

“If [some other universe existed, then] their ‘privacy’ stance would be completely different.” I mean, seriously. What kind of point is that? If we lived in the evil parallel Spock-goatee universe than Apple would be evil and google would be a bunch of freedom fighters trying to save us from invasions of privacy. So I’ll go with google?

Right now Apple has no need to invade our privacy, their products are designed to avoid invading our privacy, and they promise not to invade our privacy. That puts them ahead of most alternatives in regards to privacy, even if they aren’t perfect, and regardless of their motives.

Privacy for them is a marketing term. They know the likes of Google and Facebook need data (less privacy) to succeed. Apple does not have the "data" requirement to be successful so they market that to their advantage. Apple takes billions from Google to be the default search provider in iOS and MacOS. If they cared they would NOT do that.

They all do it, like Samsung or Google using the lack of a audio jack on the iPhone as a marketing ploy.

 

[pjotr90]

Just to complain a little bit – you know the MacRumors's habit: let's hope MacIsImportant.com will follow.

someone bought it today

 

[cmaier]

Privacy for them is a marketing term. They know the likes of Google and Facebook need data (less privacy) to succeed. Apple does not have the "data" requirement to be successful so they market that to their advantage. Apple takes billions from Google to be the default search provider in iOS and MacOS. If they cared they would NOT do that.

They all do it, like Samsung or Google using the lack of a audio jack on the iPhone as a marketing ploy.

Apple gives you the ability to switch your search engine to DuckDuckGo. Are you saying Apple is as bad as google because apple allows the use of google? Because it sets it as the default? Should it be banned from Safari? Should chrome be banned?

And who is better on privacy than Apple?

And, again, the argument is lame: Apple doesnt need the data so therefore the fact that they don’t use our data is not a good thing? Their motive is immaterial: Apple has positioned itself to (1) not need my data and (2) to market that lack of need to its advantage. Those are two very good reasons for me to expect that Apple will not do slimy stuff with my data. From my perspective, that’s great. Why on earth would I care if Apple is not doing it out of pure altruism?

Since when was that even the measure of anything? Nobody does anything out of pure altruism. When you do something nice you feel good about it. Very selfish of you doing that nice thing. Instead of hanging out with you, who only does a lot of nice stuff because it makes you feel good, I’m going to hang out with Jeffrey Dahmer. That guy is authentic.

Such stupid arguments to criticize people doing the right thing for the ‘wrong’ motive.

 

[CarlJ]

Nice

You want the empty parking page to be more secure? Really? What an embarrassment that it's not SSL and Apple's already announced the page.

Oh, wait, they haven't. You're reading a rumors site, where they report the results of folks sleuthing around to expose what Apple may do next. It'll be secure when Apple actually puts a site there.

The SOA, NS and MX records are all under cscdns.net. And the IP addresses are listed as belonging to CSCNET ("OrgName: Corporation Service Company"). Which would match up with the article stating the domain was obtained by "CSC". The domain is parked at the company that registered it for Apple.

You can see this for yourself, if you kow how to read the output:

$ dig -t any privacyisimportant.com
...
;; ANSWER SECTION:
privacyisimportant.com. 14255 IN SOA dns1.cscdns.net. hostmaster.cscdns.net. 2019030403 28800 7200 604800 14400
privacyisimportant.com. 14255 IN NS dns1.cscdns.net.
privacyisimportant.com. 14255 IN NS dns2.cscdns.net.
privacyisimportant.com. 14255 IN A 165.160.15.20
privacyisimportant.com. 14255 IN A 165.160.13.20
privacyisimportant.com. 14255 IN MX 10 custmx.cscdns.net.
...​

 

[cmaier]

You want the empty parking page to be more secure? Really? What an embarrassment that it's not SSL and Apple's already announced the page.

Oh, wait, they haven't. You're reading a rumors site, where they report the results of folks sleuthing around to expose what Apple may do next. It'll be secure when Apple actually puts a site there.

Not to mention that privacy and security are not the same thing.

 

[WannaGoMac]

The the two things I cannot avoid are youtube and Google maps.
The only way to avoid it, is to bookmark every channel instead of subscribing them...
Youtube and Google maps are pretty much crippled if you don't login.

Try Nokia's maps... https://wego.here.com

 

[WatchFromAfar]

Yu can change it you know.

Whether you change it or not it doesn't matter to Apple; they still took the $9bn from Google last year and $12bn this year. In fact Apple would like you to use Google services more because it makes those iOS Google searches more valuable to Google so they're willing to pay more to Apple.

See how that works?

 

[TheMacDaddy1]

Apple gives you the ability to switch your search engine to DuckDuckGo. Are you saying Apple is as bad as google because apple allows the use of google? Because it sets it as the default? Should it be banned from Safari? Should chrome be banned?

And who is better on privacy than Apple?

And, again, the argument is lame: Apple doesnt need the data so therefore the fact that they don’t use our data is not a good thing? Their motive is immaterial: Apple has positioned itself to (1) not need my data and (2) to market that lack of need to its advantage. Those are two very good reasons for me to expect that Apple will not do slimy stuff with my data. From my perspective, that’s great. Why on earth would I care if Apple is not doing it out of pure altruism?

Since when was that even the measure of anything? Nobody does anything out of pure altruism. When you do something nice you feel good about it. Very selfish of you doing that nice thing. Instead of hanging out with you, who only does a lot of nice stuff because it makes you feel good, I’m going to hang out with Jeffrey Dahmer. That guy is authentic.

Such stupid arguments to criticize people doing the right thing for the ‘wrong’ motive.

I never said it was bad that Apple does not do use or need your data. I just don't don't believe the spin they are working here. At the end of the day Apple has shareholders and is a for profit company. This privacy stance they are taking is easy to do because they sell hardware and their competitors sell data in the form of ads. They are spinning it like they would stop, even lose sales of hardware, if they were doing this and the others should as well. High horse BS is what it looks like.

It is business strategy 101, "How to analyze competitor weaknesses and make them your strengths".

 

[WannaGoMac]

Whether you change it or not it doesn't matter to Apple; they still took the $9bn from Google last year and $12bn this year. In fact Apple would like you to use Google services more because it makes those iOS Google searches more valuable to Google so they're willing to pay more to Apple.

See how that works?

If Apple removed google as an option from iOS there will be serious whining in these forums (scary, cause it cant get much worse than nowadays). Apple is smart to get paid since the vast majority of people want to use Google for default anyway...it's a shame they wont let you add your own search provider other than the 3 pre-defined options.

 

[senttoschool]

Apple gives you the ability to switch your search engine to DuckDuckGo. Are you saying Apple is as bad as google because apple allows the use of google? Because it sets it as the default? Should it be banned from Safari? Should chrome be banned?

And who is better on privacy than Apple?

And, again, the argument is lame: Apple doesnt need the data so therefore the fact that they don’t use our data is not a good thing? Their motive is immaterial: Apple has positioned itself to (1) not need my data and (2) to market that lack of need to its advantage. Those are two very good reasons for me to expect that Apple will not do slimy stuff with my data. From my perspective, that’s great. Why on earth would I care if Apple is not doing it out of pure altruism?

Since when was that even the measure of anything? Nobody does anything out of pure altruism. When you do something nice you feel good about it. Very selfish of you doing that nice thing. Instead of hanging out with you, who only does a lot of nice stuff because it makes you feel good, I’m going to hang out with Jeffrey Dahmer. That guy is authentic.

Such stupid arguments to criticize people doing the right thing for the ‘wrong’ motive.

Nah, I think @TheMacDaddy1 is correct here.

Advertising this is just a business move. Apple doesn't actually care about your privacy. If they had to collect more of your data to increase their bottom line, they'll quietly do away with this campaign in the future.

I've been working in Silicon Valley for a while now and I can tell you that 99% of people don't care about having their data collected. It's the only vocal 1% that care.

I can also tell you that the reason we collect data is to analyze your behavior and build a product. Google collects your data so it can show more relevant ads for you. It collects data so it can build a better Gmail. In my tech company, we collect data on which homes for sale you viewed on our website and then we run machine learning to recommend similar homes that you might have missed.

You can tell that many of Apple's data-driven services like Siri is not even close to as smart as Google's. This is going to be a major obstacle for Apple as they try to transition into a service company.

On a related note, Apple not collecting and not having as much data as Google and Facebook is the reason why I sold all my Apple stocks and bought Google/FB stocks despite owning all major Apple devices. Google and FB are far better situated in the A.I. era than Apple is and we can already see this with how dumb Siri is.

I think quietly in Apple's services and A.I. department, they wish this privacy marketing campaign didn't exist so they can collect more data.

 

[cmaier]

I never said it was bad that Apple does not do use or need your data. I just don't don't believe the spin they are working here. At the end of the day Apple has shareholders and is a for profit company. This privacy stance they are taking is easy to do because they sell hardware and their competitors sell data in the form of ads. They are spinning like they would stop, even lose sales of hardware, if they were doing this and the others should as well.

It is business strategy 101, "How to analyze competitor weaknesses and make them your strengths".

You don’t believe the spin? The spin is “we won’t use your data for nefarious purposes. We don’t want your data.”

You don’t believe that? But you are the one who said they don’t need your data.

Another dumb argument: “this privacy stance they are taking is easy to do [for them, because]...”

You know what, I’m happy that for most people I meet during the day it’s easy for them not to murder me. I don’t say “well, yeah, he didn’t murder me, but that’s only because he’s not a homicidal maniac or someone with some horrible mental illness or only because he doesnt have a gun permit.” Instead I’m just thankful that this person didn’t murder me, and I try to hang out with people like that.

Worrying about the fact that it is matters of renumeration rather than altruism that result in apple’s privacy stance is just about the weakest argument one can make. In fact, market forces are a far more reliable insurer of good behavior than altruism; altruism can disappear at any moment.
[doublepost=1551809135][/doublepost]

Nah, I think @TheMacDaddy1 is correct here.

Advertising this is just a business move. Apple doesn't actually care about your privacy. If they had to collect more of your data to increase their bottom line, they'll quietly do away with this campaign in the future.

I've been working in Silicon Valley for a while now and I can tell you that 99% of people don't care about having their data collected. It's the only vocal 1% that care.

I can also tell you that the reason we collect data is to analyze your behavior and build a product. Google collects your data so it can show more relevant ads for you. It collects data so it can build a better Gmail. In my tech company, we collect data on which homes for sale you viewed on our website and then we run machine learning to recommend similar homes that you might have missed.

You can tell that many of Apple's data-driven services like Siri is not even close to as smart as Google's. This is going to be a major obstacle for Apple as they try to transition into a service company.

On a related note, Apple not collecting and not having as much data as Google and Facebook is the reason why I sold all my Apple stocks and bought Google/FB stocks despite owning all major Apple devices. Google and FB are far better situated in the A.I. era than Apple is and we can already see this with how dumb Siri is.

I think quietly in Apple's services and A.I. department, they wish this privacy marketing campaign didn't exist so they can collect more data.

Nobody is saying it isn’t “just a business move.” The point is, who cares? It’s BETTER that it’s a business move, because if it were NOT a business move - if market forces weren’t behind it - they’d be free to change their minds at any time. They aren’t going to suddenly transform into a non-hardware ad-aggregator. This is the best reason to trust them with your privacy.

 

[senttoschool]

If Apple removed google as an option from iOS there will be serious whining in these forums (scary, cause it cant get much worse than nowadays). Apple is smart to get paid since the vast majority of people want to use Google for default anyway...it's a shame they wont let you add your own search provider other than the 3 pre-defined options.

That's because Google has collected more data than anyone else and used that data to build a better product that people prefer over the competition.

 

[WannaGoMac]

That's because Google has collected more data than anyone else and used that data to build a better product that people prefer over the competition.

True. There is also been a study or two that showed that Google has trained people to expect what they provide to be "search" so every other search provider has a hill to climb.

 

[senttoschool]

True. There is also been a study or two that showed that Google has trained people to expect what they provide to be "search" so every other search provider has a hill to climb.

Of course. Instead of saying "go search something", we say "go google it".

 

[mi7chy]

fearmongeringsells.com is still available. Should be forwarded to apple.com.

 

[TheMacDaddy1]

You don’t believe the spin? The spin is “we won’t use your data for nefarious purposes. We don’t want your data.”

You don’t believe that? But you are the one who said they don’t need your data.

Another dumb argument: “this privacy stance they are taking is easy to do [for them, because]...”

You know what, I’m happy that for most people I meet during the day it’s easy for them not to murder me. I don’t say “well, yeah, he didn’t murder me, but that’s only because he’s not a homicidal maniac or someone with some horrible mental illness or only because he doesnt have a gun permit.” Instead I’m just thankful that this person didn’t murder me, and I try to hang out with people like that.

Worrying about the fact that it is matters of renumeration rather than altruism that result in apple’s privacy stance is just about the weakest argument one can make. In fact, market forces are a far more reliable insurer of good behavior than altruism; altruism can disappear at any moment.
[doublepost=1551809135][/doublepost]

Nobody is saying it isn’t “just a business move.” The point is, who cares? It’s BETTER that it’s a business move, because if it were NOT a business move - if market forces weren’t behind it - they’d be free to change their minds at any time. They aren’t going to suddenly transform into a non-hardware ad-aggregator. This is the best reason to trust them with your privacy.

"You don’t believe the spin"

No I don't. Apple is saying "our competitors are collecting all kinds of data on you and that is bad. We are not because we are not in that business....or ummm...wait because it is bad, so don't use their products use ours".

Again it is simply....."How to analyze competitor weaknesses and make them your strengths".

Apple collects all kinds of data on you to better sell you its products. They DO NOT want anyone else to have that data because they want to keep it to themselves to give them a competitive advantage.

If they truly believed the hype that Tim is putting on out privacy they would ban a bunch of apps, starting with the list the Wall Street Journal recently put out that feeds Facebook mountains of data whether you have a Facebook account or not. This was a Macrumors article on 2/22 if you want to look it up.

 

[bbednarz]

Being anonymous is different from privacy. I can stand inside a girls locker room and not know anyone's name inside. The woman I take pictures of are still have their anonymity.

It doesn't matter if apple doesn't record names with the data. What apple does is not privacy.

You then have a picture of them that can be traced back to them. How many times you pick up your phone cannot be traced back to you. Is it *technically* privacy? No. For all intents and purposes it is though.