Apple Says Siri Data Has Never Been Sold or Used for Marketing

[skit911]

I feel that while this statement is technically true on the surface, it's also disingenuous. Per Apple's privacy policy on Siri:



So your requests are assigned a random, but unique, identifier; so all your requests are associated with a single user, even though that user to Apple is allegedly unknown. This seems fine on the surface until you realize that all your requests are associated to that single identifier and it would not take much to piece together who is making the requests, especially considering later in the privacy policy it states:

Apple can say what they want about privacy, but it's all marketing. They harvest data just like everyone else with the end goal being to exploit users as much as possible for revenue.

Using data to improve your product and SELLING USER DATA to PROFIT are two VERY different things.

Google and Amazon have a major stake in your information - Apple doesn’t. They sell hardware.

Plain and simple.

 

[iObama]

I wondered about that, but so far I think I believe Apple, but maybe I'm being naive.

I can imagine why they are fine with settling out of court, because potentially (I'm guessing) that going to court might require Apple to reveal more about their technology than they really want to make public or some other thing like that.

So far with regards to privacy and confidentiality, I have trusted Apple. Again, maybe I'm naive.

Never trust a corporation to do the right thing – ever. Especially when they're the biggest corporation ever known to man.

 

[timmodugdale]

Unfortunately, settling the case doesn't allow them to prove this. They can say whatever they want in public, but they are held to a different standard in court. We are left to trust them. Some will; some won't. It is hard to tell people that something isn't happening when they have experienced it happening to them. Many of us have had the experience in which we talked about something and then received advertising for it. Telling us to believe this is a coincidence is not super compelling. If Apple IS doing this, they will never admit it unless forced to in court. Their liability is too high.

 

[skit911]

To give you an idea without getting into too much detail, a friend of mine involved in a small corporate lawsuit in the US that is easily already over $5 million per side in legal costs, and it's a completely run-of-the mill issue; we're talking two lawyers on each side. It's entirely conceivable by the end of it the winning party will have spent more money on lawyers than they will potentially get back. And then once that is over, there is a high likelihood the losing party will appeal, costing a couple million more.

Apple's lawyers are absolutely more expensive than the ones in the lawsuit my friend is involved in. And then there's the staff time spent dealing with discovery. (Imagine you are an engineer working on Siri and get an email from your boss "we need copies of any email or iMessage you sent from 2014-2024 regarding Siri. Oh, and copies of any notes you took at any meeting about Siri." All the time you're dealing with that you're not working. Then there is the staff time for those people to get deposed (which involves hours of lawyer and staff time to prepare for); for Apple leadership to get deposed (same preparation required), etc.

And yes, if Apple were to prevail, they could conceivably get their money back, but 1) it's not guaranteed 2) they wouldn't get staff time responding to discovery/preparing for depositions back, and 3) as @ChrisA pointed out, there are potential unknown issues (what if during discovery it becomes apparent that one third-party contractor did record and emailed it to his personal email - Apple had no idea but now they're liable. Or a Siri engineer said "you know, we should send Siri requests to google - maybe they'll pay us another $20 billion" as a joke but it's not interpreted as one. Then the inevitable appeal of whichever side loses.

I am confident Apple was not doing what they were accused of doing, but I am also confident that for Apple to accept the repetitional hit that they are taking by settling on this, they are convinced the cost to defend themselves is orders of magnitude higher than $95 million.

Most reasonable take right here.

If Apple wanted our data there would be way more signs that they’re pivoting to advertising.

 

[vantelimus]

We (Apple) did nothing wrong and that’s why we pay $ 95 million to the ones telling we did and settle the case.

Strange….

If Apple had done something wrong, that $95 million would be peanuts compared to the award. If Apple fought the suit all the way through the end, that $95 million would be dwarfed by Apple's legal costs. That was money paid to the make the false accusers and their lawyers go away. They were just in it for the money anyway. Give them an easy payday and save money in the long run. Like it or not, that's the American legal system.

 

[Dave-Z]

Using data to improve your product and SELLING USER DATA to PROFIT are two VERY different things.

Google and Amazon have a major stake in your information - Apple doesn’t. They sell hardware.

Plain and simple.

I agree that using data to improve versus selling is different.

However, I do not agree that Apple doesn't have a major stake in my (and others') information. They absolutely use the data to bolster their revenue. Apple is a phone company that sells service subscriptions as an add-on; there is no way they are not using user data to position their hardware and services in a manner that generates the most revenue for them.

On the other hand, if we (hypothetically) agree that said data is used only for improving Siri, they we are forced to acknowledge that Apple is really, really, really, bad at this.

 

[Rychiar]

who even thinks Siri is the one listening? we all know it's meta and google despite whatever precautions are in place

 

[9081094]

To give you an idea without getting into too much detail, a friend of mine involved in a small corporate lawsuit in the US that is easily already over $5 million per side in legal costs, and it's a completely run-of-the mill issue; we're talking two lawyers on each side. It's entirely conceivable by the end of it the winning party will have spent more money on lawyers than they will potentially get back. And then once that is over, there is a high likelihood the losing party will appeal, costing a couple million more.

Apple's lawyers are absolutely more expensive than the ones in the lawsuit my friend is involved in. And then there's the staff time spent dealing with discovery. (Imagine you are an engineer working on Siri and get an email from your boss "we need copies of any email or iMessage you sent from 2014-2024 regarding Siri. Oh, and copies of any notes you took at any meeting about Siri." All the time you're dealing with that you're not working. Then there is the staff time for those people to get deposed (which involves hours of lawyer and staff time to prepare for); for Apple leadership to get deposed (same preparation required), etc.

And yes, if Apple were to prevail, they could conceivably get their money back, but 1) it's not guaranteed 2) they wouldn't get staff time responding to discovery back, and 3) as @ChrisA pointed out, there are potential unknown issues (what if during discovery it becomes apparent that one third-party contractor did record and emailed it to his personal email - Apple had no idea but now they're liable. Or a Siri engineer said "you know, we should send Siri requests to google - maybe they'll pay us another $20 billion" as a joke but it's not interpreted as one. Then the inevitable appeal of whichever side loses.

I am confident Apple was not doing what they were accused of doing, but I am also confident that for Apple to accept the repetitional hit that they are taking by settling on this, they are convinced the cost to defend themselves is orders of magnitude higher than $95 million.

Thanks for your explanation and I understand your thinking. Maybe I’m naive but I (I speak for myself) wouldn’t pay anyone who sues me for $ 0,01. I’d rather pay $ 1000 to a lawyer than paying for something that isn’t true.

In my perception is that everyone can sue me if I paid for something I didn’t do.

 

[I7guy]

We (Apple) did nothing wrong and that’s why we pay $ 95 million to the ones telling we did and settle the case.

Strange….

Now you understand. 👍 sometimes settling is in the best interest of all parties.

 

[quietstormSD]

When someone tried to buy the data, all they got in response was, "Do you want me to search the web for Siri data from users?"

 

[klasma]

but wouldn't that invite more baseless lawsuits in the future?

For $20? That doesn’t seem very likely.

 

[msackey]

Never trust a corporation to do the right thing – ever. Especially when they're the biggest corporation ever known to man.

We ultimately have to put some level of trust in any corporation we work for or whose product we use. I'm not putting like full on trust. For example, we don't have "Hey Siri" turned on. The only way any of our Apple devices use Siri is by pressing down the appropriate button. In other words, Siri is not actively listening to us (if you trust that that is what Apple says it does).

We turn on encryption, use iCloud private relay, etc. I am trusting that the SSD is actually encrypted, and I am trusting that iCloud private relay at least works some. Even then, I use VPN when doing something sensitive. All of this is beyond my wheelhouse of expertise and I have to place some kind of trust in what these companies say they are supposedly doing (i.e., encryption is turned on, etc. etc.).

There's no way to operate in this world by not placing some trust in an organization, unless you're living as a hermit in some forest or off the grid and don't interact with any companies.

 

[wyrdness]

I'm happy for them to use my Siri data however they wish, since it mostly consists of "F*** you Siri, you useless idiotic piece of sh**" and other choice phrases when it, once again, fails to be any help whatsoever.

 

[vantelimus]

Thanks for your explanation and I understand your thinking. Maybe I’m naive but I (I speak for myself) wouldn’t pay anyone who sues me for $ 0,01. I’d rather pay $ 1000 to a lawyer than paying for something that isn’t true.

In my perception is that everyone can sue me if I paid for something I didn’t do.

Corporate directors and executives have a duty to shareholders not to waste their returns by paying $1000 on the penny to fight on principle.

 

[I7guy]

I'm happy for them to use my Siri data however they wish, since it mostly consists of "F*** you Siri, you useless idiotic piece of sh**" and other choice phrases when it, once again, fails to be any help whatsoever.

Thank you for helping to train Siri in the use of alternative language.

 

[spazzcat]

who even thinks Siri is the one listening? we all know it's meta and google despite whatever precautions are in place

It is getting even worse with Meta. I watch a lot Tubi streaming, I started noticing on the one TV I don't have an ATV but use the Roku app Tubi has started to show me ads based on thing I clicked on in Facebook. It could be a coincidence, but it's happened more than once.

 

[surferfb]

Thanks for your explanation and I understand your thinking. Maybe I’m naive but I (I speak for myself) wouldn’t pay anyone who sues me for $ 0,01. I’d rather pay $ 1000 to a lawyer than paying for something that isn’t true.

In my perception is that everyone can sue me if I paid for something I didn’t do.

Of course. It's an absolutely ridiculous system that is prone to abuse and I really wish someone would do something about it, but I'm sure no one will. The legal system is absolutely abused all over the place in the US. (If you really want to have your mind blown, read up on SLAPP Suits). From Wikipedia:

In a typical SLAPP, the plaintiff does not normally expect to win the lawsuit. The plaintiff's goals are accomplished if the defendant succumbs to fear, intimidation, mounting legal costs, or simple exhaustion and abandons the criticism. In some cases, repeated frivolous litigation against a defendant may raise the cost of directors and officers liability insurance for that party, interfering with an organization's ability to operate. A SLAPP may also intimidate others from participating in the debate. A SLAPP is often preceded by a legal threat. SLAPPs bring about freedom of speech concerns due to their chilling effect and are often difficult to filter out and penalize because the plaintiffs attempt to obfuscate their intent to censor, intimidate, or silence their critics.

They're completely legal in many US states.

 

[novagamer]

It is getting even worse with Meta. I watch a lot Tubi streaming, I started noticing on the one TV I don't have an ATV but use the Roku app Tubi has started to show me ads based on thing I clicked on in Facebook. It could be a coincidence, but it's happened more than once.

It's got nothing to do with listening but everything to do with telemetry, data brokers, and social graphs. In the old thread I have a long write-up about this you may be interested in: https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...-spying-lawsuit-updated.2446588/post-33657310

Most people are not aware how this technology works, or how invasive it actually is. Using free apps and ad-supported services will expose you, regardless of most protections. You have to both not use those services and essentially run your own local IT infrastructure in a high-security posture to even get close to damping down most of it, and even then it isn't totally eliminated. Using a smart TV connected to the internet exposes your data, using ad-supported services exposes your data, using Facebook insanely exposes your data even if you do it in a private isolated browser because they have trackers built into millions of web pages and tens of thousands of applications and all of it aggregates to make a very good picture of you and your habits whether you opted-in or not.

We're all for sale and we need regulations and laws against it, but Apple isn't the culprit here, other than enabling google with their $20B pay-off to default the search engine.

The Siri data was definitely an issue and it's good they worked on protecting it. The people speculating on how much easier it is to build technology with full access to user data are correct, and even some internally at Apple have (years ago) lobbied to enable that behavior, but they were thankfully shot down. One of the small wins we don't hear enough about, and it led directly to things like "Private" Cloud Compute which is an enormous step above what everyone else is doing.

 

[yabeweb]

Or you can use the $20 to buy the entire private audio treasure trove from Android devices and Amazon's Alexa devices because they don't even pretend to keep that data private.

Then you can use that data to train yet another LLM that will become useless because it will reflect exactly how horrible humans are when speaking without filters.

On second thought, buy the Maserati.

At least Amazon is honest, they don't pretend doing something they don't.

I can see how it went for Apple

"So what did you use data collected for"

Apple "to improve Siri"

"Can you show us how you improved Siri from launch to now?"

Apple "You have a point, here is the money let's settle"

 

[dk001]

I plan to use my $20 as a down payment on a Maserati. 🤓

Sweet!!!

 

[dennarda]

That kind of coincide happens to me ALL the time, and I am sure someone is listening at this point. I am currently in eyeshot of 13 Internet connected devices from 7 companies, 6 of which are know to have microphones. On those devices there is software from >100 companies that would have access to those microphones. At least one of them is bound to be listening. I say either destroy all devices and never go out in public... or roll with it. I sometimes say things I am interested in out loud just so I will get offers for it.

 

[DavidLeblond]

A lot of people are assuming Meta is using our phones to feed the ads, but wouldn't there have to be the orange dot showing up at the top of the screen for that to happen? If not.... isn't that a problem? I thought that's what it was for.

 

[spazzcat]

It's got nothing to do with listening but everything to do with telemetry, data brokers, and social graphs. In the old thread I have a long write-up about this you may be interested in: https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...-spying-lawsuit-updated.2446588/post-33657310

...

The Siri data was definitely an issue and it's good they worked on protecting it. The people speculating on how much easier it is to build technology with full access to user data are correct, and even some internally at Apple have (years ago) lobbied to enable that behavior, but they were thankfully shot down. One of the small wins we don't hear enough about, and it led directly to things like "Private" Cloud Compute which is an enormous step above what everyone else is doing.

While I understand how it all works, the interesting part is I never see those same "focused" ads on Tubi when using the ATV only the Roku.

 

[Ratmandu82]

It sure hasn’t.

 

[vantelimus]

While I understand how it all works, the interesting part is I never see those same "focused" ads on Tubi when using the ATV only the Roku.

Roku is using data on you bought from one of the very many companies that collect and consolidate such data. Tubi is either not using targeting or using a different data source.