Google scan for and collect wi-fi network SSIDs with their street view cars. They could cross-reference your wi-fi connection history with your location, and figure out where you've been.
It's the bigger picture here that people miss.
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Apple to Remove iPhone-Apple Watch Wi-Fi Sync in EU With iOS 26.2
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It's the bigger picture here that people miss.
You're entire Wi-Fi history? You mean a list of Wi-Fi names you've connected to an unknown number of times at an unknown date and which you haven't deleted yet? Astronomical?
It's not simple "other vendors". It's to a specific vendor I picked and bought a device from. Everybody would enter their Wifi passwords on the device anyway. Frankly, I'd love to have universal Wi-Fi password sharing rather than type that stupid long password into new devices. Everybody hates that, don't they?
And they can obviously just ask the user and make it opt-in and no problem. Or allow sharing only your home password. Done. Nothing in the legislation is anti-privacy here. It just puts the decision in the hands of the customer instead of the platform owner.
Exactly. Let the market speak. However the market is driven in part by overzealous regulation.
New slogan suggestion: "The EU -- Making your life more complicated".
Nice. Love it.
Keep it up EU. You’re really protecting your citizens from harm. Lmao.
Keep it up EU. You’re really protecting your citizens from harm. Lmao.
Surely Americans should believe in personal freedoms and choices? Some might criticise the EU for forcing Apple (in theroy) to provide these details to third parties, but where are the people criticising Apple for preventing providing these details to third parties? It should be up to the user what they do and don't do with these details. If they want to automatically share a list of WiFi passwords with a Meta device/software, they should have the choice to do so, or not as they see fit.
How many normal users do you think will understand “let my Meta sunglasses use iPhone for WiFi” will understand that means giving Meta a complete history of WiFi networks that they have connected to so Meta can use that data to target ads? My guess is not very many.
First of all the iPhone 15 was designed two years before the EU put any such law into place so to even make that association is to indicate that you have no idea how any of this works at all.
Nothing that I’ve seen out of the EU has anything to do with protecting any rights or protecting consumers from any harm. It is populist bullying tactics that gain tacit approval from idiot citizens who don’t know that this isn’t what their government was formed for in the first place.
Equality works both ways. Everyone can either be equally ahead, or equally behind. If you want everyone to have access to the same privilege, you must be prepared for everyone to not have access to anything at all.
The question moving forward - what other features will Apple choose to disable rather than open it up to third parties? 😎
The question moving forward - what other features will Apple choose to disable rather than open it up to third parties? 😎
Ahhhh yes all the EU "freebies". Nothing is free my friend. And owning an Apple product (or any other tech/"luxury" product) in the EU costs TONS more because of that.
Well, I will say this much.
😮💨
The Apple/EU topic continues to be a forum content generator extraordinaire
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The Apple/EU topic continues to be a forum content generator extraordinaire
Are you seriously in favor of third parties having your wifi credentials?!
To be fair to Apple the German courts considered an appeal from ad companies that said that Apple blocks them making money because they can’t track users’ browsing habits. That’s not anti-big tech, it’s anti-common sense.
Remove features because you don’t want to make third party accessories usable. Lol.
I look forward to the downvotes lol
I look forward to the downvotes lol
the reason I buy apple products is that they are locked down, if I wanted to give my info to companies I would have gotten android products. The EU are not working for the people they are serving self interest companies.
As an European I support most of the decisions made by the parliament. But sometimes the decisions they make are you stupid.
Not that this impacts me, not being in the EU, but I will say that the amount of mandatory entanglement between Apple Watch and iPhone are one reason (of lots of reasons, to be fair) that I don't want one.
This is a feeling that was reaffirmed for me this week, actually.
I would be very interested in a future AW that is more standalone than the current ones are designed to be, especially as an abandoned Mini phone user.
This is a feeling that was reaffirmed for me this week, actually.
I would be very interested in a future AW that is more standalone than the current ones are designed to be, especially as an abandoned Mini phone user.
This is an astute point, for anyone living anywhere.
One can be very supportive of their governing bodies and their decisions overall, but still not like certain things.
That's 100% normal and healthy.
It's sort just how life works. 👍
This. To ANYONE simping for the EU and bashing Apple, I invite you, especially if you live in the EU (and it seems most of those bashing Apple are indeed in that situation), to comb through one of those stupid GDPR prompts and see which user-data-sucking companies are in there, and check how many end in “AB”, “AG”, “NV”, “BV”, “SA”, “SpA”, “SrL”, “GmbH”, “Ltd”, “SàRL”, etc.
Point being, A LOT OF THEM are based in Europe, they are lobbying HARD to access our user data (guess what WiFi SSIDs and router databases give third parties access to? That's right, geolocation data!) and they would get their way if Apple let them. Instead, they are fscking up by proxy our experience as Apple customers, who bought into the Apple ecosystem precisely to protect our privacy.
And yes, I know that Apple surely keeps some data on ourselves as their users, but it all comes down to trust, and that should be OUR CHOICE TO MAKE. Weird and counterintuitive as it may seem to some, I still trust Trump-WH-ballroom-financing Apple more than “Magische Kelderbewoners N.V.” (please excuse me, fellow Dutch forumgoers; it could also be “Velhas Bisbilhoteiras Lda” from my own home country, or for a real-world example, it might as well be Cambridge Analytica Ltd. lol) with my basic device usage data, sorry. Being European doesn't automagically make you special and ethical.
By the way, do you know how Meta suggests new friends on Facebook? Yeah, through router data/WiFi SSID. I've had completely unrelated people whom I had never seen before in my life being suggested as friends within MINUTES of meeting them, just because they connected to the same WiFi network as me (as guests at a family home, of course, but that's besides the point, and it can happen on any random coffee shop, public venue, whatever). It's downright creepy and if the EC and the European Parliament had a fscking spine, instead of giving us more GDPR-prompt-like useless insanity, it's the kind of thing they should outright ban EU-wide, sorry.
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I don't think this framing is productive and respectful of those who have different views on this than you.
I'm not sure how I feel about this comparison honestly.
And those stupid cookie popups that should happen once per browser install, not once per website. "Do you agree to get rid of these annoying as f*** popups?" I do.
Heck, add a second option, "Do you want these cookie popups to never exist again?" Hell, yeah!
Heck, add a second option, "Do you want these cookie popups to never exist again?" Hell, yeah!
There is nothing wrong with what was said. It was put into different terms then “hooray that apple is getting their heads handed to them” crowd.
My own opinion is a win for those who want your personal data.