does apple use your data?

[estockme]

I'm speaking in comparison to companies like FB and Google that mine it for marketing purposes... like they say, with gmail you are not the customer, you are the product. I realize to a certain extent the cat is out of the bag, but my impression is that apple is for the most part a tech company that makes tons of money off their sales and to a lesser extent monopolizing other markets (itunes, in-app purchasing, app store). So basically i'm wondering if i can consider apple products as "safe" or "neutral" zone in terms of cloud services should i ever want to ditch my gmail, gcontacts, etc.

i realize that these companies data mining might at times boil down to nothing more than a profile based on a long random string of numbers assigned to me, but still.

 

[Interstella5555]

Yes, but not in the same way (or extent) that Google or FB do. Location info (including ability to identify and track users) is sent to Apple as well as whatever is contained in diagnostic logs. They're not, say, reading your email or selling that kind of info to advertisers, but definitely utilize information that should be private to "improve" performance.

 

[Small White Car]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure that in 100% of uses by Apple, your information is invisible to the advertisers themselves.

In other words, an advertiser can ask Apple to "show this ad to people who x." Or they can ask "how many people like to x?" But they CAN'T say "tell us who out there is x-ing."

This, to me, is a huge difference between Apple and some other advertising companies.

This is my understanding of it, anyway. I remember my old workplace sometimes getting frustrated, in fact, at being told 'no' to some of their ideas for iAds they wanted to make.