Nope. He was an MBA who added very little to the industry and was wrong on almost every major technology decision he made. Hence why I am not really interested in his views on privacy.
I think McNealy was kind of a tool, but Sun was a major player for a while and I don't think it's fair to say they got everything wrong. If anything, I'd expect a technology-oriented MBA to make such an observation about privacy before others started to realize that we're collectively building a corporate 1984.
I have no problem with porn being in the App Store (nor Vape or Crypto apps), but it is Apple’s store and I am fine with where they draw the line.
I am too, as long as they don't prevent those kinds of apps from being installed on a user's device via another mechanism/store. But that's not the issue being discussed here. I was responding to your comment "
Second, this is about letting adults use free will and decide for themselves." My point being that Apple does not do that. It's pretty off-topic at this point, though.
I love people like you who argue that anyone who disagrees with you is a fanboy. I do not think Apple cares about me at all (either personally or as a customer). What I do think is that at this moment on this topic our interests are aligned. As long as that is the case, I am happy. When it stops being the case is will switch to someone else whose interests are more aligned with mine.
Fair enough. You're not a fanboy.
Nope. Apple talks about providing information and letting the user decide if he or she wishes to be tracked.
Like I said in my previous post, I do appreciate that Apple does more than others in this area, but I also feel that it's more marketing spin than anything else.
Sorry, this is just not true. It advocates letting people make informed decisions, as Steve Jobs used to say: Ask the user if they are ok with having their information collected and then ask them again later (and again every once in a while), so they can make their own decision and can easily change their minds.
Please provide some example of them “pillory”ing Google. They rarely if ever directly discuss anyone else’s behavior.
Apple has been throwing shade at Google (and others) for years from high atop its privacy high horse. Are you really going to pretend that you haven't noticed??? You haven't seen any keynotes where Cook talks about the user being the product, etc? Seriously? They might not name names, but we all know who they're talking about. Frankly, it's this kind of denying of reality nonsense that makes me call someone a fanboy.
Microsoft takes no money from Google and yet Google is the dominant search on Windows. Is it possible that the bulk of users would switch to Google even if Apple picked a different one as the default? If not, how come Windows users were able to switch both their browser and their default search engine? If people would have switched anyway, in what way is is problematic that they got paid for a choice people would have made anyway?
Wow, you really don't get it, do you? It's not about whether users would switch or whether Apple should be getting paid. It's about the shameless hypocrisy of the situation. You have a company that has built it's brand around privacy, who openly criticizes the data collection model, but who happily takes $15B/year from one of those evil data collection companies and makes their search engine the default.
Again, they are talking about their own actions, but what is important that they do is let users make informed decisions about if or how they are tracked. Their actions have made things better. The world may not yet be perfect, but without their actions things would be much, much worse.
I doubt it. To me it's just pushing the river largely to score marketing points. At this point I don't trust any app or service regardless of what they tell me. I just assume that any data of mine that passes through some corporation's IT infrastructure is no longer private and that's only going to get worse, not better.
Nah, you claim that privacy is impossible, but criticize Apple’s attempts to improve the situation because they have yet to reach perfection. You pretend to be a great impartial observer, but ignore reality.
It is impossible at this point and the genie is out of the bottle. I think Apple's efforts are largely performative. If they REALLY cared they'd forbid any kind of data collection or tracking in any App Store app. There's no reason they can't do that, but I obviously understand why they don't. The platform would die overnight as every app developer left. That's the reality. Most apps are tracking you and collecting data. Sure, it's nice that Apple gives us a little report card, but it just strikes me as hypocritical to get on your moral high horse about privacy as a human right, etc. while allowing your App Store to be full of privacy invading apps.
Again, please provide examples of them “publicly bash[ing] a competitor”. Explain how it “deceives customers”? How is it an illusion of privacy? They provide people the ability to make informed choices. Before they did this, no one was doing it. No even Google has begun to offer that.
They might not name Google or Facebook directly, but they routinely attack the data collection model and position themselves as morally superior for caring about privacy. Stop feigning ignorance.
I agree that they are providing people the ability the make informed choices, at least to some extent. That said, I personally found the "what happens on your iPhone stays on your iPhone" billboard totally deceptive. Apple has carefully cultivated this perception that the iPhone is secure and private when that simply isn't true. It's more secure and more private, perhaps, but what happens on your iPhone definitely does NOT stay on your iPhone.
Is it your contention that Apple’s privacy labels are false or that people are no more informed about how their information will be used than before they were instituted? Do you claim that App Tracking Transparency has no effect?
I don't think the labels are deliberately false, but the devil is in the details as they say. Are these self-reported? Has Apple verified anything and, if so, how? Have they actually examined code? Has the developer found a way to collect information that skirts the legalese? Etc. I'm just skeptical. I'm sure App Tracking Transparency has some real effects. Just look at Facebook's financials.
Do you think that all the reports that the vast majority of users on iOS/iPadOS/tvOS opt in on for ATT are false?
No.
Privacy is not spin, but it is marketing. Their interests currently align with mine. Since they do not make the bulk of their revenue selling advertising, they can offer a more private and transparent system than do their competitors, and have that be a marketing win for them.
I agree that their system is more private and transparent, but it's not private. I ultimately just think it's hypocritical to make all these claims about privacy and trash the data collection model while making a lot of money from companies that do make the bulk of their revenue from advertising. Apple might not directly make the bulk of their revenue from advertising, but the success of their entire platform is built on apps and services that do.
However, let me ask you some simple questions to clarify your position:
Sure.
- Do you think that users on iOS/iPadOS/tvOS are tracked more or less than on Android?
I think that depends on the user, what they do and how they configure their device (versus the default settings). Unlike, iOS, Android isn't a single platform. There are different flavors, essentially, and privacy settings and defaults aren't the same from vendor to vendor necessarily.
- Do you think that users are more able to make informed choices since Apple instituted both ATT and their App Privacy report card?
Yes. From the overall tone of your reply, I get the feeling you believe my position to be that Apple's privacy stance is all fake and I've never said that. I think it's performative and largely inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. I also think it's shamelessly hypocritical considering how much of their success is tied to the data collection model. That's my position, not that these features aren't real or don't have any real benefits.
- Do you think that Apple hides that Facebook and Google track users from users or do they make it harder for them to do so without informing customers?
I don't think they hide it, but more to the point, I don't think the users care. I mean, come on, do you really think people who use Facebook and Google don't think Facebook and Google are tracking them? All of these privacy hoops these companies set up for us...it's just a show. No matter how many toggles you switch or things you opt out of, businesses built on data collection are going to find ways to collect data. We see this all the time. One method of tracking gets squashed and another sprouts.
- Do you think that, despite the example of Windows users overwhelmingly picking Google as their default search engine, that were Apple to have made Bing or DuckDuckGo the default choice, that most users would not have switched to Google?
I'm sure most users would switch to Google. Everyone knows Google tracks everything they do and they still prefer Google search. My hunch is, 95% of people online don't care much about privacy and tracking. Talk to young people and they don't care about privacy at all. They've grown up broadcasting every aspect of their lives. They don't even understand why us old folks care about privacy. It's quaint to them.
To summarize:
1. I think most users will choose Google as their default search engine no matter what Apple does. I also don't think that excuses the naked hypocrisy of Apple bashing the data collection model only to take $15B/year from a company built around collecting data and rewarding them with being the default search engine on Apple's privacy-oriented (spin spin!) platform.
2. I think Apple's privacy efforts such as the report card and ATT are real, but I also think they are ultimately inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. I see these efforts as more performative and marketing-driven than anything else.
3. I think Apple has cultivated a disingenuous public image when it comes to privacy. I believe the average, not tech literate user erroneously believes that "what happens on your iPhone stays on your iPhone." In reality, this simply isn't true and requires diligent oversight and engagement by the user to remotely approach true. The same can be achieved on an Android device.
4. People obsessed with controlling their privacy online are narcissists and in complete denial of reality. If you go online or use apps that connect to a server of any kind, you don't have privacy.
5. Scott McNealy was right in 1999. "You have zero privacy anyway… Get over it!"
