More Users Trust Amazon and Google to Handle Their Personal User Data Than Apple, Survey Suggests

[BuffaloTF]

Well… I trust Google. If they fail at this task their entire business model is eff’d in a big way. So yeah, I trust that they’re going to great lengths to protect the data…

Now… I don’t like feeding them every single thing about my life… I spread the crumbs of uneventfulness around. But that has nothing to do with how much I trust them with data.

 

[alexjholland]

Those users are wrong.

Apple objectively protects user data better than Google.

 

[SFjohn]

Anyone know the percentage of IPhone users who use Google services and Amazon?

I use gmail for all my items to trash. Does that count? Now that I’ve heard DDG is doing email, I may do that instead. TBH my husband does order from Amazon, so there is that. Otherwise we are an Apple household.

 

[4491275]

Trust none of them at all. They’re all bad faith actors. Just all hedging their own bets on how they can best screw you, cheat you, or siphon something from you without your awareness/consent. Some want your data, some want your money, but they all want something and the lengths that they’ll go to get it is the problem. Not a one on that list would think twice about killing your dog if they thought they could get away with profiting from it.

 

[ArtOfWarfare]

It's good to see it visualized this way. The No opinion category is what put Apple behind Amazon which means not enough people know how massively intrusive Amazon is and how massively privacy conscious Apple is by comparison.

A few journalists have blocked traffic to Amazon's IP block on their computer and found the internet is basically not usable. This isn't a privacy violation in itself but it shows how much control Amazon has on the global internet.

EDIT: here's an article back in 2019 - https://gizmodo.com/i-tried-to-block-amazon-from-my-life-it-was-impossible-1830565336

It's not that Amazon is intrusive here. They just host over 10% of the servers on the internet. Most businesses find that it's cheaper to pay Amazon to host their website than to operate a server hosting a website themselves.

I don't believe Amazon is tracking people via this - it's a paid service, and it competes with Microsoft (Azure), Google, IBM, Apple, and others who similarly operate giant datacenters promising that because of their scale, they can offer cheaper hosting solutions than if you were to try hosting a website yourself.

How somebody hosting their website on Amazon (AWS) wants to actually pay for it is up to them. Some have ads. Others the website is how potential customers reach them, so it's just a cost of doing business. I wouldn't be surprised at all if it turned out MacRumors and/or the forums were hosted on AWS.

If it turned out Amazon were tracking people on AWS, that'd be a pretty big deal. The government and military uses AWS quite a bit for hosting stuff... I think they'd be very interested in hearing if Amazon was tracking people who visit the websites they operate.

 

[Chloros]

People is stupid.
Nothing less.
I’ve passed my last 5 years under police investigation and know how they works about your privacy data.
People simple don’t understand the world around them, they are obsessed with them opinions about nothing (really, I can’t believe I could read, in 2022, someone who talks about CCP as the maccartism will be here today: grow up, communist chinese party is one of most capitalism product) and simply doesn’t understand the gadget in them pocket, wrist, ear.
“Idiocracy” film in real world.

The irony

 

[SFjohn]

It's not that Amazon is intrusive here. They just host over 10% of the servers on the internet. Most businesses find that it's cheaper to pay Amazon to host their website than to operate a server hosting a website themselves.

I don't believe Amazon is tracking people via this - it's a paid service, and it competes with Microsoft (Azure), Google, IBM, Apple, and others who similarly operate giant datacenters promising that because of their scale, they can offer cheaper hosting solutions than if you were to try hosting a website yourself.

How somebody hosting their website on Amazon (AWS) wants to actually pay for it is up to them. Some have ads. Others the website is how potential customers reach them, so it's just a cost of doing business. I wouldn't be surprised at all if it turned out MacRumors and/or the forums were hosted on AWS.

If it turned out Amazon were tracking people on AWS, that'd be a pretty big deal. The government and military uses AWS quite a bit for hosting stuff... I think they'd be very interested in hearing if Amazon was tracking people who visit the websites they operate.

It’s shocking however to see that the internet no longer works if you remove Amazon. That’s a huge amount of power for one company to have.

 

[SilverWalker]

It’s shocking however to see that the internet no longer works if you remove Amazon. That’s a huge amount of power for one company to have.

It's essentially because they offer a LOT of services, they have good documentation, their services are pretty reliable, their security is also well implemented, so it is not a surprise that so many developers would use their services. While that might make people feel uneasy, there are also plenty of other companies that people don't even know about - Cloudflare for example handle over 30% of the world's Internet traffic. Source: I use AWS, Cloudflare, and a few other smaller companies for server services.

 

[SFjohn]

It's essentially because they offer a LOT of services, they have good documentation, their services are pretty reliable, their security is also well implemented, so it is not a surprise that so many developers would use their services. While that might make people feel uneasy, there are also plenty of other companies that people don't even know about - Cloudflare for example handle over 30% of the world's Internet traffic. Source: I use AWS, Cloudflare, and a few other smaller companies for server services.

I’m aware of this as my partner is working for a competitor to Cloudflare. The idea of the internet was to be a truly distributed platmorm. The reality is that 1 company can bring the world to it’s knees if it wishes, or if China’s cyber warfare program does it for us.

 

[Johns12]

I use gmail for all my items to trash. Does that count? Now that I’ve heard DDG is doing email, I may do that instead. TBH my husband does order from Amazon, so there is that. Otherwise we are an Apple household.

My point is that all of those here saying people are stupid are missing an important point. I believe ( but don't know for sure) that most IPhone users use some form of Google or Amazon services. If you believe that these are the absolute worse when it comes to security, where does that leave almost all internet users?

 

[LHMac]

It's relatively close and somewhat meaningless without the overlay of primary device within the data sample. If there are more Android users for example, they are more likely to trust Google.

I'd assumed this was a survey of people >75yo, by landline. But yes, your point is valid.

 

[BigPotatoLobbyist]

Odd that so few, if any, point out the obvious: Google in particular have a vested interest in preserving privacy if only because of their primary revenue stream. To that end: They cannot effectively win a PR war on privacy, which also implies they have the most to lose from egregious missteps.

Are we sure Apple have the same? The fact that so many blindly extol their ostensible virtues on this matter as though they are a non-profit foundation (which, on a separate note, wouldn't be license to trust them any more but it's besides the point) lead me to believe Apple are primed to engage in an egregious violation, a potential CSAM reversal notwithstanding.

 

[Abazigal]

Odd that so few if any point out the obvious: Google in particular have a vested interest in preserving privacy if only because of their primary revenue stream and because they cannot effectively win a marketing war on preserving privacy, which also implies they have the most to lose from egregious missteps.

Are we sure Apple has the same? The fact that so many extol their virtues blindly as though they were a are (which, on a separate note, wouldn't be license to trust them any more but it's besides the point) lead me to believe Apple are primed to engage in an egregious violation, a potential CSAM reversal notwithstanding.

My issue has never been about how these companies safeguard my data. I assume they spend a lot of resources doing so, because the fallout from a data leak would be catastrophic.

What I appreciate Apple doing (which no other company has done to date) is that they go one step further by asking users for permission first before accessing their data. And at least Apple is giving me the ability to do the same with the other companies.

Remember how one of the iOS updates showed how many apps were accessing Bluetooth when they had no business doing so (and how this miraculously disappeared subsequently).

And I know that Facebook and Google, by their very nature and business models, will never agree to doing this. So if they don’t, let Apple do the dirty work then.

 

[TheMacDaddy1]

Those users are wrong.

Apple objectively protects user data better than Google.

Prove it. Show us some real data. Please include Chinese Apple users.

 

[saudade]

Error margin +/- 4. Hmmmm
Apple's overall net positive score was 44%, lagging behind Google's 48% and Amazon's 53%.

44 + 4 is 49
48 + 1 is 49
53 - 4 is 49

So, given the margin of error, statistically identical.

That’s not a 4% margin error

 

[BigPotatoLobbyist]

My issue has never been about how these companies safeguard my data. I assume they spend a lot of resources doing so, because the fallout from a data leak would be catastrophic.

What I appreciate Apple doing (which no other company has done to date) is that they go one step further by asking users for permission first before accessing their data. And at least Apple is giving me the ability to do the same with the other companies.

Remember how one of the iOS updates showed how many apps were accessing Bluetooth when they had no business doing so (and how this miraculously disappeared subsequently).

And I know that Facebook and Google, by their very nature and business models, will never agree to doing this. So if they don’t, let Apple do the dirty work then.

I do appreciate what they've done with third-party (or first to a lesser degree) privacy settings, absolutely, but only instrumentally the same way I would Google pillorying Apple for some on-device scanning modules or what have you. I hope both push one another into handing users greater control over the context in which their hardware/software are used, even if it means that, for instance, firms have to bluntly inform consumers they will not be allowed to use a given service absent highly lenient privileges granted - fine by me!

Also note that Google have implemented similar in Android by now, have in some contexts actually gone further with automatic privilege reversals, if I recall correctly.

 

[SanderEvers]

I don't trust any company with my data. All of my important data is stored exclusively locally. (Ofcourse with a good backup solution)

But if I had to put trust in one company, it would be Apple or Microsoft. (in that order)

 

[Baby12]

Damm I totally understand why people chose Google and Amazon. Their services deliver an amazing experience! I don’t care about my data and what they do with them till I’m not criminal or whatever. Apple lags behind at this point. Look at Siri and google assistant. Second smokes Siri like a weed ?

 

[_Spinn_]

Wow this is a surprise result. I would personally rank Apple as my number one choice and Microsoft as a distant second with everyone else as a hard no.

 

[LunarDog]

The chart could benefit from putting the “no opinion” part in the middle, so we can visually compare the number of people who do trust.

 

[makitango]

Those users are wrong.

Apple objectively protects user data better than Google.

In the past I used to think the same, but I no longer do. You can make an easy test: create an alias iCloud mail address that is very individual/special and register it with Gmail. Write no one and just wait for advertisers to send you spam.
There won‘t be any of that. Because they don‘t sell your personal data. And they let you opt out of any targeted advertising.

I have a Youtube account on which I disabled targeted advertising through Google, and I still get ads based on by browsing behaviour from ten years ago. Maybe annoying, but they respect our mutual agreements.

Their whole business model would collapse if they lost the trust of business partners who rely on Google playing by the rules.

 

[Kabeyun]

You don’t need more than a thousand to be adequately statistically significant (and there is close to zero difference between eg 1000 and 10000) - no matter how large of a group they represent ?

That actually depends on what you’re measuring, how you’re measuring it, and the rarity of type 1 and type 2 error. You’d need a power analysis to determine that.

 

[KindJamz]

Anonymous my a**. If you are concerned with privacy and you use google, you are doing exactly the wrong thing. I’m sure google does. And if not, what does it matter, they have all your data anyway.

Again. Who else scans on your device?

 

[GDF]

Shows how many clueless people there are in the world then.

 

[jamcgahey]

I honestly don't care at all what other people think. There is absolutely no way I trust any of those companies ESPECIALLY Google, Tik Tok, all Meta products and Amazon over Apple.