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Google’s information-gathering channels
Google’s stated mission is “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful” and it is making good on this promise. However, Google is gathering even more information than most of us realize.

  • Searches (web, images, news, blogs, etc.) – Google is, as you all know, the most popular search engine in the world with a market share of almost 70% (for example, 66% of searches in the US are made on Google). Google tracks all searches, and now with search becoming more and more personalized, this information is bound to grow increasingly detailed and user specific.
  • Clicks on search results – Not only does Google get information on what we search for, it also gets to find out which search results we click on.
  • Web crawling – Googlebot, Google’s web crawler, is a busy bee, continuously reading and indexing billions of web pages.
  • Website analytics – Google Analytics is by far the most popular website analytics package out there. Due to being free and still supporting a number of advanced features, it’s used by a large percentage of the world’s websites.
  • Ad serving – Adwords and Adsense are cornerstones of Google’s financial success, but they also provide Google with a lot of valuable data. Which ads are people clicking on, which keywords are advertisers bidding on, and which ones are worth the most? All of this is useful information.
  • Email – Gmail is one of the three largest email services in the world, together with competing options from Microsoft (Hotmail) and Yahoo. Email content, both sent and received, is parsed and analyzed. Even from a security standpoint this is a great service for Google. Google’s email security service, Postini, gets a huge amount of data about spam, malware and email security trends from the huge mass of Gmail users.
  • Twitter – “All your tweets are belong to us,” to paraphrase an early Internet meme. Google has direct access to all tweets that pass through Twitter after a deal made late last year.
  • Google Apps (Docs, Spreadsheets, Calendar, etc.) – Google’s office suite has many users and is of course a valuable data source to Google.
  • Google Public Profiles – Google encourages you to put a profile about yourself publicly on the Web, including where you can be found on social media sites and your homepage, etc.
  • Orkut – Google’s social network isn’t a success everywhere, but it’s huge in some parts of the world (mainly Brazil and India).
  • Google Public DNS – Google’s newly launched DNS service doesn’t just help people get fast DNS lookups, it helps Google too, because it will get a ton of statistics from this, for example what websites people access.
  • The Google Chrome browser – What is your web browsing behavior? What sites do you visit?
  • Google Finance – Aside from the finance data itself, what users search for and use on Google Finance is sure to be valuable data to Google.
  • YouTube – The world’s largest and most popular video site by far is, as you know, owned by Google. It gives Google a huge amount of information about its users’ viewing habits.
  • Google Translate – Helps Google perfect its natural language parsing and translation.
  • Google Books – Not huge for now, but has the potential to help Google figure out what people are reading and want to read.
  • Google Reader – By far the most popular feed reader in the world. What RSS feeds do you subscribe to? What blog posts do you read? Google will know.
  • Feedburner – Most blogs use Feedburner to publicize their RSS feeds, and every Feedburner link is tracked by Google.
  • Google Maps and Google Earth – What parts of the world are you interested in?
  • Your contact network – Your contacts in Google Talk, Gmail, etc, make up an intricate network of users. And if those also use Google, the network can be mapped even further. We don’t know if Google does this, but the data is there for the taking.
  • Coming soon – Chrome OS, Google Wave, more up-and-coming products from Google.
And the list could go on since there are even more Google products out there, but we think that by now you’ve gotten the gist of it…

Much of this data is anonymized, but not always right away. Logs are kept for nine months, and cookies (for services that use them) aren’t anonymized until after 18 months. Even after that, the sheer amount of generic user data that Google has on its hands is a huge competitive advantage against most other companies, a veritable gold mine.
Googles collects a boatload of information. That we all know. You still didn't clarify the shady part.
 
let me poke into this with a sharp stick :-

- Cook draws the line sharing data, but there are apps that share your contact list between apps if u agree.

- the user is not the product according to him either, yet there are iAds. Although the amount is much smaller than Google, there still are iAds ... Therefore u are the product in a sense because developers make money from you.

- encryption is all well and good on a phone, but who ever keeps their stuff only on an iPhone now-days and does not share it ? Reality check cook ..... If the same data is in the cloud, doesn't matter how good a phone is with encryption, law enforcement doesn't need to access the phone anyway, u encrypt stuff. weather Apple or third party Apple may use keep the keys, doesn't matter... someone does..... because u can backup a file-vault key to Apple....u answer questions, they give u recovery key... thus the only way they can do that if THEY have the key, it may be encrypted, but they do have access to it when user provides info.

I just wish cook would not only focus about privacy on the phone (understatement) but more importantly he should be talking about the cloud as well, since if all your stuff is backed-uped, security on a phone is not an issue, never needs t be since there are other insecure ways to get it.
 
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Dude seriously ... If you need to ask this question then you might realize why some of us believe a huge number of people that suck the tit of Android and Google never think twice that it's nothing but a cover to mine and sell your personal data to the highest bidder whomever that bidder is -- because guess what -- when's the last time the PUBLIC COMPANY Google disclosed who their data clients are...is in who are the people buying YOUR search and visit information... Get it?? Any guesses???

Seriously people. Wake up.
Seriously FUD post. Pretty good flame though. I'd give it 9/10. I would have given it a 10/10 but it didn't contain a single fact. Excellent flame mixes in a little truth to make it look reasonably credible. Come on, try a little harder at least.
 
Cook starts off by noting that Apple designs its products with privacy in mind after being asked about government data requests. Apple wants the user to control the data and who gets to see or use it.
Tim Cook a complete liar.

If you install the Facebook app on an iPhone, it will rummage through your Contacts without your permission. See for yourself, if you have the Facebook app on your iPhone: Go to Settings, pick "Privacy," and then "Contacts." See the list of apps? Facebook isn't one of them.
I have contact names for people I met overseas, years ago, totally unconnected from anyone I know. Facebook asks if I want to "Friend" them. The maintenance manager of an office I rented ten years ago showed up as a Friend request. Tim Cook is lying when he says his company protects customer privacy. Plain and simple. He sells the private data you store on your phone. He treats it like its his property, not yours. This isn't conspiracy, it's an absolute fact.
 
As long as everything Tim Cook and Apple as a whole is saying is actually true, then I'm very happy with how privacy oriented they have become. I know we've heard this before from other companies, and it turned out that backdoors were there anyways, so I'll always remain skeptical. But to hear this is very nice.

Yea... is it true true or VW true.... hmm.

And, maybe there doesn't need to be a 'backdoor' because Comey already has a live-feed.
 
I know this will sound off topic but I'm amazed at how many people just don't care about their privacy. Of course I appreciate such moves by Apple but are we in the minority?
If people cared then there would be no facebook, twitter, instagram, whatsapp, cookies etc.

And no one posting on this forum...
 
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What is undeniable is that Apple has made financial deals with Google (search) Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

If they thought those companies were doing such terrible things to their customer's data they should have declined to take the 'blood' money'
 
If the Government privately tells you....we need a back door to everything and keep your mouth shut...you will give them what they want. Anyone that thinks that they can't do that is kidding themselves...

Actually... There are no laws that allow the government to force Apple legally to do anything (like installing a back door) and be quiet about it. So if they demand this strongly and illegally then Apple can go public about their demands very loudly. And then the government is stuck.
 
His statement on "back doors" doesn't actually deny it. It just says it's a bad idea.
That's a common accusation. That a company wouldn't directly lie, but make a statement that is factually not a lie, but hides some hidden truth. And that is nonsense.

If Apple did something evil and wanted to hide it, they would lie about it. They wouldn't make up a stupid statement hoping that you understand it wrong. You either believe that they are communicating the truth, or you believe that they are lying. Entirely up to you. But trying to analyse statements to find fault is stupid.

If there _was_ a backdoor and it was never found, Apple could just lie about it and nobody would know. No need to hide the truth in the language instead of just lying. And if there was a backdoor and it _was_ found, do you think anyone would then say "well, they didn't actually deny it, they just said it would be a bad idea, so that's Ok"? Nobody in their right mind would say that. So please get rid of these conspiracy ideas in your mind and take what they say at face value. Because if what they say isn't true, you will also judge them on their statements at face value.
 
Tim Cook a complete liar.

If you install the Facebook app on an iPhone, it will rummage through your Contacts without your permission. See for yourself, if you have the Facebook app on your iPhone: Go to Settings, pick "Privacy," and then "Contacts." See the list of apps? Facebook isn't one of them.

You don't appear to understand the difference between you choosing to share specific data, limited and controlled by the operating system APIs, from one app or service to another, and Apple quietly doing it itself with everything of yours, with other apps, people and organizations, without your consent, which is the issue at hand. Look in the Facebook panel instead of Privacy.

You might want to think about that, because your claim of Tim being "a complete liar" is not only demonstrably false, it demonstrates your own ignorance.
 
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I too, hope this is true. I wonder how hard it might be for a government agency to have moles in companies' programming teams who could sneak backdoors into the code.

A scary thought, and I think I just made myself slightly paranoid for thinking it.
 
Disagree. I think it's an extremely subtle issue. For example, I didn't realize that Google was loading the links returned on a search with tracker-wrappers so they could know which of those links you clicked on. Now, I've got my DirectLinks plugin on. :)

I think it will take years to understand the pervasiveness of Google/FB/etc. tracking. I think the term big brother tax is a good one to describe what these folks are doing: Big brother tax: you never really know when you are paying or how much you are paying.

Big brother tax yes a 'free-mium business model' with potential massive cost to consumer, who just does not know it
 
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- the user is not the product according to him either, yet there are iAds. Although the amount is much smaller than Google, there still are iAds ... Therefore u are the product in a sense because developers make money from you.
iAds such a small side project, it's not relevant.
They are totally optional, and most people won't even see them. I can't remember the last time I saw an iAd. They pretty much only show up in gaming... which knocks the reach down.
They pretty much only show up in trashy freemium gaming which knocks the reach down even further to basically a subset of soccer moms and teenage girls playing candy crush.

Infinity Blade? nope
Hearthstone? nope
etc
 
Disagree. I think it's an extremely subtle issue. For example, I didn't realize that Google was loading the links returned on a search with tracker-wrappers so they could know which of those links you clicked on. Now, I've got my DirectLinks plugin on. :)

I think it will take years to understand the pervasiveness of Google/FB/etc. tracking. I think the term big brother tax is a good one to describe what these folks are doing: Big brother tax: you never really know when you are paying or how much you are paying.

Hmm, that's interesting what you say about Google searches. Is that why when you click on a search result it momentarily shows in the address bar like it's bouncing off a Google site, and also sometimes you can't click backwards or have to click backwards twice through another Google site?

That direct link plugin sounds nice, I wish they had one for IE.
 
The terrorists and criminals say "thank you" to Mr. Cook.

He's getting rich off of it, so why would he care?

I hate this stance that some people take, reminds me of when some say "If you've got nothing to hide, then why worry".
 
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So every time I switch devices or change phones, Apple's data algorithms start over again, never fully getting to know me? That sounds like a complete waste of time. Apple needs to find a better way to make this continuous.
 
iAds such a small side project, it's not relevant.
They are totally optional, and most people won't even see them. I can't remember the last time I saw an iAd. They pretty much only show up in gaming... which knocks the reach down.
They pretty much only show up in trashy freemium gaming which knocks the reach down even further to basically a subset of soccer moms and teenage girls playing candy crush.

Infinity Blade? nope
Hearthstone? nope
etc
That small side project generates an estimated $500 million a year. So yeah, relative to Apple's profit, it's pretty insignificant. The topic isn't financial relevancy. It's privacy. Apple collects and uses the same types of customer information that Google uses. Like Google, they use that information to, among other things, sell advertising. I know this to be a fact because Apple tells you that in their privacy policy. They don't sell your info. Neither does Google. To do so would be incredibly stupid. The other argument I see is "Google collects more info". Most likely they do. Partly due to their scope, partly due to their collection mechanisms. That doesn't diminish the massive amount of data Apple collects and uses. Both companies have similar privacy policies. Apple, smartly, figured out a way to use it as a marketing advantage.
 
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Googles collects a boatload of information. That we all know. You still didn't clarify the shady part.

Why are you asking??
You CLEARLY don't care. Your own sig line admits that your ONLY criteria is "personal use case"... thus, you don't care about the politics of a company, the sleaziness of a company, the litigation tactics of a company, etc.
With all due respect, while holding that personal opinion is absolutely fine... I feel that asking another user for deeper info when you obviously are not interested is a bit disingenuous & most likely your actual goal is to try to discredit their claim. So...... in the interest of being more transparent like we want the companies we are discussing to be, why not just be up front about intentions from the start??
 
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