That's true. I guess then it is important for warnings that such services use your personal data to make a profit. More legislated transparency would be a good start.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
U.K. Court Blocks Mass Legal Action Over Google's Alleged Tracking of Safari Users
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
That's true. I guess then it is important for warnings that such services use your personal data to make a profit. More legislated transparency would be a good start.
I don’t understand the necessity or purpose for Facebook’s huge data centers they’ve constructed throughout the US. We’ve got one here and it takes up about two hundred fifty acres with six huge buildings, solar power plant, and ancillary support. The only good think I can attest to is that they’ve bought our volunteer fire department new motorola radios..
I don’t think there’s a way to opt out of Apple using our data for their fraud score. It sounds absolutely Orwellian and kind of reminds me of that Chinese government imposed social score they’re using on their citizens now. But how it sounds supposedly is different from why and how it is used. It sounds like it’s a way to cut down on fraudulent user reviews on the App Store. If I understand correctly what another forum member was telling us, there are actually “review farms” consisting of real Apple ID’s belonging to essentially fake customers that go about spamming the App Store with fake reviews, thus subverting the trustworthiness of the review system. This scoring system is designed to take down those fake Apple “customers”.
So that’s all this data accumulation and scoring system is supposed to be used for. However, there is no denying it is lucrative data for any business to have. We may be able to trust Tim Cook now with this, but what about the future and his eventual successor?
Thanks for the link.
It appears that most of the measuring for the trust score occurs on device, and steps have been taken to avoid privacy breaches. To be honest I wasn't aware of such a high amount of fraud on iTunes and App Stores that Apple had to take such action.
I still use google services. It’s not that I don’t care but at the same time I just don’t care.
I use the Internet, I can’t tell these days who is tracking me and who isn’t.
Yes I still use Apple as my main devices, iPhone iPad and Mac etc.
But I’m not going to stop using google, gmail,hangouts,chrome and youtube hell I even use google WiFi it’s amazing.
I don’t do FB or any social media.
I use the Internet, I can’t tell these days who is tracking me and who isn’t.
Yes I still use Apple as my main devices, iPhone iPad and Mac etc.
But I’m not going to stop using google, gmail,hangouts,chrome and youtube hell I even use google WiFi it’s amazing.
I don’t do FB or any social media.
I almost wish Amazon could do something like this but they would probably end up inadvertently deleting valid accounts along with the dodgy ones. I just do my own sleuthing when I suspect fake reviews at work. Most sites that allow product reviews unfortunately are now inundated with fake customer accounts posting fake reviews. Lol, imagine that, fake reviews of fake nails and fake hair extensions! What a world!
Did you read the article? The tracking code inserted into safari was not via use of any google services.
There’s a chance you’re going to get roasted for this post but the fact is you state the truth of how I’ve been existing to this point.
I care. But I don’t care. I use loads of Google services and their hardware plus that retail tattletale Amazon Echo with Alexa. I also do not use social media except I do read Twitter but do not tweet.
As customers we are in between a rock and a hard place in that if we were to boycott all the businesses that are guilty of ethics violations or dodgy dealings and shady partnerships, we’d be living in an Amish Paradise. (Shout out to Weird Al
)There are times I come here and I read of Tim kissing China’s butt and I get absolutely sick to my stomach because my husband has Chinese friends who told us some horror stories about the lives they left behind there. And I talked to some people in DC about their torture at the hands of Chinese government. These people were physically maimed. So yeah I get sick when I see Tim Cook is so keen to do business in China he sells out human rights. As an Apple customer I feel complicit in that and it makes me want to just go fully over to Samsung.
But what does Samsung run on? Android. They have some of their own services that duplicate Google’s but they’re not always as good. And they’re spyware in the same sense Google products are. They’re designed to sell the products and services of their partners to you. And they do business in China, too. We can’t get away from the fact everyone does business in China.
So it brings us back to the courts. We need the courts to do the right thing and enforce the privacy laws that do exist to keep Google and FB in line. Because we do willingly surrender plenty of our data to them in exchange for services. They really should not need to literally steal it like this. That’s below the belt.
There’s a chance you’re going to get roasted for this post but the fact is you state the truth of how I’ve been existing to this point.
I care. But I don’t care. I use loads of Google services and their hardware plus that retail tattletale Amazon Echo with Alexa. I also do not use social media except I do read Twitter but do not tweet.
As customers we are in between a rock and a hard place in that if we were to boycott all the businesses that are guilty of ethics violations or dodgy dealings and shady partnerships, we’d be living in an Amish Paradise. (Shout our to Weird Al
There are times I come here and I read of Tim kissing China’s butt and I get absolutely sick to my stomach because my husband has Chinese friends who told us some horror stories about the lives they left behind there. And I talked to some people in DC about their torture at the hands of Chinese government. These people were physically maimed. So yeah I get sick when I see Tim Cook is so keen to do business in China he sells out human rights. As an Apple customer I feel complicit in that and it makes me want to just go fully over to Samsung.
But what does Samsung run on? Android. They have some of their own services that duplicate Google’s but they’re not always as good. And they’re spyware in the same sense Google products are. They’re designed to sell the products and services of their partners to you.
So it brings us back to the courts. We need the courts to do the right thing and enforce the privacy laws that do exist to keep Google and FB in line. Because we do willingly surrender plenty of our data to them in exchange for services. They really should not need to literally steal it like this. That’s below the belt.
Well said, and believe me I won’t get roasted here.
You show me one person on MR that doesn’t use a single google service and I will show you a liar/
"tracking was unintentional"
That is a crock. You don't unintentionally install code like that. It requires forethought.
That is a crock. You don't unintentionally install code like that. It requires forethought.
Typical shady Google business practices. I’m never surprised when I read stories like this anymore. Their products and services only exist to sell ads, what do people really expect? I expect challenges to operating the way they do in the future, but then again, there’s a lot of people that will happily give up their data for free services.
Google motto: went from "Don't Be Evil" to "Do the Right Thing" to "Don't Get Caught Being Evil"
Nope. This is the fault of the government. The government WE elected through the corrupt electoral system WE endorsed when an opportunity was given to amend it. The courts are just flunkeys.
Pretty much everything because his team has to develop for all of the major ones. For personal use, his current daily driver is the XS Max, for the convenience of using iMessage with the rest of our family. I’m not sure which Android phone he’s currently using for fun. I think it’s his S9+. He’s got so many computers and tablets I lost track of which ones are in current use.
He doesn’t do development or coding himself anymore so he’s not as demanding of his machines as he was a few years ago. Now he’s more a business user than the power user he used to be.
I'm assuming your response was intended as sarcasm. If not, ignore the rest of my response.
Sadly, there is always some truth to both sides of these issues. Based on the article, the litigants were asking for 500 per person... but doesn't provide any justification. I'm betting "that just feels right" is the justification.
Until we - as a society - address a couple of outstanding issues, this crap will not end.
1. Is privacy actually important? That's a yes/no kind of question. Of course, I think so... but millions of people are less sure.
2. Who 'owns' data about you? Like #1, many of us believe "I do!" is the correct answer. Millions of other's don't care. Plus, society in general has always been about balancing privacy against "public good"... whatever that really means. There was a time when branding your cow meant that others would know it's yours.. and someone stealing it could be easily identified. In the virtual world, there really is no equivalent.
3. If I do own my data, what rights should I have to dictate how others can access and use it? Now we get to the meat of the issue, but even then it's really nebulous. Very few of use would suggest that governments have no need to access some/all of my data. Very few of us (that care to think about the question) would suggests private entities have an absolute need to access some/all of my data. The trick is how to define the bell curve, where small amounts of data are accessible to everyone, the majority of data is public, and some data is absolutely private.
4. What is that data worth? Until we have answered the first 3 questions, we really can't logically justify any monetary value on the private parts. Sure, $500 might be emotionally satisfying, but is it accurate? What if a piece of data is actually worth $10,000? Or $1? Or $.0001?
These are the questions that we must address over the next <time>, be it years... decades... or maybe even "never" because it's evolving.
Faux outrage, funny. Like Apple are good and Google are evil - please!
Google make fantastic apps, offer great services and make some decent tech.
What, you think all this comes for free? I don't get pestered with ads pop ups or anything else yet use Google's suite of apps because they are the best.
You have to accept there's no such thing as a free lunch, so either accept that or get rid of all your tech.
[doublepost=1539010974][/doublepost]"First, do no harm" apparently is a thing of the past.
London's High Court on Monday blocked attempts to bring a collective lawsuit against Google over alleged historical snooping of millions of iPhone users in the United Kingdom (via Reuters).
The lawsuit's claimants alleged that Google illegally gathered the personal data of over 4 million iPhone users in the U.K. between 2011 and 2012 by bypassing the default privacy settings on Apple's smartphones which allowed it to track the online behavior of users browsing in Safari.
Original explanation of the "Safari Workaround" in 2012 WSJ article
Veteran consumer rights campaigner Richard Lloyd, who led the collective 20,000-strong lawsuit, had claimed that Google's "Safari Workaround" breached the U.K. Data Protection Act by taking personal information without permission, and wanted the tech giant to pay out several hundred dollars in damages to each person affected. As a ballpark figure, a claim by 5.4 million people for £500 each would result in a £2.7 billion ($3.63 billion) payout for Google.
When the case was first brought in November 2017, it was the first time a collective action has been brought in the U.K. against a leading tech company over alleged misuse of data. "Collective action" is where one person represents a group with a shared grievance, similar to a class action lawsuit in the U.S.
However, Google said it was "not new" and vowed to defend itself, having defended similar cases before. "We don't believe it has any merit and we will contest it," said the tech giant at the time. On Monday, the court ruled in Google's favor.
A similar case occurred in the U.S. in 2012, when Google and several other advertising agencies were discovered to be circumventing privacy protections in Safari for iOS in order to track users through ads on numerous popular websites.
At the time, Safari blocked several types of tracking, but made an exception for websites where a person interacted in some way -- by filling out a form, for example. Google added coding to some of its ads that made Safari think that a person was submitting an invisible form to Google, and thus Safari let Google install a cookie on the user's phone.
Google halted the practice once it was reported by the Wall Street Journal, but argued that the tracking was unintentional and did not harm consumers. However, that didn't wash with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, and the company was forced to pay a record $22.5 million fine over its use of the tactic.
Article Link: U.K. Court Blocks Mass Legal Action Over Google's Alleged Tracking of Safari Users
