"Hate crime" is a stupid way of saying crime. That's my opinion. Off to jail with me!
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US Probes UK's Apple Encryption Demand for Possible Treaty Violation
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Ironically it’s the governments of the US and UK and other western countries that are particularly good at breaking into and making companies allow access to user data.
In Russia and other places, Apples Advanced Data Protection is still available etc
I think this is because the US and its allies have the most advanced and powerful security services.
But they need to really get the balance right between access to users private data and national security and crime prevention. It’s a difficult balance. Go too far one way and you have problems.
It will really require agreement amoungst blocs of countries for it to be effective and fair.
Banning the google search deal would do no such thing as "forcing apple to build a search engine". I don't think they have any interest in being in the search engine business and aren't going to create one regardless of this deal. It would be a money-sink and ended up costing more than they could make from it.
They will make up the shortfall in other ways like price increases, if at all. Mislabeling (read, dishonestly hiding) the Google search deal as "services" is going to bite them in the butt soon enough.
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Why would Apple not be interested in the search business?
It represents a huge revenue opportunity for them and at the same helps to keep users safe within their walled garden ecosystem.
I agree
For a company that claims to care so much about the "user experience", it's fairly gas-lighty to be doing a search deal with Google and having that be the default for their users.
Google search is frickin' atrocious these days
(I'm a paid Kagi user for a couple years now and LOVE IT)
That is true.
That is not. I think they would straight-up lose money for years on such a venture. There is little to no guarantee that Apple users would use it, just like very few use iCloud mail vs Gmail or Outlook. They will just change the search engine to Google and then forget about it.
Do you seriously think that Apple would make $20 billion of profit (which is a whole lot less than revenue), per year, on such a boondongle?
Imagine for a moment that they can make this work (doubtful), it would be years before they got anywhere near where they are replacing Google's $20 billion pure-profit per year. In the meantime, their ill-gotten Google money could be gone tomorrow, and will have to reported to investors at the next quarterly report.
I personally use DDG.
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If that's true, that's very disappointing! The Tories are supposed to be the right-wing party, the party of small government.
I think obviouslogic's explanation is likely more accurate, but let's assume you're correct. How does that justify giving UK a backdoor to Apple user's data? Aren't you doing exactly what I mentioned, defending UK's warrantless data access because you oppose a Trump policy?
Edit: This isn't to say whether your opposition to Trump's policies are valid or not. Your view on the Trump administration and your view on UK policy should be orthogonal. In short, two wrongs don't make a right.
Default settings are very powerful on iOS with mainstream users
That's possible, but I think about work, where we have to use Edge and it defaults to Bing. No one keeps it on Bing, and they immediately figure out how to change it to Google, either by themselves or they ask.
I have no doubt that it would be the same for iPhone users. Same as nearly no one uses iCloud mail, even though it's an easy default.
Email is very different -- almost everyone brings that to the table from some part of their existing work/personal life
No, people are arrested for inciting hatred to others. I guess being free to suggest that people should be setting fire to hotels with asylum seekers inside is part of your constitution, but in the UK and probably most of Europe such offences are illegal. As for the original issue, the last government in the UK (with support from both main parties) wanted this ability, so it'll be interesting to see the outcome. I never got round to setting it up as it doesn't really bother me (I don't use iCloud for iPhone backups so the thing its intending to deal with probably isn't a massive issue across the user base in the UK)
Where do you get that from? I use Apple Mail on all my devices because it’s really good.
Sure, there are some. I've ran across hundreds if not thousands of email addresses, between contacts, résumés, students, etc. Never seen an iCloud email address.
I don't work in tech.
Very true. I use all the default Apple apps. They’re free and easy to use and have enough functionality for me.
You’ve never seen an @icloud.com email address? Wow. I’m amazed by that. I thought most Apple users had one.
No, never seen one. Yes, many Apple users have one (I do, too), but I've never used it and see no reason to. Additionally, the web version SUCKS, and since greater than 60% of iPhone users are Windows/PC/Chromebook users, it's not exactly handy.
Incompetence everywhere in our UK government it seems. So they have totally ignored the expert technical advice about how requiring a back door will not give any advantage to law enforcement and will only weaken everyone’s security. A net negative. Seems they have also totally ignore expert legal advice about treaty violations.
They deserve the ignominious defeat and forced u-turn I hope they’re going to have to do.
They deserve the ignominious defeat and forced u-turn I hope they’re going to have to do.
First of all, this isn't the EU, it's the UK. And the US isn't protecting Apple in the slightest, instead it's protecting "US persons" from foreign surveillance and UK's extraterritorial legal overreach.
The US government interfering with how the EU regulates their own markets would be a similar kind of overreach, BTW. Is EU regulation different than the banning of TikTok, e.g.?
There's a lot of contradictory arguments there, and unfortunately I think it boils down to: The US has the strongest position in the world, so it should use its power to get the maximum benefit. And, okay, realistically that will always happen, especially under Trump. But it's not "anti-Apple" to not hit the world over the head with that hammer all the time.
Tim Cook knew this deal with Google was dodgy from the start, that’s why they tried to hide the revenue derived from it.
Cook should have had a backup plan in case they got rumbled. Maybe he does I don’t know.
If you think how many millions of iPhone users there are they would easily make that money back. I don’t think most users would be bothered to change the default search from Apple Search to Google Search.
the USA can lend you chaps an Elon, after he cleans up 'merika.
he might want a quid or 2.....
Also, given what hot garbage Google Search now is, the bar would be very low for a new Apple Search product
Totally different than when they rolled out Apple Maps and it had to compete with dramatically better Google Maps
Agreed. I’m still having problems with Apple Maps. The satnav function keeps taking me all over the place. I had to revert back to Google Maps which is frustrating. I don’t know if that’s just me if this is a common problem.