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Comment by dmz73 | Hacker News Reader

Facebook MAY sell your info for profit. But Apple never will. Google MAY use you info for profit but Apple never will. Apple removed all competition so they can charge me 5x the price and they will NEVER sell my info to profit, NEVER.

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A more accurate statement would be that Facebook/Google do sell your info for profit and Apple haven’t yet (at least to the same degree).

Track records are important.

> and Apple haven’t yet (at least to the same degree)

Do you consider Apple's participation in the NSA's PRISM program to be worse than selling info to advertisers?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/06/us-tech-giants...

No.

I'm not in the US, so I have no level of influence on the NSA.

However, my Member of Parliament is tech-savvy (ex-developer although I don't know how good he was), he has a monthly surgery where anyone can raise issues with him or they can message him (or at least his office) directly.

And he can (and has previously) raised privacy issues in Parliament and with members of the Privy Council (who have access to national security matters and regularly meet with agencies like the Security Service and GCHQ).

Even if I didn't have this particular MP, it would be part of any MP's duties to report my concerns to Parliament - so there is some level (no matter how small) of accountability.

I have no influence whatsoever with these private companies that gather and sell data on me.

Do they sell your data, or does your data allow them to profit by showing you more targeted ads?

They productise my data into targeted ads which they then sell, but I’m assuming that’s what OPs post meant by “selling data” considering the article doesn’t imply that Apple would literally sell customer information directly to another company (nor does this privacy change allow that).

Your statement purporting to be accurate is completely inaccurate.

It purported to be more accurate, not 100% accurate.

I wanted to reuse the language in the first post to make the broader point that there is a difference between a company which has already been doing something for 15 years and a company which has never done that thing but could feasibly do it in the future.

Apple already builds an advertising profile of you (without consent), and allows ad buyers to target ads against people with specific profiles. They reportedly do billions of dollars per year of this business. Sure, they don't sell your raw information to anyone, but neither do F/G.

https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/data/en/apple-advertisin...

Track records are, indeed, important. Why are you giving Apple a free pass on theirs?

yeah add to that the fact that icloud backups aren't e2e encrypted (no SV infrastructure services are). we need zero-knowledge systems now.

They developed a system to do that. The Feds stepped in.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/21/21075033/apple-icloud-end...

Of course, you've always been able to do encrypted backups to your local computer.

i'm referring also to the near zero-portability of a person's data. the multiple lock in mechanisms of most platforms.

why can't i download a git archive of my google docs? the versioning feature only works on the proprietary web app - google's platform.

these are all inter-related problems, and all strategies used on purpose to lock people in and make them dependent so as to be able to extract economic rents.

https://tribunemag.co.uk/2019/01/abolish-silicon-valley

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