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What Apple Does and Doesn't Know About You
Daniel_Stuckey writes "Tucked inside Apple's first-ever transparency report, published yesterday, was a not-so-subtle dig at the tech giant's competitors. 'Our business does not depend on collecting personal data,' Apple wrote. 'We have no interest in amassing personal information about our customers.' It's no secret that for social web companies like Google or Facebook, collecting, storing, and analyzing data about every aspect of your life translates into cold, hard cash—the more sensitive and personal, the better. But in the emerging post-NSA new world order, the unwritten privacy-for-cool services agreement that drives the internet ecosystem is making netizens increasingly uneasy."
Put the cash on the table for an iPhone or iPad: your deal is done. Get "free" Facebook, Google, etc. and your private information is how they make their money.
I'm happier paying up front and leaving the store with no parasites attached to me.
Trolling is a art,
Holy. Shit. They have to collect your private information when you apply for credit.
Fuck, they must be Naazis.
Collecting name and contact information
compared to...
Making database of email contents, web browsing habits, search strings, chats, voice calls, social network, photos, etc, including "dark profiles" of non-"customers"
Yeah, totally the same thing.
When you share your content with family and friends using Apple products, send gift certificates and products, or invite others to join you on Apple forums, Apple may collect the information you provide about those people such as name, mailing address, email address, and phone number.
One might reasonably expect that if you're having Apple send an e-mail message to somebody else (such as "here's a URL", "here's a picture", "join me on this forum", etc.), they would need to collect that person's e-mail address at minimum (and a name so that the From: line doesn't look quite so cheesy), and that if they're going to send someone a physical product, they would need to collect that person's name and mailing address at minimum. I don't know about the phone number, unless that might be used if you "send" them a product to be delivered to an Apple store rather than to their home and you specify that they should be sent a text message when the product arrives (which is an option they offer).
When you create an Apple ID, register your products, apply for commercial credit, purchase a product, download a software update, register for a class at an Apple Retail Store, or participate in an online survey, we may collect a variety of information, including your name, mailing address, phone number, email address, contact preferences, and credit card information.
At least when purchasing things, they'd need credit card information if you're purchasing stuff online. Most if not all sites where I've used my credit card want my mailing address (perhaps to make sure that credit card really belongs to the person at 111 Penny Lane, Anytown, USA), my name (perhaps to make sure that the credit card really belongs to Jane Doe), and some want the phone number (perhaps to call me if there's a problem).
So, yes, in some sense, their business, like many other businesses, requires that you provide them with some amount of personal data so that they can send you messages, bill your credit card, etc.. Apple's claim, for what it's worth, appears to be "the personal data is not of value to us for other purposes", e.g. "Safari doesn't keep track of where you go online so that we can send you e-mail about Apple products that our analysis of that data suggests you might like".
Yeah, like Apple would forgo an opportunity to earn money, simply because they also earn money elsewhere.
They've done exactly that, many times. Not all profitable activities are profitable enough to be worth Apple's time and attention. That's why they gave up making the Xserve and Xserve RAID products, for example.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
True, but that's only part of the equation. If privacy is valuable to their customers, Apple will gain customers (and money) by not harvesting their data.
Besides, Google is far more experienced at data mining than Apple is likely to ever be, so rather than try to beat Google at their own game, it's probably wiser for Apple to play counterpoint here.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
Apple may collect that information, but as Apple said, their business does not depend on the sale of that info. Selling access to you is not core to their business, like FB and Google.
They'd be stupid if they didn't collect that information. You're a 5 digit ID - can't you tell the difference between "we don't care about selling your data" and "your data is what we sell?"
collecting user data doesn't take any "time and attention", it's basically just pure "profit".
You have no idea what you're talking about. Don't ever attempt to run a business.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Yeah, like Apple would forgo an opportunity to earn money, simply because they also earn money elsewhere. They may not be desperate to make money from the data they collect, but they would be stupid (in the "maximum shareholder value" frame of reference) not to benefit from it as much as possible.
They would be stupid. Abusing your data is not part of their business. It would be very hard to turn this into profit, and Google is probably better at it :-) On the other hand, the price they would have to pay in lost hardware sales because of damaged reputation would outweigh any of those profits.