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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."
I agree. Whenever I hear the next great company say "I don' know" like a blonde bimbo 5 years after being founded when asked how they are going to monetize I think: "I'm not going to like the answer when it comes".
There is a very easy way for companies to protect you from NSA if they so chose: don't collect info. User name and password so you know it is me when I log in. My IP, duration, what I did none of it needs to be tied to my account. Sure iTunes or Amazon might be able to make that upsale if they know everything I've ever done for 10hrs a year I spend shopping on their site but at what cost? I'd pay that extra $2 in lost profits to have them leave me the hell alone. Especially since I'm not a citizen of said big brother state.