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Apple's Privacy Policies Are Keeping Data Scientists Away

Posted by samzenpus on from the no-data-for-you dept.

An anonymous reader writes: The Cupertino-based global device giant is falling behind in the race to create 'predictive' services for smartphones because its privacy policies are too protective of the end-user. Data retention policies on user-centric information gathered into its Siri 'personal assistant' product is a reasonably generous six months, whilst information retained from the user's exploration of Apple Maps expires after only 15 minutes. As a consequence Apple's smartphones attempt to crunch a great deal of user-data locally rather than in the cloud.

8 of 117 comments (clear)

  1. I don't understand something by Gaygirlie · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why is this written as if it was a negative thing?

    1. Re:I don't understand something by theArtificial · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Apparently protecting information is taboo, go figure.

      --
      Man blir trött av att gå och göra ingenting.
    2. Re:I don't understand something by Dr.+Evil · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Why would you think that an advertising company would respect your privacy?

    3. Re:I don't understand something by CodeArtisan · · Score: 4, Interesting

      This, plus they are a hardware company and don't trade in data. Data scientists aside, it's also tough as a developer trying to get any useful stats on the apps you sell on the app store. But again, Apple is a hardware company and doesn't really worry too much about that either,

  2. One Word by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    GOOD

  3. Wait, what? by bmo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Privacy is bad?

    After looking at the new Galaxy S6 that my wife just got, and seeing that the weather app (Accuweather) requires the most fine-grained GPS (gps+nearest wifi routers) just to give you the bloody weather(they don't trust you to put in a zip code or city manually), I am all out of fucks to give these "data scientists."

    Enough with the data mining and privacy stripping. The optimism I had for ubiquitous computing available to all - giving people access to uncensorable communications - that I had back in the 80s through 90s, is now replaced by the pessimistic vision of Telescreens being installed not by fiat, but for mere consumer convenience.

    As for Accuweather: Accuweather is fucking /gone/ and a shortcut to mobile.weather.gov is on the homescreen.

    --
    BMO

  4. Summary by BigBuckHunter · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Summary: Joseph Gonzalez, co-founder of Dato, is miffed that his product is unable to exploit Apple's user base an it is hurting their revenue stream. He whines about it to Reuters and they write a sensationalist article. The end.

  5. Re:good by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 4, Interesting

    But... but... how are companies going to monetize paradigm synergies in your data, if they don't have your data?

    Apple is the most profitable company in the history of the world, and they make nearly all their money by selling hardware. They don't need to monetize data, and they have much more to lose than to gain by another NSA tracking scandal. The data can't be hacked or subpoenaed if it is never collected.