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Tim Cook Says Apple's Customers Are Not Its Product, Unlike Facebook (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Apple CEO Tim Cook said in an interview with MSNBC and Recode on Wednesday that Silicon Valley, and notably Facebook, should be far more careful with its customers' data in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica disclosures. "I think the best regulation is no regulation, is self-regulation," he said, according to Recode. "However, I think we're beyond that here." Cook reiterated points that he and former CEO Steve Jobs made previously, that Apple's business model -- unlike Google, Facebook, and many other tech companies -- is predicated on selling physical products rather than capturing data about customers. "We've never believed that these detailed profiles of people that have incredibly deep personal information that is patched together from several sources should exist," he said, according to The Wall Street Journal. "The truth is, we could make a ton of money if we monetized our customer -- if our customer was our product," he added. "We've elected not to do that."
... for now.
As an Apple user, I'm honestly surprised by this and don't expect it to continue for much longer.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
I have seen no reason not to believe this
Just their brainwashed prisoners
Ceci n'est pas une Signature !
I hope Apple and other companies actually have ethics, I work in the silicon valley and I have lost almost all hope for the people here. They move like zombies and most of the time are glued to their phones...its sad what we have done to our fellow humans. We need companies with ethics to support humans before we are little more than data feeders for machines.
Are the true benefactor of Apple technologies.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but he just admitted Apple has access to all kinds of deep knowledge data (of course they do, we know that) and are electing NOT to monetize it? Meaning, of course, that as a publicly traded company, he's ignoring a revenue stream that would further add to Apple's treasure chest?
Isn't that a dangerous thing for a CEO to admit? I mean, we keep hearing about how the CEO is responsible for maximizing share holder value, and he just admitted he wasn't doing everything he could to do just that.
People deride Apple for having high margins. But that is exactly how a company removes temptation to misuse data.
Tim Cook was asked what he would do in this position, and he said "well I wouldn't put myself in this position". In a lot of ways Tim Cook feels the same about the cross tracking ads and things that most of the people on Slashdot does - he doesn't like them, doesn't participate in things like that, and furthermore has had Apple altering browsers to help block cross site tracking...
Apple has a clear path to making money, when a company doesn't you can be sure there is SOME path to making money from you even if you are not paying directly.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Strange.
In recent compliance audits for GDPR regulations in the EU, we've been unable to get any kind of statement out of Apple about where they store iCloud and other data, and whether it's held compliant to either the GDPR or Data Protection Act.
http://www.applegazette.com/ic...
Their policy flat-out contains a line that is illegal under EU data protection rules and prevents almost any company that processes any kind of personal data (even "this is your name and email for your iTunes account) from using them::
https://www.apple.com/uk/legal...
"All the information you provide may be transferred or accessed by entities around the world as described in this Privacy Policy."
Which is the same "no answer" answer I've had out of them when I've asked over the last ten years. They pay lip-service, but I ain't going to court to explain why my user's EU-protected ended up in Outer Mongolia.
The reason, of course, is obvious. iCloud is actually just Amazon, Microsoft and Google storage depending on whatever they bought this month:
https://www.theregister.co.uk/...
Maybe they give a shit in the US, but in the EU they have absolutely no interest and, hence, lose a lot of custom. Ironically, they claim to have focus "on education" now with new educational-models of iPad. Hilarious seeing as we can't legally store children's data on them.
Yep, if your child's school is using iCloud or even iTunes in any fashion, ask to see the data protection guarantee.
Do yourself a favour if you work in IT in the UK/EU and are checking for GDPR compliance - take all your Apple gear and bin it now.
Just wondering.
---- The above post was generated by the Turing Institute. Maybe.
An obvious difference: People pay a good amount for Apple products and services. Most people pay zero for Facebook. Nothing is truly free, so Facebook is supported by ads, and targeted ads based on your personal info. Is is realistic to compare the business practices of a company that sells hardware and services to consumers to another that doesn't bill it's users?
I'm sure all those big datacenters are running CAD programs to build new Mac mini's.
Obviously not for data slurping and analysis.
"All the information you provide may be transferred or accessed by entities around the world as described in this Privacy Policy."
Which is the same "no answer" answer I've had out of them when I've asked over the last ten years.
It's actually a very clear answer; you just are not listening.
I'm not sure you've not been able to figure out this giant mystery when everyone else knows how iCloud works. They take your data into pieces, encrypt and store that data usually around the region you are in, but possibly in other regions as well (it could be spread around) and then all metadata related to the data is held on Apple servers in your region.
There's pretty much nothing anyone can do with the actual iCloud data being stored apart from the user with that iCloud account and access to the information needed to re-assemble it all.
Do yourself a favour if you work in IT in the UK/EU and are checking for GDPR compliance - take all your Apple gear and bin it now.
And use what exactly... the same servers Apple is using, only with unencrypted data?
Instead of puking all over a solution because Apple, you should be treasuring a company that actually values security and takes the effort to make it all fairly secure.
Sad that an IT worker would seek to weaken protection around other people's data just 'cause he's mad.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
There are so many annoying, technologically regressive, difficult, manipulative, freedom-denying things about Apple, but on this one, he's telling the truth. I've never seen anything from Apple that suggested that they have this type of suckage going on.
April fool
"I think the best regulation is no regulation, is self-regulation"
Is this a typo or something? Because that sentence does not make any sense to me, and I can't even figure out what he was meaning to say.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
By locking their customers in a walled garden and charging outside companies 30% to sell things to those customers, they have little need to sell the information about their customers outside of their walled garden.
The other ecosystems don't charge 30% to outside companies and instead get them to pay them money for information about their customers...
Basically, Apple is making money taxing exchanges in eco-system where other eco-systems are relying on value-add sales...
Doesnt google pay to be the search engine and gather at bare minimum search data so isnt that something they are using to monetize the users?
Read this for what it is. Tim is just kicking Facebook in the teeth while hey are down.
Why do I say this? FB's users ARE the thing they collect data about and sell, yea that's true. But who doesn't already know that Apple collects their user's information in order to market to their users? The only difference is Apple may not SELL the data to OTHERS to do this. But as big as Apple is this sure seems like a distinction without any difference given that they do collect marketing data.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
But that's just it. No company in the USA is about long term.
Turns out Apple is. Which is hardly a surprise at all if you know the history of the company, Jobs was very into the Japanese culture and long term thinking. He took great pains to hire people that thought the same way and install a similar strategy across the company, so it carries on in that approach.
And of course, Apple has enough actual cash on hand to have the luxury of being able to think very long term. If they didn't I would be more suspicious - but they do. It removes a ton of temptation to make short term choices to stay solvent. It's not like I trust Apple so much, as I trust the soothing effect of large stacks of money.
With people like Microsoft(win 10) and Apple, you are the sucker and the product.
Microsoft : yes, as they have been low-balling things for years.
But what leads you to say that about Apple? They do not sell user data to other companies, at all. As stated, they don't even have a motive to do so, and have in fact a very strong disinclination to do so, since privacy is a marketing feature of Apple products, one that Facebook has just made tremendously valuable. A company thinking ONLY of pure profit would be driven to a privacy oriented approach now because it's hot; it just happens that Apple started there...
So how are Apple users the product?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/14/google-paying-apple-3-billion-to-remain-default-search--bernstein.html
Talking down to a cop saying that citizens are their customers not product, in contrast to police, whose customers are in fact the prisons.
Different markets, different demographics, and different means of funding their businesses.
Don't bother denying it, that just makes you look more guilty.
Do you see now why we ask for proof of guilt and not proof of innocence?
I posted already, saying that Apple sells your data...Convince me that Apple actually doesn't double dip..
Hey guess what everyone, Flozzin likes to have sex with greyhounds!
I mean, I just posted that, therefore you have to convince me you don't doggie dip.
Such theoretical income would show up on Apple's earnings report. There would of course also be a company buying said data and someone could easily find that out via flow of money. Fact is there is no-one buying data from Apple because they don't sell any, and all important data is only accessible by the user - not Apple. There are vast numbers of technical people that KNOW all this. It's not like you cannot monitor traffic leaving Apple devices.
Here's the thing - the open-ness of every other company selling such data is so widespread you are mad if you care a whit about privacy and security and don't have an iPhone, because even if your assertion were true all other options are a billion times worse just from what we KNOW about other companies selling your data. Think about what more we do not know about the other companies yet...
If you don't tell your non-technical friends and family to use iPhones you may as well print up little cards with banking and other personal info from them and ride around town scattering them into the air as you go.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
DATA is king...period.
... not their product? Microsoft. Before Windows 10 was released: https://streamable.com/s/mnohn/thoyan?autoplay=1 (record date: 2015-01-21)
Facebook fits the model 'something for nothing', sort of like praying. There is no fee to use it so they have to get paid some way. The monetize their customers. How was that unclear to any rational thinking person? Nothing is free. If you don't have to pay a fee you are paying a fee. You just don't know what it is. Even air comes with a cost. Pollution. Ask any one in Beijing the price to breath air. A 21st century country still using coal to heat their houses in the capital? I think they are broaching the 20th century.
Google is at least building products, like Amazon. Facebook has nothing to sell but its user base.
"The truth is, we could make a ton of money if we monetized our customer -- if our customer was our product,"
It's kind of axiomatic that if the service is free, you're the product..which you are for Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, etc....
Who else are they selling to, Romulans?
What on Earth are people at these companies smoking.
Have you ever even met somebody who is in business selling products?
Retail markup + box + packing + manuals + shrinkwrap + media (CD/DVD) + sales processing (credit card 2% tax) and finally marketing & product placement all take a sizable chunk out of a product's price. The general recommendation I've been told JUST for marketing overhead is 30% of the budget!
Now 30% might seem at the high end of the classic business model but it depends on the market. Apple wants to keep all the gains of going online for themselves rather than for the publishers (who often take an undo share while developers... like everywhere else the value creators often get the least in the chain of leeches.) The App store has a massive exposure with the promise to move much higher volume -- like how major brands PAY for shelf placement in the isles. Apple doesn't yet do a version of this but makes everybody pay more to be in the store.
I don't know if 30% is a good deal. It doesn't sound all that bad if you price accordingly and are clever in selling direct at a lower price-- where it is likely that the App store sales beat your own website... I've noticed more apps going on their store exclusively. They must have done the math for their situation.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
That makes sense, because you're actually paying for Apple products. Facebook offers its services at no monetary cost and its primary activity is data abuse.
That doesn't mean Apple won't try and use any data it has for profit whenever it sees fit. It's just a trend with tech companies these days: everyone is into data. But it does mean that because Apple's business is with its products, it will put selling those products first over data abuse.
"What lies behind us, and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us." Ralph Waldo Emerson
There is a vast difference between the two companies. Apple actually produces products for it's customers (users), whereas Facebook's users are not its customer, they're it's product, or rather the raw materials that Facebook mines to sell to it's real customers. There is no doubt that Apple has just as much data on their customers, and believe me, they will use it before going bankrupt, provided there are no laws put in place to.
--- Keep the choice with the user..
Apple's customers are not its product. Apple's customers are it's MINDLESS SLAVES, as we have known for years.
--- Sent from my iMac.
Search Ads is about improving App Store placement, which means all data stays internal to Apple. You just get a higher hit rate (potentially) in App Store visibility.
News Ads is about an SDK for Apple displaying ads the news PUBLISHERS provide. People purchase ad time from Apple as well, those may also get displayed - but again no data is going from Apple to anyone else. It's just that in Apple News some ads are displayed to iOS users...
Neither is a case of Apple selling data to anyone, you blind fool!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Read your first link. I'll wait.
No, scratch that - your mind is obviously not up to the task of comprehending what that even says, I don't have all day.
What in fact that first link says is that apps can access some facial data (not the full FaceID scan) from the front FaceID cameras. WOW WHAT A MINDBLOWER. Did you know apps can ALSO access your rear camera? Your microphone? INSANE.
So in short, that has nothing to do with Apple selling data whatsoever and everything to do with what apps do with data and device sensors.
Even more short, you are a complete fucking idiot and following the rest of your links would be more useless than following the pool of hobo urine on an SF sidewalk as it drains into the gutter.
You can have the last response as after that post, I can't imagine anyone would read anything your fevered mind produces.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Shouldn't you be in your room rubbing your thumb against the glass of your phone?
Title says it all.
Apple's "limit ad tracking" setting REPEATEDLY resets after logins in/out of Apple ID, and Apple has repeatedly failed to patch. How is that helpful, Tim Cook?
It took Apple like half a year to even get around to addressing the HSTS glitch in Safari that formed a super cookie.
Cook, you need to either crack down on your engineering management team or else clean house. This slow patch time and lack of responsiveness with users is about to lose my business.
How's life in the hypocrite lane?
load of bullshit.
fanbois are pwned
the hardware is just the vehicle to run iTunes selling any media (App, Music, Content, Book, Video etc...) and pay Apple the 30%,
banks and payment networks pay Apple 0.15% for each purchase
Apple is raking it in.
Go well
Haha
Facebook produces a targeted platform for advertisers. The advertisers are the customer of Facebook.
This is your sig. There are thousands more, but this one is yours.
Cook is actually right about this. If more and more people become concerned about privacy, Apple could be at an advantage over Google and Facebook, if they play their cards right and make the transition to modestly priced online services. Selling new gadgets will only take them so far. Despite currently being way to expensive for my taste and being quite an annoyance when it comes to that, Apple still has the reputation of protecting its users privacy. More or less that is.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Your cherry-picking of paragraphs in the policy in isolation to describe your conclusion is not convincing to me. You also left out elipses on a sentence to indicate that you cut it off in the middle. I.e.,
"...Apple and our partners and licensees may collect, use, and share precise location data, including the real-time geographic location of your Apple computer or device."
At some point, Apple is expecting this document to stand up in court. If, to support their secret nefarious activities, it has to be interpreted so selectively and creatively, they have to expect that a judge will side with them and say "hey, it doesn't matter what we said at the beginning of the paragraph, here it says that we could do anything we want! "
It seems like an absurd interpretation of the privacy policy.
It's not a perfect document, but it's much better than what you you carve it up, scramble, misquote and quote out of context.
Or hyenas.
When he puts it like that it means they collect a similar amount of information but they don't let it slip to third parties.
"...if we monetized our customer". Apple's own profit reports show they have monetized their customers far better than anyone. Instead of paying for their products with the possibility of privacy abuses in the future, you're paying for their products up front instead, with cold, hard cash by the barrel.
You're clearly more comfortable with being fleeced up-front where you can see it, even if it usually costs a lot more that way, and who am I to disagree.
Apple just gave all over the iCloud data for every Chinese citizen over to the chinese government. They only support user privacy when it’s convenient for them. San Bernardino shooters phoneno way, user privacy is too important. All of our Chinese users, oh sure no problem here you go. Total Hippocrates - From proud owner of most iPhones since the original came out
I'd love to have the power of Android with the hardware of an iPhone. iOS is a fucking toy of an OS right now, though... Too much handholding, not enough freedom. It's a pocket-sized computer - it should operate as such!
And you can have it, just wait another 4-5 years while Apple cherry picks features to tout as "bold innovations".
#1 is a given that the display in question is a drawing tablet with HDMI input only. #2 only applies to USB display adapters using a DisplayLink chipset. #3 doesn't apply to a late 2015 iMac with a grand total of 0 USB-C ports. It exhibits the same issue with the native HDMI port on the 2014 retina MBP (no adapter, also no USB-C), Apple's DisplayPort-to-HDMI adapter on the iMac (no USB-C) and the 2012 MacBook Pro (no USB-C), and with Apple's USB-C-to-HDMI adapter on the 2016 MacBook Pro. That rules out the computer itself, as it happens on multiple machines; the adapter being used, as the issue persists when with different adapters, and no adapter is used; and the monitor itself, as the issue persists across all affected systems with several different monitors (as previously stated).
Regarding Bluetooth issues, been there, done that. One of the first things I try when a Mac is acting up is to nuke the NVRAM/PRAM, reset the SMC, and nuke preferences. Needing to do that, by the way, is the antithesis of "Just Works".
Any model iPad I've ever seen (more or less all of them) will happily (if slowly) charge on a 1A charger and a Mac's USB ports will happily supply 2.4A. An iPad not even registering that it's plugged into a power source when connected to a USB port capable of providing in excess of its minimum charging current of 1A is certainly not working as intended.
I would buy the proximity excuse for AirDrop except that it requires that you are connected to the same wireless network in order to function, not that you are simply nearby; in fact, proximity doesn't even play a part in AirDrop functionality. The same wireless network can span multiple buildings; but as long as you're both on wireless with the same SSID, it'll work just fine. It's certainly not making a peer-to-peer connection without dropping you off the network with a single radio (see: early 2011 MacBook Pro, which predates AirDrop, has a single 2.4GHz radio, and works just fine without dropping off the network), or from two buildings over (not my use case here, but one I've encountered) where the two devices are not within range of each other (or even the same access point). There's no reason it can't work over ethernet and, in fact, it can, but not reliably. I couldn't get it working for the iMac, but that method works wonderfully on the 2011 MBP.
Likewise for the Apple Watch; it uses Bluetooth for proximity detection, so why does it need WiFi to unlock?
I think the issue is that you're running such an old OS on such old hardware that you are quite out of touch with how the Apple products of today function. You're running Mavericks, which means the system you are using is, at best, an early 2014 model. Believe me when I say a lot has changed in 4 years. Or don't; you can always buy a new Mac and find out for yourself.
Hey man, just trying to help. No need to beat me up.
I wasn't sure if the DisplayLink Driver might "accidently" fix the issue. Sometimes stuff like that happens. Plus I didn't know for sure what adapters, etc. might be involved.Ok, so this OBVIOUSLY needs to be fixed.
I didn't realize until After I clicked "Submit" that your wife's iMac was a 2015 model, and thus no USB-C, sorry!
Using Macs for so long myself, I just automatically expect to hear someone suggest trashing Prefs and/or NVRAM/PMC/SMC Reset. BTW, those "fixes" have been common for Macs since 1984; so, that hardly supports your argument of "things USED to 'Just Work' ". And get off your high-horse; computers on ANY platform are pretty complicated hardware/software systems. We are a LONG way from computers that NEVER misconfigure themselves, have a hw/sw hiccup, or require an experienced hand to get them right side-up.
I would like to know if the charging issue is at the iPad or Mac-end. plus, it also sounds like you ASSUME that, since earlier iPads charge at 1A, then this one MUST, too.
I must admit I
In their tiny little cages.
Hey, I didn't mean to beat you up, it's just that we've had enough back and forth that I expect that there will be an assumption that I've done at least the basic troubleshooting before I set in to complain about an issue.
Until very recently, I've never seen trashing Prefs and/or NVRAM/PMC/SMC Reset as a solution for something a Mac has done to itself but, rather, a solution for something someone has done to their Mac. That includes updating the OS while incompatible settings are configured, which I'd blame here but the machine shipped with Sierra and the issue predates any OS upgrade. In fact, the issue started from day 1, before any configuration of any kind had been done, when the NVRAM should, for all intents and purposes, be as clean as can be. Further, the first of these machines, which developed a crack starting at the top side of the screen within a few days and was exchanged, also exhibited this issue, so it's nothing specific to this iMac -- but I covered that already when I explained that the issue affects several Macs. At any rate, as high as you might think my horse to be, what's actually high here are my expectations, because that's where Apple's marketing and fanbois have set them. Less than a decade ago, my expectations were at their highest and Apple had no problem meeting -- even exceeding -- them; although I now lower my expectations with every release cycle, Apple seems to fall farther and farther short of them each year.
Regarding the iPad, there's no assumption here, it's the same model I have and I've got mine plugged in to a port on my monitor that only supplies 1A, had it there for months, and it's always at 100% when I unplug it. That's the only place I plug it in, so I know it's not getting a charge from anywhere else, and I've plugged hers in to the same spot to test and it charges there as well. I've even tried blaming the cables she was using, but I had to give that up after testing each of her cables in that same configuration and they all worked. As for the suggestion that she use the supplied charger, USB is a standard and there's no reason that should be necessary; on top of that, she has no free outlet near her desk to plug it in to -- her print work has expanded to the point that she has printers and cutting machines plugged in to every available outlet in the room. Well, she has 12-outlet UPSes plugged in to the wall outlets; and the UPSes are physically full of plugs right now.
While it's great that transferring data and settings from one Mac to another works wonderfully for your friends, I'd like to point out that this is something that is only done once when you buy a new machine and, if it fails, is only an inconvenience once when you buy a new machine. We're looking at apples and oranges, considering that the things being complained about here are basic everyday operations that simply don't work, though they worked under Jobs' Apple; this functionality has slowly deteriorated under Cook's Apple.
I would, however, like to point out another interesting observation I made as I was writing this. I'm the tinkerer, between my wife and I. I'm the one who digs in and changes things that I'm not supposed to change and does things that could potentially be system-breaking if an update were to try to apply itself on top of my changes. Under Jobs' Apple, I was the one who ran into issues (for which I didn't blame Apple, realizing they were of my own making) and things "Just Worked" for my wife. That has actually reversed itself over the past handful of years; I'm still the one who dicks around where I shouldn't and she still leaves things be, but now she;'s the one having problems and all of my tweaks and bodges "Just Work".
That's what's changed.
I should expect issues, simply due to my own actions, and she should expect smooth sailing. And that used to be the reality of Apple.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.