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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.
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.
"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
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...
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
"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....
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.
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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.