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Tim Cook Says Ads That Follow You Online Are 'Creepy' (cnet.com)
In a wide-ranging interview with MSNBC and Recode, Apple CEO Tim Cook said that everyone should know how much data they're sharing and what can be inferred about us from that information. He added that privacy "is a human right" and said he's worried about how advertisers and others can abuse access to our data. "To me it's creepy when I look at something and all of a sudden it's chasing me all the way across the web," Cook said. "I don't like that." CNET reports: The comments came as part of a wide-ranging interview between Cook, MSNBC's Chris Hayes and Recode's Kara Swisher. MSNBC broadcast the special, named "Revolution: Apple changing the world" at 5 p.m. PT on Friday. The interview was taped the day after Apple's education event in Chicago, where the company introduced a new 9.7-inch iPad and tools for teachers. The two publications released some early clips and comments from Cook over the past couple of weeks. That included remarks he made about Facebook and its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Cook noted that Apple purposely chose not to make "a ton of money" off its customers' data and that Facebook failed to effectively regulate itself, prompting a need for government intervention. Along with Facebook and its privacy issues, Cook talked up DACA and immigration, tax reform, the changing job landscape and the need for everyone to learn coding, among other topics.
"Why didn't you design Facebook from the beginning to honor requests by users to have files deleted instead of just hiding the files someplace and pretending that they'd been deleted?"
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While Tim Cook is certainly right that being tracked for advertisement purposes is creepy and should not happen, it is just as creepy if there is one company that decides what software my hardware is allowed to run, even taking a third of revenue made with it, if it is commercial.
So, Tim, as long as Apple puts its buyers under tutelage, you are just as creepy as the stuff you criticize.
Oh fuck off. You're not required to use iCloud at all. You can attach as much storage as you need. You can use FileVault 2 to encrypt locally. You can sync your iOS devices easily to local storage.
What in holy fuck are you on man?
No, I'd say it's also wrong, but it's not as creepy.
There's two creepiness factor differences here. (1) Apple's walled-garden is not clandestine. You buy an iPhone you're buying into that garden. Internet tracking happens without your even implied consent. (2) Apple's hegemony has a clear limitation: Apple's mobile devices. That makes it trivial to escape: you just use a different vendor's phone. Internet monitoring is pervasive; you can't escape it no matter where you try to go with your browser.
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With cookies. And they're stupid cookies. If you research a product online and buy it, the cookies follow you around for months afterwards. Sorry, too late. Why is that creepy? It's not as if they are AI. .
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
Not required. Just encouraged/nudged hard by Apple's lack of SD storage, USB ports on newer laptops, and crummy implementation of local sync protocols. Apple also tried to deprecate local sync entirely a few years ago, but walked back after users screamed holy murder.
Pot? Kettle? Anyone?
it's time to start open sourcing some of Apple's code. The amount of simple but critical bugs found in OSX recently is insane. At the very least, start by implementing a policy that once an OS major version number is two or three years old, it's published open source. This will build trust amongst users and help researchers find bugs, while also protecting your most current developments as proprietary.
Open source doesn't magically make something better, or even good. There is plenty of open source software that is shit.
More importantly, OSX is specifically designed to **ONLY** run on Apple's mediocre over-priced hardware. Open source would change that and cut into Apple's massive profit margins that they make by charging a premium price for mediocre shit hardware.
In other words, never going to happen.
I always find it strange when people talk about ads as if I'm supposed to know about them. Happens a lot with TV ads, I guess because people are less willing to admit they have seen online ads because they understand they are targeted at them rather than broadcast to everyone.
You should block ads online. Not blocking ads is like not running an unpatched XP system with anti-virus back in the early 2000s. Even if you don't get some nasty infection, you are being farmed like an animal. Have some self respect, block ads and don't eat food out of a KFC bucket.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC