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Apple's Tim Cook Makes Blistering Attack on the 'Data Industrial Complex' (techcrunch.com)
Apple's CEO Tim Cook has joined the chorus of voices warning that data itself is being weaponized against people and societies -- arguing that the trade in digital data has exploded into a "data industrial complex." From a report: Cook did not namecheck the adtech elephants in the room: Google, Facebook and other background data brokers that profit from privacy-hostile business models. But his target was clear. "Our own information -- from the everyday to the deeply personal -- is being weaponized against us with military efficiency," warned Cook. "These scraps of data, each one harmless enough on its own, are carefully assembled, synthesized, traded and sold. Taken to the extreme this process creates an enduring digital profile and lets companies know you better than you may know yourself. Your profile is a bunch of algorithms that serve up increasingly extreme content, pounding our harmless preferences into harm. We shouldn't sugarcoat the consequences. This is surveillance," he added. In a series of tweets, Cook added: It was an honor to be invited to ICDPPC 2018 in Brussels this morning. I'd like to share a bit of what I said to this gathering of privacy regulators from around the world. It all boils down to a fundamental question: What kind of world do we want to live in? GDPR has shown us all that good policy and political will can come together to protect the rights of everyone. We believe that privacy is a fundamental human right. No matter what country you live in, that right should be protected in keeping with four essential principles.
First, companies should challenge themselves to de-identify customer data or not collect that data in the first place. Second, users should always know what data is being collected from them and what it's being collected for. This is the only way to empower users to decide what collection is legitimate and what isn't. Anything less is a sham. Third, companies should recognize that data belongs to users and we should make it easy for people to get a copy of their personal data, as well as correct and delete it. And fourth, everyone has a right to the security of their data. Security is at the heart of all data privacy and privacy rights. Technology is capable of doing great things. But it doesn't want to do great things. It doesn't want anything. That part takes all of us. We are optimistic about technology's awesome potential for good -- but we know that it won't happen on its own.
First, companies should challenge themselves to de-identify customer data or not collect that data in the first place. Second, users should always know what data is being collected from them and what it's being collected for. This is the only way to empower users to decide what collection is legitimate and what isn't. Anything less is a sham. Third, companies should recognize that data belongs to users and we should make it easy for people to get a copy of their personal data, as well as correct and delete it. And fourth, everyone has a right to the security of their data. Security is at the heart of all data privacy and privacy rights. Technology is capable of doing great things. But it doesn't want to do great things. It doesn't want anything. That part takes all of us. We are optimistic about technology's awesome potential for good -- but we know that it won't happen on its own.
Shorter Tim Cook "You can trust us, but don't trust our competitors."
Not a shocking position for a CEO to take I suppose.
Apple loves to control what its users do with its products, but the moment there is something like data that it can't control, they complain? I know that people love to hate various companies, from Microsoft to Facebook to Google, but NONE of them are as bad as Apple when it comes to trying to control the users.
Apple is the only one taking privacy at all seriously.
Even for determining how to make Maps better, Apple has said they don't sample whole routes, just fragments of routes to see how Maps is performing...
They also do things like keep Face and Touch ID all local on the device, nothing goes to Apple.
So once again, just what do you claim they are mining?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
10 Troll posts . . . that have no clue.
1) At very least, Apple is beating the drum, everyone else is saying don't worry
2) Apple has gone on record FOR protecting users, putting themselves in a spot where, if it's ever found out that they're lying, NO one will trust them
3) The comment about China? Let's see some sources that say what's provided to the government, and whether it's the carriers or Apple; don't forget, the biggest provider is owned by the government . . .
Get out of your basements, get some sun, it's 2018
No, Tim Cook just wants everyone to be locked into an Apple controlled environment, and other big businesses being out there stops him from being the one in charge of what they see, don't see, what programs/apps they can use, etc.
While we obviously can't know for sure, there so far hasn't been any evidence that Apple does this. They do collect data with respect to services that they specifically provide that requires them to use such data (eg: Siri, maps, etc) but I've read past reports from people who have wiresharked the traffic coming out of their iDevices and Apple was true to their word. iDevices did not send unnecessary data to Apple.
Nor is there evidence that they buy up data from elsewhere like Facebook or Google does.
They have positioned themselves as data privacy champions. If they were exposed as data miners of the likes of Google or Facebook, don't you think that exposing that hypocrisy would be massive news? I know I haven't seen any such news yet. Please feel free to link such news stories in case I simply missed them.
It is surveillance, plan and simple, just as he says.
Tim Cook, however, represents the same type of corporation as the ones he critizies. I suspect that he maybe would like to know everything about Apples' customers, too. And the potential Apple customers. And control their behaviour to purchase more Apple products and services. It is hard to distinguish any ernest concern for a surveillance society, from being upset for not having competitive technology in this field.
Data collection has come to be the new level of expectation for businesses. I saw Dragon's Den the other day, where some app developers, however brilliant in marketing and technology, were flamed for not collecting and monetizing on the user data.
It is ironic how the society that led the world in the fight against oppression and for freedom, now leads the world into a world of digital slavery...
doesn't matter what he wants. his point is still valid. quit trying to distract from the subject.
lots of that going on in this thread. sheesh. et tu, Slashdot?
They have positioned themselves as data privacy champions.* If they were exposed as data miners of the likes of Google or Facebook, don't you think that exposing that hypocrisy would be massive news? I know I haven't seen any such news yet. Please feel free to link such news stories in case I simply missed them.
*Offer not good in the People's Republic of China.
I'm getting tired of people saying "[Noun] Industrial Complex" without apparently understanding the meaning of the original Military-Industrial Complex. That original phrase meant that the Military and Industry were in a Complicated relationship with each other. It's not talking about an "Industrial Complex" (whatever that is) run by or about the Military.
"Data Industrial Complex" implies that there's something separate from Industry called Data, and that Data and Industry are in a Complicated relationship with each other. That does not seem to be the the way it's used, though.
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Apple could help enhance privacy for everybody : just make an iMessage client for Android and Windows. I am tired of relying on WhatsApp just because it is the greatest common denominator.
Third, companies should recognize that data belongs to users
This is the fundamental issue, and we went the wrong way back in the 1980's when companies starting building computer databases. Your electric bill and phone bill should be your data. Your bank account transactions should be your data. But we went the wrong way and decided that your bank account information really belongs to your bank, and they just license you to access it. Wrong wrong wrong, and it's going to be a really difficult slope to go back and fix that.
Troll harder.
If you can't use Duck Duck Go you probably can't tie your shoelaces. Targeting does the exact opposite of what you describe, it makes things harder to find since it burys more precise results under a mountain of "other users searched for blank instead" suggestions.
Want to look up a restaurant or business in another city on google, or search for an obscure name or term? Have fun having it "correct" your search and bombard you with advertisements for local stuff or shit you don't need. "Did you mean something completely unrelated because your search only represented 1%% of our users and we won't make any fucking money if you don't want what we're selling? We hope not because we're not bothering to show you the correct results!"
I much prefer a search engine which does exactly what I tell it to do. If I want to search for a foreign language word I don't want it to give me the local restaurant that happens to have the same name, or the paid for ads that appear absolutely all over the search results and dominate what I see. If I wanted that restaurant, I can easily type my city or the word restaurant and get exactly what I wanted.
You being a lazy piece of shit is what makes searching for obscure or even just slightly outside statistically normal things nearly impossible.
I guess if you only use the internet to find that same restaurant you've been to five times but keep forgetting about that's fine. Honestly there is benefit to both, but the few times I've actually found google to be helpful can probably be counted on one hand.
Google, Facebook and other background data brokers that profit from privacy-hostile business models
It's worth noting that Apple sells thick-client product that are deeply threatened by thin-client cloud-based solutions like the products Google is selling. When you can buy a Chromebook for $250 that lasts for a decade, convincing people to drop $2000 on a Macbook becomes a much harder sell.
If you're Cook, your primary way to attack this market erosion is to seed doubt about data in the cloud.
I was selling applications in online stores for Symbian and Windows before the Apple App Store existed, they all wanted 50%. Brick and mortar stores wanted even more. I think there were one online store asking for less than 50%, they were small and trying to make it big.
The Apple App store set a new industry low for their "take" should be, everybody followed suit.
Apple supports privacy now, they're a corporation. They're a couple bad quarters away from selling your info to Advertisers same as everybody else. You're safe so long as the profits from their hardware biz are strong, but that's not the most reassuring thing in the world...
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Okay. I will have to agree, but the content of his talk was spot on. Literally awesome. Thank ths stars Apple doesn't make all their money from data or no one in industry would be speaking up.
Data is better than money. It is power, from which you can generate money.
They're selling ads from their servers on behalf of advertisers.
Ok... but since Apple doesn't sell ads, just WTF are you talking about?
Hence "leasing", for a lack of a better term.
Hence "wrong" because you are wrong about Apple leasing data to third parties. They don't even have data to lease!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Name Check: to mention approvingly by name
I have to say that namecheck, press-ganged into a verb, with the mainsail of semantic drift inflated to a D cup, made me throw up a little bit in my mouth.
Perhaps "blamecheck" could step into the breech, initially sounding twice as hipster refurb, though about 10% as asinine.
Apple has a different vice: vendor lock in. That is also a user-hostile behavior. So you get to pick your poison in vendors for handset computers: one is aggressive about vendor lock in (iphone) and the other is aggressive about data collection (android). The right way forward is, as it has always been, open standards. The closest solution right now is third-party android.
I shouldn't have to use icloud as my online storage, I should be able to use any number of vendors that I can choose to trust and who are not so big that I cannot sue them if they cheat me. Or do it myself. With a server that is literally my own property. Note that this means that your idea that no "unnecessary" data is sent to apple is a polite fiction. Almost nothing that people store on icloud is "necessary" to send to apple, but they are really good at locking in their users. Also this idea that the user owns the data while someone else is holding it seems mostly inconsistent with current legal precedents, and therefore also fiction.
As pointed out in other replies, given its level of vendor lock-in, there would be trouble if Apple decided it could make even more profit by mining all that data they hold.
Yeah he's just mad Apple's not a part of it. At the end of they day the data is where the money is and Apple's devices are just windows to data (Well, services. Services are just applied data).
I'm no fan of Apple for a lot of things, but this is just a dumb statement. Apple is literally the most valuable company on the planet as of this posting at over 925 billion dollars. That is 150 billion dollars more than the number 2 company Amazon and 175 billion over Alphabet which is arguably the largest data mining company of them all. I don't think he is mad that they are not getting much of a slice of that pie because if he were then they wouldn't be making these statements constantly and you would suddenly see lots more data collection going on from their side.
They are doing a lot of things that I dislike, but data privacy is not one of them. They could improve more for sure, but they are so far ahead of almost all the other companies it is pathetic.
Some tech economists crunched numbers and figured out that if you tried to self-host all of the services Google provides you for free, it would cost about 20K/yr
Google is pretty much giving you 20k in services in exchange for slurping data off of your online activities and showing you ads and that gives you an idea about the money at stake here.
In reply to this, I seriously scoff at that figure. Google provides a SHITLOAD of services and all, but only the most die-hard of Google fans come close to using all of them. Most of them also have alternatives available in the market that don't require you to give away your data too. That figure is highly suspect even if someone were using all their services. Maybe if you bought everything (servers, licenses to run them, etc.) and did all the work yourself it might come close, but no one is going to do that and it defeats the purpose specialist services in our economy anyway. Lets break down some of the major services Google offers, look at their costs, alternatives etc. to get a better picture:
Yes. Apple is being undercut by competitors who are willing to work for data. There are arguments to be made, but be mindful of who is making the argument in this case. Not a neutral third party. Someone whose fortune depends on you to pay more for (possibly just the illusion of) anonymity.
has no inherent need to mine data
Insomuch as public companies have stock holders, this is incorrect.
No, Tim Cook just wants everyone to be locked into an Apple controlled environment, and other big businesses being out there stops him from being the one in charge of what they see, don't see, what programs/apps they can use, etc.
What twisted world view do you come from? Data privacy is data privacy, and he's all for it. Apple has yet to indicate they're doing anything other than exactly what they say with regards to data privacy. Just because you don't like the "walled garden" or have the mistaken belief that a mac doesn't allow you to run anything you want doesn't apply in any way to their stance on privacy.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
I shouldn't have to use icloud as my online storage
Is there anything forcing you to? As far as I know you can set up ownCloud and use that instead of iCloud if you want, at least for documents, photos and videos. Granted, I don't think they support contact info and such but still...
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