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Apple CEO Explains How a Few Billion Dollars From Google Changes His Views on the Company's 'Unsettling' User Data Mining Activities (arstechnica.com)
In an interview with Axios on HBO Apple CEO Tim Cook explained the decision to use Google as the default search engine on Apple products. This decision, which enables Apple to make up to $9 billion a year, has baffled some, considering Google's business model of making money off of users' data -- something Apple has spoken out against numerous times. From a report: "I think their search engine is the best," Cook said in the interview. He followed up by diving into privacy features Apple has implemented in its Safari browser. "Look at what we've done with the controls we've built in," Cook stated. "We have private Web browsing. We have an intelligent tracker prevention. What we've tried to do is come up with ways to help our users through their course of the day. It's not a perfect thing. I'd be the very first person to say that. But it goes a long way to helping." Google pays Apple to have its search engine be the primary one on iPhones and other Apple devices.
He is not wrong. And the problem is, Apple users would get pissed if they made it a shitty 3rd party search that barely works.
People routinely show they do not give a fuck about their private data.
Google bribed Apple and I'm not sure it could be any more transparent.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
>> Apple CEO Tim Cook explained the decision to use Google...has baffled some, considering Google's business model of making money off of users' data -- something Apple has spoken out against numerous times
Now $1B would change my views on many things too, but in this case, Cook was just being a smart businessman: lying to Apple customers (those gullible little marks) to get them to sign themselves and their friends up to his service, while at the same time telling Google that they would need to bring a truckload of money into a deal to get Apple to violate its lofty, lofty "principles". Well, the deal is done now that Google is bringing in the billions: in service to his shareholders, let's hope Cook gets a nice Christmas bonus.
$9 billion a year is not chump change. Most of us would sell our grandmothers for that!
As a user of Safari, I like the privacy features that Apple has put it. As a web developer, will they start fixing the compatibility issues in CSS and HTML (issues not present in Chrome or Firefox), otherwise I may confuse it for IE?
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Google bribed Apple and I'm not sure it could be any more transparent.
Bribery implies illegality. It's not illegal, it's just a failure to care about user privacy when a billion dollars are on the table. Privacy is only for people like Tim Cook, not for people who use his hardware.
Fake News. Fake APK. Jump off a bridge and land on some pavement face first, please. Thank you, from Everyone.
Google is pretty blatant that they use customer data to target ads. Apple? Blatantly dishonest. "We respect your privacy" but give China whatever they demand while stonewalling the FBI against actual terrorists.
The Apple CEO is speaking with a forked tongue. If Apple wanted to, they could easily become an anonymizer for the Google search engine. But the Apple CEO has decided to accept $9 billion from Google while sacrificing his customers' privacy. The worst treachery is to pass one's own sin on to the next person.
Apple added Duck Duck Go as one of the built-in search engines. I've been using it for over a year instead of Google. It works well enough and they don't set any tracking cookies. I'd recommend everyone switch to that.
Honestly. every other smartphone on the market uses Google too. Apple is just always held to some high standard that is impossible to meet.
- Vincit qui patitur.
You can change it anytime. Also the majority of Apple and Safari users want Google search. Finally unless Apple implements its own search they have to use someone else's and accept the potential for loss of privacy.
Really, really stupid anti Apple screed posted today. Just beyond pathetic Slashdot. Plenty of other relevant stories out there, why post a 10 year old story about Google paying Apple for default search.
Looking back on the articles listed it never mentions a company by name, just the practices they use. However, if you think apple doesn't collect your data you'd be wrong. They may not sell it to a 3rd party, but they allow targeted ads in some of their products, using things such as your likes and possible your demographics as well. They never really cared about your privacy, they just want you to think they care about your privacy.
If you go to visit China your iPhone automatically syncs with Chinese servers where Chinese goverment has full access. Apple has even helped China to do this.
the lies and hypocrisy just pours out. The perfect choice to run apple.
It's almost as though the rich and their awful tech companies aren't acting in everyone's best interests and are only interested in making more money than any one person should ever have.
Well, he said it right off there. Google search is the best and his customers are used to it. If Apple switched it over to DuckDuckGo it'd be a Apple Maps launch size of complaining and dissatisfaction.
Now the $3billion doesn't hurt of course. But DuckDuckGo isn't good enough for a switchover at this point. I use DuckDuckGo as my main search engine but need Google as a back up often enough. This is something that needs to be fixed - Apple probably needs to make DuckDuckGo or whatever better and then cast off Google and their billions, but at this point DuckDuckGo's results aren't good enough. JMHO....
5 years ago I would have agreed. Google has gone down hill. They changed their algorithm quite a bit a while back and it ruined it for me. Now its almost impossible to find anything I want anymore. So if I'm forced to put up with unsatisfactory search results I at least choose to use duck for a little less intrusion.
I am speaking as someone who has sent Bing as the default search on iOS, but still use Google on desktop.
Why? Because Cook is right - Google is the best search engine, still by a fair margin. I tried REALLY HARD to use other search engines, but (especially for a developer) it is dumb to hamstring yourself with inferior search results in day to day work.
Cook is also right to point out anti-tracking things Apple has in place, so even though you are using Google on iOS you are giving them relatively little information.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Well, he said it right off there. Google search is the best and his customers are used to it. If Apple switched it over to DuckDuckGo it'd be a Apple Maps launch size of complaining and dissatisfaction.
Now the $3billion doesn't hurt of course. But DuckDuckGo isn't good enough for a switchover at this point. I use DuckDuckGo as my main search engine but need Google as a back up often enough. This is something that needs to be fixed - Apple probably needs to make DuckDuckGo or whatever better and then cast off Google and their billions, but at this point DuckDuckGo's results aren't good enough. JMHO....
Exactly.
And it is nothing more or less than Willful Blindness on the part of Apple-Hating Slashtards (and Editors!) to say anything different than the above.
Slashdot continues its downward slide.
Downward slide?
They are actively digging a hole that rivals anything The Boring Company has planned!
One would think you're the real Tim Cook the way you cheer lead for Apple.
And did you know that DuckDuckGo uses Google as one of its search backends? Basically DuckDuckGo is not a search engine and never been. It's a search engine aggregator.
And without Google search DuckDuckGo would be worthless because, and I'm probably going to be downvoted a lot, but Bing is shit and I don't know any other decent world search engines.
Despite all the hatred towards Google, their search engine is by miles better than anything on the market (except maybe local search engines like Baidu) and I will continue to use it, though in incognito mode ;-) which I don't mind a single bit.
> Well, he said it right off there. Google search is the best and his customers are used to it. If Apple switched it over to DuckDuckGo it'd be a Apple Maps launch size of complaining and dissatisfaction.
So why isn't this the other way around? If it's so valuable, Apple should be paying Google to let it (Apple) use its service (Google's).
I'm int he same boat. I tried using DuckDuckGo as my primary search several months, but the result quality just wasn't the same.
I can understand Apple using Google because of their search quality. The money thing? Well, I suspect that any search engine is going to have to pay to be the primary on Apple devices.
In the interview later on tim cook later on did a backflip with his butthole spread wide open and landed his anus cleanly on a 10 inch black dildo for all the world to admire.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The reason I use google is for video search. DDG shows only a few. Youtube search is not good enough.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
I have tried (and continue to check) other search engines and they simply don't compare in my experience. Google is better right now, regardless of where or on what device I use it. Alarmingly better in many cases. Is it their algorithm? Is it related to their data-mining practices?
Move away from the greedy bastards who are lying about selling privacy.
Yes they do, foodbag. They also use Bing to backfill their results.
Even using VPN and using Incognito Chrome still leaks information. As web site still know where I am from.
Something that does NOT happen with Firefox.
Google makes it's money off of you and if they can't pass that information you are worthless to them.
how much is Google making off these hipsters toting around Apple devices?
Obviously more than $1 billion. Also, I've never heard of grandparents being called hipsters before, but I guess it's possible.
Awwwww snowflake. Who holds a gun to your head and makes you come here? Is it apple? Blink once for yes and twice for no.
Shouldn't you be on macrumours warning everyone there that Slashdot is full of anti-apple assholes. I mean here we laugh at you but at least there you get a few likes.
Someone tell him to shut his WHORE MOUTH.
When the goose that lays the golden eggs gets cancer and dies, and your company is bereft of ideas for creating anything that's even innovative, never mind disruptive - how can you keep the lights on? If even the great courage required to dispense with a headphone jack doesn't grow your market fast enough, what choice do you have other than to sign a lucrative deal with a firm whose practices you openly revile? Poor Tim Cook!
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
scratch that. I didn't mean to post that
APK
P.S. => I like turtles.
If it gives google proxy metadata and not my own, dandy.
>incognito mode
Does literally nothing except against shared device owners. Your weird DDG rambling suggests shill behavior, but your incompetence is weirder; I think you're just an idiot.
If the government offered Apple $9B, would they put a backdoor in their encryption? They accepted one bribe, would they accept another?
See subject.
SearX still uses google(along with bing and many others) on the backend, but it doesn't use tracking cookies or require javascript by default (although it works a lot better with both) and it supports text, image, file, and other forms of searches, all in a minimalist display format reminiscent of old google, startpage, infoseek, etc, complete with archive.org caching and web proxy support.
Best of all, you can run your own copy of it if you want, and there are many people doing exactly that, for both personal and pubic search access. The only step left is for more individuals, companies, or sites to start running local search indexes, and combine that with a peer to peer method of caching to allow published urls to be available to all while endrunning google's dominance of search.
Yeah, it's like (but not as good as) Google, but without the tracking. Figure that, it's popular that service.
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APK
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Qwant.com
Search engine I prefer over DuckDuckGo. European, and won't track you.
Proof?
DuckDuckGo have their own crawler, and like any other search engine or AI personal assistant, sometimes they use third-parties for instant answers, such as Wikipedia, Wolfram Alpha, Stack Overflow, MetroLyrics, etc, etc - basically "over 400 sources".
I don't think I've used Google in over 10 years now - I first switched to Bing, then about 6 years ago, to DuckDuckGo. And except on a handful of occasions (for image search), I've never used Bing, and certainly not Google!
In my opinion, DuckDuckGo has surpassed Google by far, as they don't mess with your query, they don't bubble you in your own little world, and you can use advanced queries to target what you really need.