Comment by wyc | Hacker News Reader

Comment by wyc | Hacker News Reader

Apple sells hardware differentiated by integrated software for premium pricing. They want to build better and more expensive products through superior design and quality control. Collecting and analyzing personal data isn't the most important thing for their business. They might see more benefit by eschewing personal data collection and marketing a privacy-focused message, which they seem to be doing.

In contrast, Google and Facebook are companies that sell advertising. The value they can offer to publishers and advertisers completely relies on how well they know their users. Their competitive moat involves collection of proprietary data to continuously improve their products. These are clear incentives to be sticky and greedy with your information, but also to keep it private and proprietary for their own sake.

With these incentives in mind, I more readily trust Apple when it says that it will not collect my data compared to data conglomerates, and Apple hasn't done anything to aggressively betray that idea in its history (to my knowledge). Combined with the technical security advantages of iOS, I'm inclined to believe Apple products to be the least-bad option for the security-minded today.

There's only one way to fight back.

First: Move out of Google and Facebook. In particular email. It's a good idea as they can lock you out for nothing without explanations. They've been doing this a lot recently. You are not famous so a twitter mob won't help you.

Second: Since most pages out there have trackers from these companies, install Ad Nauseam extension to not just block tracking but click on everything in the background. This will ruin the information they gather about you with noise.

https://adnauseam.io/

Ad Nauseam is a curious recommendation. While it devalues you individually, it also consumes bandwidth locally and remotely. Feels like accelerating the arms race.

I do like Apple's approach to privacy. A lot. And I love their phones. While their PC hardware is still pretty, it's getting more-and-more outdated and overpriced. But that's no longer their focus, so hey.

And indeed, Apple seems to handle privacy well, in practice. I've managed to create pseudonymous accounts at Apple's online store, and fund them with anonymized Bitcoin. And I've managed to make digital purchases.

However, I haven't tested buying physical devices, for pickup in meatspace. I wonder if they'd require official ID, or just proof of purchase. Anyone know?

The last time I went to pick up a product (AirPods) it required government issued photo ID (Australian driver's license), even though I had the Apple Store app which made the purchase installed on my phone.

That's an issue with Australian law, not Apple. You can also buy such devices overseas.

Ah, thanks. What sorts of purchases in Australia require ID?

None (well, some medicine, firearms probably, that sort of thing, not headphones). This is entirely on Apple.

Bought my AirPods from Apple in the UK: no ID required.

Bought my iPhone 6S from Apple in Ausralia: ID required under Australian law.

Very likely the person also bought a phone with a sim/service, hence being asked for ID (under Australian law.)

Anything over 10,000 AUD (about 8,000 USD) purchased with cash. AirPods are expensive but not _that_ expensive.

My guess is that they paid online for in-store pickup, and Apple asked for ID to confirm they're the one that made the purchase. In which case that's an Apple thing, not a government thing.

Bought my AirPods from Apple in the UK: no ID required.

Bought my iPhone 6S from Apple in Ausralia: ID required under Australian law.

Very likely the person also bought a phone with a sim/service, hence being asked for ID (under Australian law.)

Well, that sucks. So much for privacy, in Australia anyway.

In Australia, do you need to show ID when you buy random electronics for cash? If you pay cash in an Apple Store, do you need to show ID?

Buying Apple hardware used, at swap meets etc, seems the best option. As long as it's not been stolen, anyway. But you can test for that, before paying.

No, there is not requirement to show ID when buying electronics in Australia. I suspect that GP's experience was due to them collecting a pre-purchase, and Apple stores having some sort of policy around verifying the purchaser in order to prevent theft.

Hardware-wise, they are top! Privacy-wise, they've done plenty, but there is significant improvemens to be made!

I appreciate the alert when an app tries to grab my contacts/calendar/location.

On the other hand I DO NOT appreciate, when an app (e.g. British Airways) always informs Facebook, Google Analytics, tens of other trackers, that I am using the app, and I am left in the no-mercy of those folks, and Apple is not helping me to protect my privacy.

This is why an iPhone is only good when it's jailbroken (replace hosts file, install ProtectMyPrivacy, install Firewall IP -yes it works on 10.2-)

I am not sure if one can trust any 'don't be evil' pledges. With Apple products one is often required to use the appleid - and this can be used for tracking purposes. Also Apple is also a media company (iTunes among other things) so it's not just a pure hardware vendor. They too sit on a big heap of user data - beware. Also they are required to comply with local regulations - and these may not be compatible with your high expectations on matters of privacy and confidentiality.

I agree with this reasoning (although I'm not particularly privacy minded, and prefer Android and most Google products to iOS and iCloud).

The older tech companies like Apple and Microsoft have built business models with a different set of incentives around user data. Google, and particularly Facebook's, business models entirely rely on monetising user data.

My personal 'ranking' of a companies incentives to respect privacy is something like:

1. Microsoft 2. Apple 3. Amazon 4. Google 5. Facebook

Obviously this ranking is very debatable, but I agree business model incentives are a pretty good heuristic.

I'm curious why you would say that Microsoft has the most respect for privacy given Windows 10 telemetry. Is there a MacOS or iOS equivalent?

Nope, Apple even goes to great lengths to preserve user privacy in the data they collect (See Apple's use of differential privacy)

nb: ms employee

I would flip MS/Apple personally, but I understand the argument from the perspective of business incentives. Microsoft's incentives don't really care about collection of telemetry, but they have a strong incentive to keep customer data secure from outside entities (e.g., businesses on MS products losing corporate data to outsiders).

I wasn't ranking the company's practices so much as their incentives, based on their business model.

Microsoft derives most of its revenue from enterprise software, the others from consumers. Enterprises are generally more concerned with privacy of their data than consumers.

Arguably Apple have shown better practices of late. My ranking is more what one would expect 'in theory'.

Microsoft puts ads into Windows 10. With ads comes tracking.

Pre-Win10, pre-telemetry Microsoft was pretty much "hands-off", i.e. you bought the software and then they mostly left you alone.

Maybe hands off compared to now, but not compared to any other OS of the same era. If it's not activation licences (it's always amused me that performing a hardware upgrade on a cracked copy of XP was less troublesome than on a legally purchased copy), it's frequent notifications "you're not running our firewall", "you don't seem to be running our preferred antivirus", etc. And worse yet, Windows Updates often sneaks in updates for new software you didn't even request and often don't want: Bing search bars, Microsoft's shitty AV, MSN Messenger (back in the 90s), Silverlight, Windows 10(!!!) etc.

Compare that to Linux, OS X, BeOS, any of the BSDs, etc and the difference is night and day. Ok, Ubuntu had a stint of including Amazon results in their search but they were relatively transparent about that and it was quickly disabled by default after the backlash they, deservingly imo, received.

Windows has always been very "hands on" because it's designed for users who are very "hands off".

Apple is building the tools needed to better invade people's privacy, and those tools will proliferate, regardless of how responsibly Apple uses those tools themselves.

The pattern has repeated itself so many times throughout history. Technology developed with the best of intentions ends up getting used for bad.

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