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Sadly also Apple collects data on their users. Last year around 300TB a day on what users search for, which apps they use, how many times, where you click and navigate through the OS and in the apps, etc. :(

I’d love to learn more

This is something all businesses do. The issue is whether or not they sell that information.

Why is that "the issue"? There are many other problems with excessive telemetry besides data being sold to third parties. Besides, both Google and Apple claim that they don't sell telemetry data to third parties, so how is that aspect of the issue even relevant here?

Well, the question I always ask is who has more to gain (financially) from selling user telemetry: Apple or Google?

Well, ok but Apple also

- does not use that data to sell stuff to you.

- don't have a reason to profile you and store those profiles constantly updated.

- don't have a reason to "follow" you across the web everywhere you go to update that profile.

Just having that profile on you makes a company a liability. C you trust a company that makes money solely based on the information they collect about you to make decisions that benefit you? or your privacy and security?

Any third party that would pay google enough for the data would probably be seen by Alphabet as a company ripe for disruption.

Important questions:

1. Do they share this data with people?

2. Is this data anonymized?

3. Is this data directly monetized, or otherwise give incentives to violate user privacy?

Apple is a business like any other, all it will take is for the right financial incentives for them to engage in data sharing if they don't already.

Sure, but what do you think those incentives could probably be for a company that makes its living based not on data collection but selling physical products whose 'best product is now privacy' according to the post, and who are more profitable than anyone else?

Profit, pure and simple. Just because they're profitable, does not mean they will not seek other avenues of revenue. I won't pretend to be able to predict the future, but markets shift, and should Apple find themselves in less favorable position than the one they're in today, I'd have a hard time believing they wouldn't sell user data.

Google was once the "don't be evil" company.

There is a financial incentive to NOT share data because there is a demand in the market for privacy. Apple can pursue this market because they charge for hardware. Google had no way of making money on privacy because they don’t sell a physical product.

So it is simple: Apple has a choice. Google doesn’t.

> There is a financial incentive to NOT share data because there is a demand in the market for privacy

Where? I can't identify a single non-tech-oriented person in my life who makes phone purchasing decisions based off of vague notions like privacy.

In fact, I'd say that the market does not demand privacy, it is ambivalent to it. I don't agree with ambivalence, but I also don't see consumers making privacy-minded purchases, either.

As long as the money is flowing in. I don't think people will be buying $1500 smartphones in a recession.

Few people in America pay full price for the phone. All of the carriers offer zero percent interest payment plans as does Apple. Yes I know it’s paying the full price but psychologically, most people only care about the monthly amount.

I'd argue that other questions around how the data is:

- handled

- available for access by employees

- retained, deleted, and stored

etc.. are at least as important for your privacy.

As someone who works in security, I am as concerned or more about the seemingly inevitable breach's impact on my privacy.

Apple, along with Google and other companies, gives the government access to pretty much all of our data: https://www.theverge.com/2013/6/6/4403868/nsa-fbi-mine-data-...

Yep, that's why our data is a liability for them, thus they are trying to collect as less as possible.

Which, is also the main argument of the OP for preferring Apple.

Apple gives the government a backdoor into your iPhone. So I'd argue that you don't have privacy when you use an iPhone, period. Same goes for any smartphone, really.

I'd guess that Apple really collects less data because they want to preserve your battery life, not your privacy.

Sorry, how has Apple given the gov’t a backdoor?

Source?

Sources? I hear this way too often.

Please provide a source or don’t post unsubstantiated comments.

"Snowden: FBI Saying It Can't Unlock iPhone is 'Bullsh'"

http://fortune.com/2016/03/09/snowden-fbi-apple-iphone/

That comment was based on the title of the article I linked to above: "Secret program gives NSA, FBI backdoor access to Apple, Google, Facebook, Microsoft data".

I assumed that PRISM data came from a "backdoor" it had to iPhones. There's no proof that PRISM data didn't come from a backdoor to iPhones. But there's no proof it did come from a backdoor either. So I'll take back that comment.

As far as I'm aware, none of those companies knowingly gave that information over to the NSA. In Google's example, the NSA had tapped their inter-datacenter fiber lines to steal the data. That's why all inter-datacenter traffic at Google is always encrypted now.

Do you have a source for this?

> Facebook with asking for/getting insane levels of permissions from Android for their apps.

Why then use the app in the first place? I mean, the mobile sites of fb are pretty much functional to me. (Admittably, I am happy to have no notifications on my phone outside sms and calls)

They've been progressively gimping the mobile site for a while. Now you can't use messenger from the mobile site, for zero good reason as far as I can tell. They just want to force people into using the app where they can harvest more data.

I regularly use the mobile site messenger - you have to request a desktop site with m.facebook and the overlay won't show.

I suspect it'd be trivial to remove the overlay with CSS.

mbasic.facebook.com still has messenger built in and doesnt take ages to load

Thanks so much. I've been using m.facebook.com but they removed the messenger from there. I've been using messenger lite because it doesn't require as many permissions and is just so much lighter to use, but it lacks one of the most important things to me: gifs

privacy, battery life and ram >>> gifs.

In my experience, m.facebook.com and mbasic.facebook.com return far less content than the full web page. And mbasic gets the least.

There have been times when mbasic has shown me two items, and that's it. Switching to m returned more. But only going to the full www showed me everything going on.

So now I restrict myself to using Facebook just one day a week. It's not as good as cutting Facebook off entirely, but it at least reduces some of its data gathering on me.

You might do it on a big computer if you have one. I keep Facebook in a fluid instance on my Mac. About 3 times in the past few years I’ve wished I had my login on my phone to get an address for an event or something, but haven’t gone there since I can remember. I don’t really use messenger though.

Have you tried Messenger Lite? I don't know about privacy implications of having it alone on your phone, no other FB apps, but it's quite good.

Google (YouTube, Search) and LinkedIn are doing that too. Especially if you are also using FireFox. Subtle differences in functionality, things missing here and there. Still I am opting for the web versions with my privacy settings and Privacy Badger, etc. LinkedIn app has a builtin Chromium browser that you can't control and may have custom code additions.

You can still go to m.facebook.com and then request desktop version to get access to messenger. But this is annoying, and most people aren’t aware of workaround like this.

+1 and even better: http://mbasic.facebook.com loads extremely fast and includes messenger.

I don't have a Facebook account. But the app is bundled with my 'unlocked' LG G5, and there's no option in the Play store to uninstall it. Only "update", which I refuse to do.

I ended up not using the app but I know lots of non-tech people who are unaware and so carry on. That for me isn't great.

However, the most Apple's system is close sourced, meaning if they want to do something, you're still defenseless. There are no Eden now, you need to protect yourself.

People's will towards privacy is still weak, they don't know what those company could do with that amount of data. Ignorant, that's why those company keep doing what they do.

It's just like running a restaurant, as long as people can't see disgusting thing in their food, then everything will be fine and dandy, no matter how unhygienic the kitchen was.

Sad.

Most good stuff is closed source now. It is what it is.

It boils down to trust. Do you trust Google? Do you trust Apple?

I trust Google to care very much about security. I also trust that they are gathering as much information as they can about me. Even as a paid customer. It’s baked into their business model.

I trust Apple to care very much about security. I also trust that they fundamentally believe in privacy and are not gathering large swaths of data about me, and are doing what they can to keep others from doing so if I play in their garden. It’s baked into their business model.

To me it boils down to this. At some level, there is a point where you have to trust people/companies. I don’t have time to spend researching and installing custom software to protect privacy. I fully understand that there are people here who have the time to devote to that or want to spend time doing that, but it’s not practical for most people to really spend much time on it.

So, given that I have to trust someone (and for 99% of people on the planet this is also true) I choose to trust Apple.

> It boils down to trust. Do you trust Google? Do you trust Apple?

Why don't boil down even further? How comfortable you are when you put your own security on other people's hand? Do you trust others will protect you no matter what? Do you trust others will completely be honest with you no matter what?

I don't know about you, but for me, I always trying to figure out the detail of the thing that will be rely on, even it's just a door alarm. Only after that, I can then tell whether or not I trust it.

If I understand you correctly, I can say that your "trust" is actually a form of trade off: I want to use the awesome __________ Phone, so I can ______________. For that, I could take some shit from __________ as long as they don't ______________.

However, that just means you've convinced yourself to trust something, hardly anything else.

And speak of "business model", many company was cool and awesome when it's young. Things change.

So, if it's a question: Do you trust Google? Do you trust Apple? Both no. I kept my file encrypted when uploading to Google Drive, and I don't use iCloud at all. I have 16 different Google accounts and 3 Apple accounts, each for different things, and I replace most of then every two years (Or when Google start to ask me for my phone number).

My advise: Don't dip yourself into that situation when you have to make a choice like that.

I did the same and now I'm feeling the same way.

Currently I'm running with an MS Lumia 950 and when necessary, I'll switch back to Android. I've completely removed all my social media apps on both phones.

The most recent reason I needed to switch back to my OnePlus 2 was because my hockey manager now uses Venmo to accept payment for the upcoming season. I was pissed when I found out Venmo won't allow you to process payments from your desktop account anymore. You are forced to download and install the Android app, and then send money that way.

It just feels so invasive. I felt like they were saying, "We can't get the data we want on your PC, so we'll force you to download and install the app, and in the process, give us the permissions we want to get to your data.

Can you expand on the Lineage OS DNS issues?

I'd read previously that Lineage's DNS is hardwired into Google's DNS due to Google tying their DNS into pretty much everything.

Check out the comments here: https://www.xda-developers.com/e-google-free-lineageos-fork-...

There's at least one other company trying to provide a solution https://puri.sm/shop/librem-5/

Sony + Sailfish OS could also be an option since support for Sailfish is official.

Have you checked out Facebook Lite and Messenger Lite? I haven't looked into it much but it's possible they request less permissions as the app is built to have limited functionalities.

It’s still feeding Facebook the company and ultimately rewarding privacy-unfriendly business models.

for anyone mentioning Facebook Lite & Messenger Lite: stop, stop using them right away, the 2 apps enable all permissions without asking (because Android is saying it needs to enable all for old apps, WHAT?) also on Android, you can't share a photo to Facebook Messenger without granting at least Storage permission or Photo permission (which is not the case on Instagram)

oh wow, thanks for that!

Apple might offer better privacy than Google or Facebook now, but it can change easily because privacy is not their core product.

I have high hopes for Librem 5 where privacy of user is the core product of the company.

https://puri.sm/shop/librem-5/

You're not free until you're libre.

Purism and Tuxedo Computers are two otions for mobile, laptop, and desktop systems without preinstalled surveillance capitalism.

https://puri.sm

https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/en

(No association.)