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Comment by rock_hard | Hacker News Reader

Apple cares about privacy so much, they let Google do the dirty part of the business and just take the checks.

Ignoring that you can change the search engine, what Google knows about a user using Google search on an iPhone, and a user using search on a Google Play Android device are extraordinarily different. Let's not pretend at some false equivalency here.

Apple says 'Privacy is a Human right' and continuously positioned/marketed itself as the champion of privacy especially over last year when FB and GOOG are in news reg. various privacy violation issues. Now, the article estimates over 10% of profits made by Apple are from Google because it sets Google as default search engine on a browser which comes default. So, Apple doesn't really believe what it says to the world based on its actions here and the way it folded in China reg. iCloud.

No, they are exactly the same. Despite what Apple marketing would like you to believe, the search app collects the same information when you perform the same actions on both devices.

Is it incorrect to believe that there’s more telemetry sent to Google on an Android device vs an iPhone? IIRC, Google specific cookies in Chrome desktop can’t necessarily be turned off by typical methods so can we infer that a device running Android has more monitoring a la that vein than an iPhone?

Yes, it is incorrect. Using Chrome on Android also sends the exact same information as Chrome on iOS.

The default browser for iOS is Safari whose default search engine is Google. Does the comparison hold true still?

Up to the user. On Android, the user does not even need to sign in to an account to use the device. On iOS, you must sign into an Apple ID (which, unlike a Google or Facebook account, can never be deleted). Until very recently, you had to provide a credit card to download any apps at all onto your iPhone. This was never the case on Google Play Android devices.

"the search app"

Genuinely - what's this on iOS? I don't recall ever having used a "search app" on my iPhone.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/google/id284815942?mt=8

Just as there is a Google search app on Android (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.and...) there is a Google search app on iOS. They collect the same information when you perform the same actions, though many irrationally believe otherwise.

Similarly, the Google search web app collects exactly the same information on both platforms.

A lot of things are getting conflated in this discussion. We are discussing the default search if you type a non-URL in the address bar of Safari. This is what Google is paying for, and while it ends up on a website with the limited ability to track that a website has, the sphere of data that Google has is just a tiny pittance compared to on a Play Store device (where they know essentially everything).

People are bringing up the Google Search app, Chrome for iOS, etc. Irrelevant.

> the sphere of data that Google has is just a tiny pittance compared to on a Play Store device (where they know essentially everything)

They know fewer things than Apple knows for people who never opt in to any of the opt in settings and leave opt out settings alone. On a Play Store device, AGPS data collection is opt in. On iOS, it is not even opt out — you can't even disable it.

Play Store devices look even better when you consider what can be opted out of by setting default apps and by installing system wide ad blockers.

Another conflation. I was specifically talking about what Google knows. By using an iOS device, even if I use Google Search their universe of knowledge about me collapses.

Even if I accept the notion that Apple collects more data than Google (which is dubious), Google's intentions with that data are far more insidious. I simply trust Apple a lot more as well.

> Even if I accept the notion that Apple collects more data than Google (which is dubious)

I showed you exactly how they collect more data. Not believing the evidence is just an example of how marketing can result in brainwashing.

You trust Apple more for the same reason, even though they have repeatedly lied to you. Remember this? "Unlike our competitors, Apple cannot bypass your passcode and therefore cannot access this data. So it's not technically feasible for us to respond to government warrants for the extraction of this data from devices in their possession running iOS 8." [1] That no longer appears on the linked Apple "privacy" page, which turned out to be nothing more than a marketing page that made claims shown to be false by the FBI. A real privacy page would have announced the changes explaining that user's data isn't as private as originally claimed with just as much fanfare instead of updating without notice.

[1] https://gizmodo.com/apple-wont-turn-over-your-phones-data-to...

Surely Google gets more data from Android. But it does get much more data on iOS than Apple would have you believe. Case in point - Apple ostensibly prevents apps from uniquely identifying devices other than through ‘safe’ ad and vendor-specific ids. But just implement Google Firebase Anonymous Authentication in an app and try to get it to forget your id. you can delete the app and all other apps from same vendor, reset your ad id, set ‘limit tracking’ delete all google apps, clear google logins & passwords on your device, update the iOS, and when you reinstall it still knows who you are. Short of wiping the phone completely (which I haven’t tried bc of the hassle) Google appears to not only uniquely identify your device in a pretty sticky way, but to sell & give away this capability to anybody who wants it.

Does it really work that way? Does Apple let Google use tracking cookies, browser fingerprinting, account information and/or some unique user identifiers for these searches? Are these requests even made from the phone directly or are they piped through Apple's servers? (I'm not talking about Safari but things like Siri and Spotlight.)

Google search seems to be deteorating but it is still the best one out there. I tried to switch to DDG and found myself using the !g trick to get google result way too often.

I started using it a few months ago and I find it's good enough probably 90% of the time. It's often enough that it's not really a pain.

In my experience, for anything technical (code problems, datasheets, component info or news) Google gets me the info I want much faster than DDG. I still have DDG as my default, but very often search again by Google.

For me it's perfect: you get a three-character penalty to remind you that you're sacrificing your privacy for convenience. Up-front cost. I do the same with social apps on my phone, I put them far off right on the dashboard, in a folder. That way, it's a little bit annoying. Just a little.

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