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> If given no alternative choice that is evil-free, I will chose the least evil option as my vote.

I was on Android until the start of 2019 when my wife bought a new iPhone and I took her 6S. I'd had enough of Android spying on me.

My argument was the same as yours: Apple don't make (that much) money off my data so they MUST be better than Google. Right?

When I think about it, I honestly cannot say that they have better privacy than Google. How can I? They may market themselves as having that but Apple products and software aren't open source. And even if they were, how do I know that the version of some product that my phone is connected to is using a "non-evil" version at the backend.

I now don't believe any of them give a shit about privacy. At all! Not one bit! They say marketing-speak to reach the most lucrative audience and from a financial perspective it makes perfect sense.

However, there is/may be another choice! The Librem 5 could maybe just start something: I'm not in the queue for the first batch but by the start of next year I hope to have one.

I don't think services have to be open source for us to trust their privacy. In the context of Apple there has been enough conflict in the press with the FBI and other authorities that their actions speak enough I can trust them in the absence of source code.

And I think there is enough financial strategy for other companies - such as Samsung, who for example sell smart TVs at a loss to recoup money from Ad/tracking information sourced from the tv - to know that others are trying this while Apple doesn't seem to be.

on iPhones: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI–Apple_encryption_dispute

and Smart TVs: https://www.consumerreports.org/privacy/how-to-turn-off-smar...

>I don't think services have to be open source for us to trust their privacy.

I agree that we don't NEED open source but it would definitely help.

In all honesty I'm not sure any corporation could fully reassure everyone that they are trustworthy but being open source would at least show they are serious about it: they may have a back door but there's a risk it will be spotted!

That being said (and is pointed out by another commenter here) Microsoft are showing that on one hand they can giveth (open sourcing .NET) and on the other they taketh away (the incessant forced telemetry).

Now that I write this I believe the answer is something like the Librem 5 with self-hosted backend infrastructure (I'm not a employee but I will be buying one at the start of 2020 when my current contract expires - I wish I had backed them at the start :()... it's not ideal but I think it's the only solution going forward.

On a slight tangent, there was an experiment done with bookies and laymen to predict winners based on 5 points of data then scaled up to around 80 points of data and it showed that the bookies were no more accurate than the laymen regardless of how much data they had at their disposal (my Google-fu is not working today so I can't find the experiment and my figures may be a bit off).

I've asked on here before for a link to research that shows more data moves the needle enough to justify its collection... At the time of writing this, I do not believe it does.

>I honestly cannot say that they have better privacy than Google.

Yes you can. One is a data mining company that sells gateway drugs to its services, one is a hardware/os/framework company that transitioned in to an app marketplace company. Google makes money collecting data and targeting advertising. Apple makes a cut, like Visa, on transactions.

> Apple don't make (that much) money off my data so they MUST be better than Google.

What prevent them to do it later?

There's investigation about iOS/Android telemetry: https://www.consumeraffairs.com/news/android-devices-send-10...

> but it does at least employ actual security and privacy in many places.

It doesn't. It has total control over what you can use which is the least privacy and security friendly option you can have. That control means they can give up any privacy and security promises under a bit of government pressure, like Apple already did plenty of times. It's the same problem as with end-to-end encryption in vendor controlled binaries, they promise you it's there, but they can and will silently compromise it if pressured or decide to do so.

> Finally, their walled garden - although not perfect - is far safer than any other one out there.

Walled gardens are not inherently safer than anything out there.

Your argument is flawed. How do you know that Apple protects personal data better than others? I think it has the least experience and probably Google is the best in that area. Microsoft is maybe second.

Apple makes money on their HW and their media sales and application sales. You have to spend the money by choice for Apple to make money. What does most of the world pay Google for? At Google you are the product. Why is that so hard for everyone to understand. The same goes for FB.

Just because you pay for something doesn't make the incentives to screw you over to get even more money go away.

Does it? Various user-blaming shenanigans, when Apple messes up their HW design can serve as an example. "You're holding it wrong", "You're putting the phone in your pocket", "You're using keyboard wrong in a real world with dust and stuff", etc.

> Apple makes money on their HW and their media sales and application sales.

I don't see why they can't make some extra by making you the product as well.

Also, people who are into Apple are known to be willing to pay for stuff. A very lucrative group for everyone.

Please, be serious for a moment. It would have to be an amount of money to be worth the risk and therefore show up in quarterlies. Also there would have to be a buyer. And there would have to be a bunch of companies Apple shopped their data to. And thousands of employees and ex-employees. You really think Apple could keep a thousand ex-employees quiet? Think about it for a moment—if they were doing it, its leaking would be a certainty.

And if it leaked, Apple would be in very deep doo-doo with easily the largest class action the company has ever been hit with. It would be an unacceptable risk to even contemplate such a stupid idea. All for what, a few extra pennies?

HP is making money on HW. They are also making money from your data.

Adobe is making money from selling software. They also make money from their telemetry system.

etc...

I don't see a big difference, I would trust my data with the competent one. Especially when I look at Apple / China situation. It just shows what their actual focus is.

This is the case with all these corporations, making money is their primary concern. In addition their options are 'comply to our laws if you want to sell your products here' or 'no selling on this market'. Not justifying their actions, this just isn't a uniquely Apple thing.

> At Google you are the product.

Nothing prevent Microsoft to sells Windows Home/Pro as beta version of Enterprise and gets money & free QA.

If you pays money nothing guarantee your personal data will be used too.

That is mostly true, people are generally concerned with the way Windows 10 handles disabling telemetry and other privacy concerns such as automatically reinstalling or reenabling 'features' after updates. In addition you get the bonus of having ads in your start menu by default, a mess of features/software you can't remove and opting out of everything is quite the process.

You can of course sniff your network traffic to see what does get collected, and that way you at least know what they collected and you can imagine how it can be used and abused.

You can easily argue that Apple unlike those others hasn't shown signs in the direction of selling your personal data (directly or indirectly).

Google is an advertisement platform so they are the most experienced in using and selling your data (indirectly).

Microsoft is moving heavily in the SaaS direction with an insane amount of telemetry going out towards their servers from Windows 10. (If you have any concern for your privacy you will have to either disable that via powershell or 3rd party scripts/applications and verify that after every update it is still disabled.)

Facebook is infamous for their facebook pixel, they're looked upon as invading the privacy of everyone in multiple ways. So they're rightfully looked upon as an evil. They've sold and continu to sell private data directly and indirectly, including people who are not on their platform.

Finally Apple doesn't make their money using your private data (at least not on the same scale as those other companies mentioned). So you can view them as the least evil, at least when it comes to private data.

its so disingenuous to equate telemetry with tracking. The former is looking for app crashes, usability patterns and the latter is watching "what interests you" soas to serve you more of that. There is no reason to believe Microsoft is using Windows telemetry crash/threat data to shape Bing ad targeting. (Yes I understand browsing history is part of the overall telemetry. Microsoft would be smart to brand that separately than diagnostic data.)

The other main use of telemetry is to power active threat protection. Having it turned on on more machines makes everyone safer.

Google hast the most transparency for your data. Google was one of the first to allow you to download it. It shows you all services you use. It tells you constantly that this is the case.

It has the best 2fa.

google 2fa is the same as apples for the most part.

I don't really care how transparent they are if they still try to stalk me everywhere I go both online (with Google Analytics, ads, ReCaptcha, etc) and offline (buying card transaction data from MasterCard).

How about when Google tracked all users location even with the location service disabled?

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/aug/13/google-lo...

You don't see Apple doing shit like that... quite the opposite.

it has an appearance of it, but we have no idea if that's all the info and/or the real control we have

I disagree with you regarding Apple - they are the ones who started the trend of the ultimate walled gardens by letting the platform maker decide which software resides on your device. Neither Google nor Facebook nor Microsoft were inclined to do that. Apple single-handedly changed the narrative (in a significant way, since earlier there were tiny pockets of walled gardens like gaming consoles). The society is going to suffer in the long term because of that.

Apple still complied with the alphabets, according to Snowden. IIRC they even let some NSA infiltrate into their supply chain to inject malware at the firmware level on phones and laptops.

Do you have any source for the supply chain claim? All I can find is about the Bloomberg article, which isn't related.

> Google dropped their “don’t be evil” motto for a very damn good reason

They didn't drop it though.

>> "And remember… don’t be evil, and if you see something that you think isn’t right – speak up!"

https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-conduct/

You're right - but they certainly deemphasised it. Compare to an earlier version where it's the first three words: https://web.archive.org/web/20160202030302/https://abc.xyz/i...

The press at the time ran articles like "Google Removes 'Don't Be Evil' Clause From Its Code Of Conduct" (https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2018/05/google-removes-dont-be-ev...), even though they mention keeping that mention at the end.

They replaced it with “Don’t be not okay.”

your argument does not hold water since there are many more alternatives to use. You are in no way forced to use either of these services.

That doesn't really address the issue he raises though, you are somewhat forced to use modern devices if you wish to partake in the world/society. In addition if you get the choice at work between certain laptops and certain phones, you are absolutely forced to use those.

In addition if you look at the alternatives in the smartphone branch you get the choice between high-end android-based devices and iOS devices or outdated mid-range hardware with relatively poor support and you might not have all the apps you require.

In addition to that there aren't any services out there as well integrated as apples ecosystem is. (device to device), so if you want features like that you don't really have much of a choice outside of the big three.

> In addition to that there aren't any services out there as well integrated as apples ecosystem is. (device to device)

Yes, there are compromises to be made between convenience and freedom. You are arguing that you prefer convenience than freedom; congrats.

I am not arguing that at all, you are arguing that there are plenty of alternatives, implying they are just as good quality wise. They are simply not.

From almost all perspectives they are objectively worse, except for privacy. Features, Security and convenience are all significantly better on Apple, Microsoft and Google products.

This is not a value-statement, I'm not saying one approach is better than the other. This completely depends on what you personally value most, if you care exclusively about your privacy then you will have to sacrifice a lot of in other departments to achieve that, if it's worth that to you go for it.

The point I was arguing though; if you have to make a choice between these large corporations and what you care about most is your privacy, then Apple is probably your best bet.

> I am not arguing that at all, you are arguing that there are plenty of alternatives, implying they are just as good quality wise. They are simply not.

I am not implying that. You have alternatives, and they are less convenient, but more respectful of your rights. You get to make a choice, depending on a trade-off between your values.

You really think Google dropped their motto for a damn good reason? Really?

You can easily stay away from all four.

You can, but not easily.

It's 2019, it is easy these days. With GNU/Linux, DuckDuckGo, Mastodon, Matrix, XMPP, microG, F-Droid etc. it's just a matter of giving it a try. The hard thing isn't staying away from the big four - it's untangling yourself from all the network effects you already got yourself into.

That's why it's not easy. Most people are already entangled in those networks. They use Google Docs to write papers and presentations, they have an Android phone, a GMail address, and the websites they visit are filled with trackers for all sorts of things. It's entirely possible to avoid all of these things, but not easy. It requires a certain amount of technological savvy that most people don't have. It should be within easy reach of everybody, and it's really not.

For one, Apple, unlike Google and Facebook, is not an advertising company. Selling your data is not part of their business model

Apple has advertising service lines though - https://searchads.apple.com

Which is essentially selling data in the same way that other advertisers do…

> Which is essentially selling data in the same way that other advertisers do…

Not really: https://searchads.apple.com/privacy/

Can you show me an instance of Google selling your data?