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True, but arguably they are making spying harder with each ios release. If profiling and ads were their bread and butter, they would act differently.

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It may not be their "bread and butter", but that doesn't mean they don't do it. Every time I see somebody talking about Google spying on users but 'X' company doesn't do it, I start to think there just a fanboy to Apple or whatever the company in question is. You should just assume EVERYBODY is spying. Just because it isn't their primary source of revenue, doesn't mean it isn't a source of revenue at all or isn't of value to them.

There are levels of "spying".

There is "enable microphone, listen in on conversations and adjust ad preferences" and "upload all photos in the background for analysis" and "check the clipboard for interesting stuff every few seconds"

Then there is just normal telemetry, anonymised and used for internal product development.

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