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Comment by lumost | Hacker News Reader

I used to be of the mind that ad tech et. al. weren’t really hurting anyone, and that the more extreme examples of privacy offenses were simple edge cases.

That is until I switched to iOS and was given the option to hide my true email address, tell an app not to track me, and otherwise get visibility into just how much my data is getting sniffed for stupid reasons that have nothing to do with the service I’m using.

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Progress. What would be neat is to see how much data Apple is collecting about its customers after purchase. Why wouldnt we want to know this. Could Apple provide option to hide true email address, tell app do not track and give visibility into data being sniffed without also collecting vast amounts of user data itself. We cannot answer that question until we see the data they collect. I used to be of the mind that Apple was not really hurting anyone until it became clear they are competing with Google and Facebook. Even Apple competing with Microsoft is unsettling because that company has been aggressively acquiring user data, also trying to compete with Google. On issues of user data, these companies have more similarities than they do differences. They are all hoovering it up, albeit through different channels.

As someone who just bought their first iPad last week, I wonder the exact same thing. A nice cuddle from Apple telling me how they're protecting me from evil, but you hold all the same shit about me. So now I just trust a _different_ for profit company? Until when? At one stage Google wasn't evil, now it's evil as fuck.

Yes, Apple is a for profit company. On the side they are collecting your data for themselves and blocking others from getting it. Their profits come from products and services.

Google is a for profit company. On the side the offer products and services. Their profits come from selling your data to others.

Yes, I personally trust one over the other in this case. Although I don’t know what “for profit” has to do with anything. If it comes to Google or Government, geez, tough call that one.

> Their profits come from selling your data to others

It is a common misconception that FB and Google sell user data.

E.g. see https://www.facebook.com/help/152637448140583

"Google has also played a leadership role in creating industry standards for transparency and data protection. More than a dozen privacy employees at Google spoke to WIRED about how they make sense of the paradox of their work, insisting that there’s no internal pressure to compromise privacy protections to make a larger profit." -Wired (https://www.wired.com/story/wired-guide-personal-data-collec...)

Google also sells a plethora of physical products (Pixel devices, Nest devices, etc.) and services (Storage[Drive], YouTube premium, Stadia, Nest, Fibit, etc.).

This would be similar to calling Amazon "just a [book]store or a marketplace", whereas they also have their hands in Cloud Computing, logistics, grocery, iot, etc.

They absolutely sell the multi-feature profile of you from that data, and the data merchants absolutely tie it together then resell it to everyone. In turn, a bank can make or break your ability to buy a home with it. Fintechs helping make credit decisions get that from both, directly and indirectly, and even better when doing a bit of correlation for the bank. Microsoft and Amazon no real help, Apple even less.

Note: Those products by and large all permit and enrich surveillance aggregation of the picture of you, and use with/for third parties/ads. It’s creepy how fast and accurate the multidimensional take has become.

So you're saying that by tracking people we can avoid people buying homes they can't afford and causing a market crash?

Yes, so long as we don’t mind machines also getting that wrong.

...more than humans do currently

> They absolutely sell the multi-feature profile of you from that data

I'd like to learn more. Do you have a source for that?

Not without breaking NDAs. Also not saying you’re in the know, but people in the know start source hunting when truth leaks.

FWIW, I’ve seen you comment on Google email and ads. From what I am aware of, your information on what was/wasn’t and is/isn’t done has been… optimistically colored. I stayed out of it. But you could be less confident in some of these and/or disclose more readily that you are coming with a pro-employer lens while (you say) being far enough from it you might not know for sure.

s/selling your data to others/selling access to you to others/

By collecting data about you, usually without you being consciously aware of it, they can offer access not just to a name/address but to a "profile". You are being profiled.

You are being aggressively profiled. They have taken steps to profile even when safari etc put in hurdles.

> Google is a for profit company. On the side the offer products and services. Their profits come from selling your data to others.

Google does not sell the data to others. (In fact, much of Google's profits would remain intact even without any user data. That is the great thing about search ads -- the user tells you exactly what they want. There is no need to guess)

No, but a history of what you’ve previously searched massively improves search results in just a few queries.

At least that's the claim. I don't think that Google's search results are that much better than Duckduckgo's, at least for queries where I'm not searching for local businesses.

Fact is despite all the tracking search results for me and many others are significantly worse than they used to.

YMMW and what matters for me might not matter for everyone and weeding spam might be harder than before but:

Double quotes used to work reliably.

And yet…

“Get a copy of the data associated with your Apple ID account”

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208502

https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/talkingtech/2018/05/04/a...

https://www.zdnet.com/article/apple-data-collection-stored-r...

https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/en-ww/

https://www.apple.com/legal/transparency/account-preservatio...

Looks like they set this up in response to GDPR.

Interesting how the communications services create a pen register by default.

A big difference is that Apple makes money by selling me devices. Google and Facebook make money by manipulating me into buying their customer's products.

Incentives matter.

Isn't it not entirely out of reason to wonder if Apple could also want to monetize their user data ?

No. Apple could change directions. The only way to guarantee data won't be used is to not put it on anyone else's computer.

They already are by selling privacy as a "feature".

As the ad tech person interviewed in the article called it, "privacywashing" (as in "greenwashing" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_washing).

Apple already hands your data over to the US and Chinese government.

We wouldn't know about it, but they were caught.

It's just marketing.

But Apple also makes money by selling you access to content. By extension, they are motivated to motivate you to buy said content. Having no goodwill left for any of them, I see no reason to assume that they would not resort to other forms of manipulation. In fact, from their own past, we know they are very happy to employ shady tactics as seen in for example the Apple-Google-Intel-Adobe Collusion case, the Batterygate lawsuits, ongoing right of repair cases etc.

Apple finds it increasingly difficult to convince people to upgrade their phones each and every year. I expect that hardware revenue will be declining over time and will be replaced with revenue generated from services like AppStore, Music subscriptions, iCloud, TV, games and more.

You can see this trend quite clearly already: in 2012 Apple generated only 6% of its revenue from services while in 2020 it was 20%. Services tend to be also more profitable compared to hardware.

Your thesis is 1/2 wrong, the hardware slice isn’t declining, they’re baking a bigger pie.

iPhone 12 was biggest super cycle since iPhone 7. It’s not that hardware revenue is declining so much as the flywheel is spun up for the ecosystem.

… [2021] a record-breaking year for Apple, beating the previous full-year record of 231 million units sold in 2015.

Apple is also benefiting from a higher average selling price, with ASPs said to be trending "higher on a positive mix" for the iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 Pro Max.

https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/03/22/iphone-12-supercy...

Locked down devices. Then making more money from selling subscriptions, developer certificates, running "app stores", advertising services, etc.

To get the full functionality from the device, it is difficult to avoid obtaining an "AppleID". There is an "incentive" for users to sacrifice privacy and control to Apple. That appears to be intentional. Then the after purchase data collection and storage begins.

I am glad these practices have not spread across the entire hardware industry. Imagine buying an SBC and being asked to purchase an "RPi Developer Certificate" or register a "SiFiveID".

You cannot use 90% of the capabilities of most software-running appliances w/o agreeing to be individual-consumer-behavior tracked and resold to third party marketers. Try to turn on a new Samsung, LG, Sony, read the fine print. This model is not in Apple’s agreements.

Well…

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205223

Incentives indeed matter, and incentives could change quickly once volume and value of Apple's collected data reach a critical point. But no one will be able to take their data back.

Apple's biggest engine for growth is services. Even they are clear about that.

Well, good, but you traded one bad apple for another. Apple is in the process of locking down freedom. And while you might not be tracked by Google, your quality of life in a closed ecosystem is just as bad in other ways. How many people have to contend with iCloud endlessly begging for money because they took a few photos of their child?

Isn't iCloud data backed up on Chinese servers? I'm pretty sure that means you're being spied on.

This is not to mention the waste generated by Apple actively fighting the right to repair.

So, good, Google needs to go. But so do the tech giants.

> Isn't iCloud data backed up on Chinese servers? I'm pretty sure that means you're being spied on.

Are you thinking of Apple’s switch in 2018 to storing icloud data in China for users in China?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICloud

> In February 2018, Apple announced that iCloud users in China would have their data, including encryption data, on servers called “云上贵州” located in the country to comply with local regulations. This raised concerns from human rights activists who claim that it may be used to track dissidents.

From some quick reading it looks like apple “has six data centers in the United States, two in Denmark, and three in Asia” as well as use of the major cloud providers. I’m not sure if there are restrictions on where or how data is stored for people not located in China though. I am assuming so.

I don't think I've ever had iCloud "beg me for money". I've had it where iCloud tells me I am about to run out of space and should probably buy more, which seems reasonable.

iCloud data is backed up on Chinese servers? Without being E2EE to boot? Do you have a source on this?

If consumers seriously want easily repairable devices, it seems like such a phone would compete easily in the free market.

Where on earth are you pulling the 'begging for money' from? I've never seen that happen before.

You are ultimately arguing that a business protecting my data, while also using it themselves to sell me their own products, is just as bad in other ways as a company taking my data and using it to manipulate election results, to sell to shady companies and to market the shit out of me.

iOS now hawks iCloud very aggressively. They tricked my iPad-using grandmother into paying for a storage plan she didn't need.

They do indeed. And it’s difficult for people to figure out how to get the number down instead of paying more. Personally, I have iCloud sync entirely turned off, and just manually backup the few things I actually care about.

And because Apple pretends your iPhone or iPad aren't real computers, backing things up off them is a huge pain in the ass.

When you get close to the 5gb limit they will hassle the fuck out of you by send you notifications and emails again and again. There is no "Please leave me alone, it is fine!" button/setting regarding that.

> Isn't iCloud data backed up on Chinese servers?

Honestly, this sounds like you are lying intentionally to spread misinformation.

You are clearly informed and have a strong opinion. I find it hard to believe that you don’t know that only Chinese users data is backed up on Chinese servers.

If I’m wrong and you didn’t know this, please accept my apology in advance.

My tipping point was noticing that about 30% of my DNS traffic on my home network was Android devices calling out to tracking and advertising networks. Moving to iOS has dropped that dramatically, more than an order of magnitude.

The fact that we're now seeing multiple lawsuits, PR campaigns, and lobbying to damage Apple since they put a requirement to disclose privacy details in the App Store shows how much surveillance capitalism has twisted the world.

An alternative to giving your money to one of the largest tax-dodgers on the planet is a $30 raspberry pi with "pi-hole" installed.

Browsing on my phone at home with all those ad networks blocked okay... until you go outside your home network and get all the ads again. It's almost made my stop using my phone outside of my home network.

I set up Tailscale on Android to use my Pihole from anywhere. Works pretty well.

That is why I have an IPSEC connection back to my home from work, so I can use my internal DNS with DNSBL blocklist. (be careful, few employers will allow such a setup).

The top list seems like a reflection of market share: fls-eu.amazon.de, sessions.bugsnag.com, googleads.g.doubleclick.net, data.mistat.intl.xiaomi.com, app-measurement.com, in.treasuredata.com ..

For ad blocking outside the home, install WireGuard on the RPi and configure it to use pihole as its DNS server. Install script should prompt you to do this automatically if it detects pihole is installed.

Then just connect your WireGuard client on your phone to the endpoint

Use something like freedns.afraid.org for dynamic IP address support

If you already own a domain, you can also pretty trivially (<10 lines of bash) implement your own dynamic IP address support with your DNS providers (my solution uses Cloudflare).

In a nutshell: `update-dns get-my-current-external-ip-address $MY_DOMAIN_NAME`

You can have a subdomain like `vpn.yourwebsite.com` point to your residential IP. It may take a bit of fussing to get the ports and such right. But otherwise it's "just worked" for me, for the last 6 months.

Useful if you want to remove the dependency on yet-another-service-provider that can go out of business (the dynamic-dns people).

You can just use an adblocking DNS server I think?

Or you can use nextdns and have DNS protection on any network you’re on.

They have a paid option that gives you a higher query quota.

Apple's effective tax rate is actually higher than many of its peers, and higher than the sector on average.

All multinationals need strong tax enforcement, but this isn't actually one where Apple is really any worse than others (and better than many).

https://finbox.com/NASDAQGS:AAPL/explorer/effect_tax_rate

Apple has also banned more Apps to protect a Chinese dictatorship than many of it's peers.

That's fine. There just seemed to be an unnecessarily large amount of tugging of Apple's dick in the top of the thread, and I wanted to suggest an alternative.

Don’t worry, DoH will fix that pi hole loophole

Yep. This is the problem - DoH (using Google or CloudFlare) is just privacy-washing even more intrusion. The aversion that companies have to merely being required to label their fuckery shows what a problem we have.

I used to run a Pi-Hole for a long time, but then I realized I was trading my day to day tech job, to screwing around with Pi-Hole (along with other RPi's in my house) on my personal time. And yes, I run a WireGuard VPN too and could/have turn on WG to tunnel back to my Pi-Hole.

Switched over to NextDNS, so that my ad blocking is on the macro network too. I'm satisfied. My wife is not, since her trashy "click here" links don't work half the time. :) Tells me it is working just fine.

https://nextdns.io

My NextDNS dashboard - https://i.imgur.com/bjJ9OZH.png (My garage door opener is a chatty bastard)

Isn't that just shifting the tracking to another site? Now nextdns.io knows everything that you're doing.

And the SDK in your device knows, the hardware manufacturer knows, your cell carrier knows, etc.... just trying to clean up my experience in lessening ads on in my UI.

Until an EMP takes us back to the Stone Age, it is really hard not to be tracked on the internet.

Source - I used to work for a company that does the tracking.

> An alternative to giving your money to one of the largest tax-dodgers on the planet is a $30 raspberry pi with "pi-hole" installed.

Try to be more condescending, kid. It'll make your point so much more effective if you think I don't know what DNS filtering is.

Trying to spackle over social, economic, and political problems with technical hacks doesn't solve the underlying issue.

Ive installed pihole at home and it reports hundreds of thousands of blocked requests a day. And this isn't counting everything the browser adblockers are stopping. We are a family of four, with really only the adults using the network an average amount. It's insane.

Out of curiosity what about having those features changed your opinion? I'm in a similar camp to your original viewpoint and what stood out from your story is that it doesn't seem like you discovered any significant damage so much as just gained new features to limit what others labeled as damage on the off chance they're right. Not trying to be confrontational but I feel like, when I lurk here, my view is the minority and so I think it's interesting to hear the thought process of a convert from my camp.

Where does this option to hide my email address appear? Twice I've tried to use Apple Pay and Apple said they'd share my email address if I continued. There was no option to opt out.

At least one place: If you use "Sign-In With Apple", you'll get an option use a proxy e-mail address to register for the relevant service or website.

Related, but different: There's a new proxying web browsing service for Safari called "Safe Browsing": https://www.macrumors.com/2021/02/11/ios-14-5-beta-safe-brow...

(edit: clarity)

Careful. Your Apple data is being given away to Chinese dictatorships and the US government.

You don't actually know if your data is given away. We only learn after Apple is caught.

> Your Apple data is being given away to Chinese dictatorships

Only if you live in China, which is well known to be a surveillance state with access to all personal data.

> and the US government.

Yes, but only by court order, rule which applies to every US company. This is a problem, but not one with Apple.

> You don't actually know if your data is given away. We only learn after Apple is caught.

True for every company in the world.

You make this sound like a problem with Apple, but these are problems with the US and Chinese governments.

‘Can I get a lick of your ice-cream’. Their ads have gotten good all of a sudden again (the irony of that being the whole ad is to stop other ads).

https://youtu.be/8w4qPUSG17Y

I don't care much about tracking, but this ad is very effective. It's kinda dishonest about what tracking is (it's not bunch of people making job and purchase decisions for you, come on). But effective.

No one made any decision for the main character. A shop employee recommended an anti itch cream. It looked like he asked her to. The others snooped and gave out his information.

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