Apple’s deal with Google is lucrative, but it's hard to square with its values
inc.com
inc.com
26% of Apple's profit comes from Google.
[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/267728/apples-net-income...
All these companies care about is money.
This illusion has been sustaining a brand loyalty for several years while getting away with privacy contradicting moves, and always being defended by its loyalists. I say loyalists instead of customers to make a distinction.
What's happening now is the moves are becoming increasingly egregious, and what we're seeing is a slight awakening to the reality of the situation, that the 'stance' had been nothing more than a grab for user control (in turn to sustain profits)
At this point it's either abandon ship, or make petitions and opinion pieces such as TFA.
Apple was different, and it all stemmed from Jobs. The tech world lost a lot more than just innovative products when he passed. Cook has done an incredible job at getting Apple to where they are as a company, but they've truly lost their way in the meantime.
Have you considered the possibility that your opinion is that of a minority.
In fact, I'd daresay the opinion you've expressed is "that of a minority".
(All of this is leaving aside the fact that you apparently didn't read my very brief comment before responding to it, in which I talk about massive amounts of consumer surplus being created)
People here talk about DDG but the search quality has never been there for me.
That is not the problem, at least as far as I am concern. They have no problem with making money. We dont live in a communistic world.
I have a problem with them pointing their fingers and using media to start a cultural war against others, claims to have moral high ground with their PR spin all while sucking up as much money as possible against their own so called values.
This is exactly the same as Google in early 00s. The we dont do evil and self claim righteousness. Or Hypocrite.
So dont cry foul when all the other companies are working together against you.
Part of Apple’s business was, until recently, marketing itself as a privacy-oriented company. That does not mean it is a privacy-oriented company.
It’s about as real as the old commercials from banks and insurance providers where they market themselves as your best friend or always being there when you need them, thereby easing the consumer from their worries.
Sent from my iPhone
It's essentially the same question as "why couldn't they just make DDG the default search on Safari": because it would hurt their pocketbook
Additionally I’d say that the number of users switching over the search results of google vs DDG is approximately zero ;)
^ Of course in second order there is an added value of being able to subdivide iPhone users in smaller segments which might add some value (to google). But I’d bet that loosing out on >95% of those searches would be bad for google. Especially strategically as a significant fraction of their former income would then fund someone else’s search engine development. This sounds eerily like Intel’s refusal to build the chips Apple wanted, which pretty much funded TSMC’s technical advantage. And back then nobody knew that those would go into a >200bn$/year product with 30% margins.
I don't follow you here. Is the claim that Google's tracking of users is not for the purposes of increasing revenue? Why else would they be doing it, particularly given the PR cost?
> iPhone searches are valuable because iPhone users tend to have higher disposable income
I don't understand how this is relevant. IPhone users do indeed have higher ARPUs for this reason. Why would that make them immune to the assumed increase in per-user revenue that tracking provides to Google? Ie, the effect you're describing (disposable income of user) is orthogonal to the one I'm describing (tracking techniques used on user), and both are inputs to the ARPU equation.
CSAM, Google deal, Macs phoning home...
They desire money and control and nothing else.
Wake up, Apple fans.
In comparison to the alternative?
>Google not only made it difficult for smartphone users to keep their location data private, but that it was a conscious decision that came down the company’s hierarchy, a set of unredacted internal Google correspondence has appeared to show.
Business Insider adds that the documents reveal how Google pressured phone manufacturers to keep the privacy settings hidden because these were being frequently accessed by users.
https://www.techradar.com/news/google-accused-of-hiding-priv...
Google literally buys copies of everyone's credit/debit card transaction data so they can spy on what you do in the real world as much as they spy on what you do online.
>Of course, Google has been able to track your location using Google Maps for a long time. Since 2014, it has used that information to provide advertisers with information on how often people visit their stores. But store visits aren’t purchases, so, as Google said in a blog post on its new service for marketers, it has partnered with “third parties” that give them access to 70 percent of all credit and debit card purchases.
https://www.technologyreview.com/2017/05/25/242717/google-no...
Google literally pioneered the privacy shredding surveillance capitalism business model.
>As the pioneer of surveillance capitalism, Google launched an unprecedented market operation into the unmapped spaces of the internet, where it faced few impediments from law or competitors, like an invasive species in a landscape free of natural predators.
Surveillance capitalists quickly realized that they could do anything they wanted, and they did.
https://longreads.com/2019/09/05/how-google-discovered-the-v...
Your adoration of a fruit themed capital construct is empowering a company that is just as malignant.
I like Nintendo games, but I'm not blind enough to overlook the horrible things they do to fans.
I get that it can be an almost religious or celebrity experience for some, but don't be a single-party / single-issue voter with your adoration of fruit. It's not healthy for our freedom.
Only one of the two companies intentionally buys copies of everyone's credit/debit card data, intentionally hides privacy settings from users, and intentionally ignores those settings when users do manage to find them.
>Newly unredacted documents in a lawsuit against Google reveal that the company's own executives and engineers knew just how difficult the company had made it for smartphone users to keep their location data private.
Google employees appeared to recognize that users were frustrated by the company's aggressive data collection practices, potentially hurting its business.
"Fail #2: I should be able to get my location on my phone without sharing that information with Google," one employee said.
"This may be how Apple is eating our lunch," they added, saying Apple was "much more likely" to let users take advantage of location-based apps and services on their phones without sharing the data with Apple.
https://news.yahoo.com/apple-eating-lunch-google-employees-0...
The parent comment of the thread said "Apple doesn't care about consumer privacy", in response to the article's claim about Apple's values. It didn't say that it cared _less_ than Google. You're literally the only one in this thread talking about the relative amount that they care, to the point that you're just arguing with yourself.
Sometimes the values can be in conflict where the choices will all have negative impacts and that can be tricky to navigate.
(To head off the inevitable-but-nonsensical response that averting an employee revolt helps the bottom line...that's trivially true, but turns the statement into a tautological one, defining a "corporation" as some formless void that somehow doesn't include anyone making the decisions).
[1] https://www.nytimes.com › google-pentagon-project-maven
Google doesn't sell a workstation and big screen.
* OS-only, not first party HW IIRC.
And does not sell in person customer support.
They are paying Apple more than what they are spending on Android.
Saying they 100% value privacy or 100% don't value it is too simplistic. Even ascribing a consisent set of beliefs is too simplistic.
First off, Apple is in the privacy business as a product positioning stance, not as an actual guiding force for their business.
Second, Apple doesn't prevent anyone from using another search engine as a default, and the vast majority of people are quite comfortable using Google, even if it is completely shady on the privacy front.
Third, these giant tech companies work together by design- they all feed off each other due to the fundamental driver of "shareholder value." Instead of having any expectation that they will choose user safety and health over profit, we need to explore other avenues to address the rampant and destructive aspects of ad-driven tech economies.
Kudos for not resorting to hand-wavey statements yourself.
In Safari on iOS, where this deal is relevant, they do. There is no choice for using Yandex or StartPage among many others. There are just 5 choices.
Now don't misunderstand me. Google, along with FB, are probably the worst monopolies out there. But Apple pulls a stunt like that, I'm guessing the risk that the Feds would come at them would be extreme. No one's going to allow Apple to control search in addition to everything else, least of all the government.
One solution could be to force Apple to use to another provider? Bing maybe? But that has all the same privacy problems.
But the "Apple makes their own privacy protected search engine and it's default on every platform" option is a complete non-starter. Just about everyone in industry and government would demand action against that.