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Comment by robot9000 | Hacker News Reader

Apple collects your browsing history, something which I have yet to find a good explanation for. https://apps.apple.com/zm/app/safari/id1146562112

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Safari history and tabs are end-to-end encrypted: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202303

And Apple provides iCloud+ members with a VPN which does not tie browsing history to users by separating ingress and egress traffic and using encrypted forwarding (similar to onion routing): https://www.apple.com/privacy/docs/iCloud_Private_Relay_Over...

>Safari history and tabs are end-to-end encrypted: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202303

They are for iCloud backup, which is not the same as the data collected by the App AFAIK.

iCloud backup is not end to end encrypted. iCloud sync of Safari History, Tab Groups, and iCloud Tabs is. The data collection the app page mentioned sounds like a 3rd thing. Or even E2EE is considered data collection for App Store purposes.

That link is to Safari on iOS and it says that your browsing history may be collected but it’s not linked to your identity.

Is it a privacy problem if Apple collects aggregate browsing history from iOS users?

And is this relevant to a thread about desktop browsers?

Unless sufficiently anonymized - and I don't know how much is actually sufficient - your browsing history can be used to identify you.

I visit my HN comments page almost daily. There’s no way this can be anonymized away from me as the url contains my userid and can be linked back to me.

Even anonymized, data can be used in negative ways against me (eg, trying to alter my purchase behavior through ads).

Your statement seems to leave away some important "details", so here is the full text from your link:

The following data may be collected but it is not linked to your identity: Location Browsing History Usage Data Diagnostics

Wouldn’t most peoples browsing history plus location pretty much narrow them down to one person?

It says the collected browsing data is not linked to the user's identity. Still a bad move by Apple.

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