Tim Cook says Facebook's collection of user data 'shouldn't exist'

http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-ceo-tim-cook-on-facebook-cambridge-analytica-scandal-2018-3

by SirLJ • 8 years ago

210 121 8 years ago

darawk20• 8 years ago

Of course Tim Cook would say that. His business model doesn't depend on it. When he decides to unwall the iPhone garden, i'll give him the time of day on issues like this. Until then, he's just looking out for his own interests, as far as i'm concerned.

bmarquez2• 8 years ago

Opening up iMessage to Android users would definitely reduce Facebook's collection of user data, since friends wouldn't be compelled to use FB Messenger. But yeah it's not in his business model.

gaius3• 8 years ago

See also: BBM

gkya4• 8 years ago

Compelled to use FB Messenger when WhatsApp is available? I don't think there are many people who have FB, but not WhatsApp.

kgwgk• 8 years ago

But I would be more concerned about the privacy of the iMessage content on an Android device than on an iOS device.

forgot-account• 8 years ago

It’s nice that Apple’s interests and my interests align. It always refreshing when a company puts a lot of effort into structuring their company in such a way that it aligns with users’ beat interests.

treis• 8 years ago

Note: Above not valid in China

darawk20• 8 years ago

It's just co-incidence that they align on this issue, though. They care about user privacy because they happen to make most of their money by selling hardware, not ads or data. But ask them to open up that hardware and let you install your own OS? That's a no. Even something as simple as letting your preferred mapping software be the default.

Apple loves privacy and hates freedom. It sure looks like the only thing they actually care about is their financial interest.

turboturbo• 8 years ago

If a company’s business model is aligned with statements by its CEO, I would consider those statements more valid, not less. Apple is putting its money where Tim Cook’s mouth is. That’s a good thing.

darawk20• 8 years ago

They didn't align their business model in order to further privacy, though. It just happened to shake out that way. If Apple cared in the slightest about issues like this, they wouldn't make it impossible to control your own hardware when you buy an iPhone.

joesb• 8 years ago

If the CEO of a tobacco company say cigarettes do not cause cancer, should should consider this statement valid?

gaius3• 8 years ago

Apple, Microsoft and Amazon will be perfectly unperturbed when the so-called “attention economy” goes away. They are real companies offering real goods and services.

earenndil• 8 years ago

I don't know about completely. They still all show ads and collect user data. But they will be less affected than some others (google).

htormey• 8 years ago

I think it will hit them as well, just not to the same extent as Facebook & Google.

Microsoft owns LinkedIn, which is an advertising company. I also seem to recall that they make a reasonable chunk of change from search advertising and other online properties.

According to this link they took in a little over 6 billion in advertising revenue last year:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/725388/microsoft-corpora...

According to this link, amazon took in somewhere in the region of 1.7 billion in revenue from mainly advertising last quarter alone:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/725388/microsoft-corpora...

donttrack• 8 years ago

Yeah, Google and Facebook are not tech companies. They are mainly ad companies run by social justice activists. Their only purpose is to stuff ads down peoples throats.

eight_ender2• 8 years ago

I get where you're coming from, but I'm not sure that matters to me personally. Privacy and security are important to me, and that's what Apple is selling, so I'm going to buy.

The more consumers support privacy as a selling feature, the more Apple will guard it. I'll gladly pay a premium to a company that has a vested interest in keeping my shit safe, and a straightforward business model of keeping me happy enough to sell me more shiny things.

darawk20• 8 years ago

I don't disagree. I'm not trying to discourage anyone from buying their products. If you care about privacy, absolutely, buy an iPhone. I'm just trying to point out that their caring about privacy comes as much from a place of greed and fortunate coincidence than anything else.

macspoofing4• 8 years ago

It's a cynical view but valid. It's not like Apple made a decision to be a non-player in social media for moral reasons - they just never got around to it because of the insane profits they got from selling iPhones.

millstone2• 8 years ago

Of course Google will tell you that cigarettes cause cancer and climate change is a threat: they don't sell tobacco or drill for oil! They're just looking out for their own interests.

Apple actively chooses to not pursue these revenue streams even though they have the resources and reach to do so.

devmunchies• 8 years ago

Exactly. Apple has lots of opportunities to monitize the App Store by profiting from user data.

darawk20• 8 years ago

Apple actively chooses to not pursue these revenue streams even though they have the resources and reach to do so.

I disagree. Apple can't compete in those spaces effectively because they're already owned by Google/FB. Microsoft has similar resources to Apple, and they tried to compete with Google on search - look how that turned out. Even Google can't compete with FB in social, look at Google Plus.

Apple has, intelligently, recognized that they cannot compete in that space. So they aren't trying. They are then using that to their advantage, by focusing on privacy, which is something their competitors cannot focus on. It's a perfectly legitimate strategy, and there's nothing wrong with them doing that. I support it wholeheartedly.

On the contrary however, it is not in Apple's strategic interest to give users's sovereignty over their devices. In both cases, their behavior aligns not with user interests, but with their own. Being financially self-interested better explains the sum total of Apple's behavior than any interest in user well-being.

kerng3• 8 years ago

Correct. They didn't build a business model around doing something unethical, which eventual can get the entire company in trouble - so great strategic leadership I'd say.

rimliu• 8 years ago

"Unwall the iPhone garden"—you mean allow anyone to access things like SMS, or chat logs as was the case on Android? In that case I very much like those walls, thank you.

AHMagic• 8 years ago

Do you really want to live your days feeling dependent on this sort of "service"? Do you really want to say, "but I need Facebook!".

In today's age, you need a phone number and e-mail. It's ok - they are decentralized. Don't let a centralized platform of Facebook's evil nature become necessary for you to live your life.

Delete and forget it existed. Ignore and move on. Give up the benefits and pay the cost.

macspoofing4• 8 years ago

Apple's non-investment in cloud is starting to pay off. Hey Tim, how about letting app developers and browser makers use a non-safari rendering engine on the iPhone?

r00fus• 8 years ago

Tim has watched War Games apparently.

iCloud exists but facilitates storing only core data and otherwise is a sync mechanism.

Social aspects of iCloud are what's "missing" so even a large breach wouldn't result is 100x users being exposed.

The most galling part of the FB failure was that the people breached weren't the ones who installed the misbehaving app. And society at large paid for it.

macspoofing4• 8 years ago

And society at large paid for it.

What's the cost again? I'm still experiencing cognitive dissonance over the fact that this is news here on HN. What Facebook was doing was common knowledge (for the last 8 years?). I assumed all those spammy facebook apps, like candy crush, had access to the entire social graph of facebook (not just US) or at least built it up over time. All those stupid "Log in with Facebook" apps almost always asked for your friend information.

IBM3• 8 years ago

I hope Apple follows up on this by actually lobbying for a GDPR bill to be passed in the US.

kerng3• 8 years ago

Good point. I see a lot of good things coming with GDPR, foremost a realization that its NOT ok to just store personal data without meaningful reasons and abilities to let one know what a company stores about them. It's not perfect, rather ambitious in can cases, but I like how these conversations are now happening more broadly.

IBM3• 8 years ago

It's funny that this comment has 10 upvotes but fell to the bottom of the page. No doubt there's a lot of vested interests against privacy legislation. To the Facebook and Google employees: it's already in the EU, and it's likely coming to the US in some form. If not at the federal level, certainly at the state level.

jaweb• 8 years ago

GDPR is a rare area where I see as many positive and negative opinions on it in communities such as HN. Will be interesting to see how this develops with further fallout from the Facebook story, and with GDPR actually coming up to the deadline for implementation in May

grzm2• 8 years ago

Discussion from yesterday (over 20 comments): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16667709

dogma1138• 8 years ago

With the data Apple collects including via Apple Pay and Health I’m not sure there is that much difference in all honesty.

What the data is used for is another issue.

cmelbye• 8 years ago

That’s misleading, Apple goes through pains to keep data on the device, or limit their exposure. They don’t store your transaction history for Apple Pay, and I believe the same is true for HealthKit. iCloud backups are a glaring privacy issue but you can also manage your own backups locally.

grzm2• 8 years ago

You can decide for yourself whether you believe Apple or not, but they're pretty clear on what data is available to Apple in these circumstances:

Apple Pay:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203027

"Apple Pay is also designed to protect your personal information. Apple doesn’t store or have access to the original credit, debit, or prepaid card numbers that you use with Apple Pay. And when you use Apple Pay with credit, debit, or prepaid cards, Apple doesn't retain any transaction information that can be tied back to you—your transactions stay between you, the merchant or developer, and your bank."

Also (https://www.apple.com/privacy/):

"When you use a credit or debit card with Apple Pay we don’t keep transaction information that can be tied back to you, so we can’t create a history of your purchases. And when you use Apple Pay Cash, information is stored only for fraud prevention, troubleshooting, and regulatory purposes."

If you're suspicious, there's plenty of room in "fraud prevention" and "trouble shooting" for you to make whatever case you want. The first sentence is pretty clear that there isn't enough information to create a history. I suppose there's wiggle room to interpret that as they may be keeping some kind of summary of the purchase history rather than a detailed transaction log.

Health data:

https://www.apple.com/privacy/approach-to-privacy/

"When your phone is locked with a passcode, Touch ID, or Face ID, all your health and fitness data in the Health app is encrypted. And any Health data backed up to iCloud is encrypted both in transit and on our servers."
"We also require apps that work with HealthKit to provide a privacy policy for you to review. Your data in the Health app and your activity data on Apple Watch are encrypted with keys protected by your passcode."

bobcallme• 8 years ago

What about the data that Apple collects in macOS 10.13 users? Anonymous data collection is not really anonymous. IP addresses and other logs leak lots of identifiable information even with all of the collection settings toggled off in various preference panes. It is kind of hypocritical for Tim to criticize a practice that Apple currently engages in (you can't claim otherwise once you jump down that rabbit hole).

millstone2• 8 years ago

What data collection are you referring to? Apple collects crash log data if you opt-in, which can contain logs. It also collects "device analytics" using differential privacy (not containing logs); this is stronger than anonymized data because it retains some privacy even if it is de-anonymized, and is also opt-in. Is there another practice I'm not aware of?

starsinspace• 8 years ago

Not OP, but back when Yosemite came out, there was a lot of buzz about privacy issues, such as:

https://github.com/fix-macosx/yosemite-phone-home

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/10/mac-o...

Don't know what came out of these things in later OS X versions.

kerng3• 8 years ago

It makes a difference having a CEO that is so vocal about this, it changes what everyone in the org does and sees as "right". It's a good thing.

At Facebook the understanding seems to be more Orwellian community like, spearheaded by Mark Zuckerberg. They envision and build a future where everyone is under surveillance at all times - so collecting a bit more doesn't matter, more to the contrary. Last week there was a story that FB internally also does surveillance on employees and they know what employee click and hover over on, and they monitor their messenger conversations. And it's all okay in their world view. Good to see some balancing conversations.

I believe Apple took even a toll and fell a bit behind the last few years in regards to eg. Siri as they take personal data more of a liability rather than an asset. So, much respect from my side to Apple and Tim Cook for this. And I'm really not much of an Apple fan, but reconsidering with statements like this one.

jodrellblank• 8 years ago

the CLOUD Act (S. 2383 and H.R. 4943), a measure pushed by Apple and other tech industry giants but strongly opposed by privacy advocates.

- https://appleinsider.com/articles/18/03/23/apple-supported-c...

yardie• 8 years ago

They didn’t push it. They were just glad something was finally in writing. The alternative was letting the courts and companies battle it out. And all it takes is one bad precedent to fuck everyone. Laws are malleable, they can be massaged through the courts and have to be to be renewed. Precedents are much harder to fix and can only be overturned in a higher court. No one is happy about this, but they are relieved.

cm21873• 8 years ago

Apple isn’t the privacy white knight either. By default every iPhone logs and sends to the mothership your gps locations. They designed iMessage in a way that ensured they could access the conversation. IOS comes with an advertising ID, etc. They are certainly not as bad as a Google or Facebook but they are not good either.

willstrafach2• 8 years ago

By default every iPhone logs and sends to the mothership your gps locations.
They designed iMessage in a way that ensured they could access the conversation

Neither of these sound correct. Can you explain more or link a source on either?

tony101• 8 years ago

It is worth noting that Tim Cook said this in China, where Apple happily hands over all user data to the Chinese government.

http://money.cnn.com/2018/02/28/technology/apple-icloud-data...

thisacctforreal• 8 years ago

It is worth noting that disabling iCloud backups and iCloud features vastly limits what data Apple ever sees. iOS+passphrase is the best security available.

IBM3• 8 years ago

There's a lot of comments here that superficially try to paint Apple as hypocrites but it falls apart the moment you actually think about it.

Apple will hand over all user data in iCloud to any law enforcement agency with a warrant [1]. That doesn't conflict at all with calling for privacy regulation. China has enacted a data localization law, and they aren't the only ones that are doing it [2]. The CLOUD Act is related to this issue.

Apple retains control of the keys for iCloud. The iCloud services that are end-to-end encrypted remain so. Apple also informed all their Chinese customers prior to this change happening.

You could argue that Apple should leave the Chinese market but that isn't realistic because it's a large market to sell to and where all of Apple's production takes place. Shutting down iCloud in China will have no practical benefit to Chinese customers (and likely make them worse off).

The common retort is to point to Google taking a big stand on principle in leaving China. But if that's the case why haven't they also left Russia and Turkey? In fact they've complied with Russia's data localization law [3] and Turkey's censorship [4] to avoid being blocked. And they're attempting to re-enter the Chinese market [5].

Apple is not a state actor and can't do anything about China's laws other than lobby against it, which they did [6]:

“While we advocated against iCloud being subject to these laws, we were ultimately unsuccessful,” it said.

Fortunately the rule of law prevails in the US, and it is certainly well within Apple's rights to lobby for privacy legislation. And I hope they do.

[1] https://www.apple.com/privacy/government-information-request...

[2] https://www.servers.global/meeting-the-challenge-of-data-loc...

[3] https://www.wsj.com/articles/google-moves-some-servers-to-ru...

[4] https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/08/world/europe/google-turke...

[5] http://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/207...

[6] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-apple-icloud-insigh...

wmeredith4• 8 years ago

You’re editorializing with “happy” and it’s a false narrative. Apple specifically said they weren’t happy about it and fought against it, but that the end result was they could either close shop in Chins or comply with the law so they decided it was better to be there than not.

smsm42• 8 years ago

So they'd defend the privacy as long as it doesn't require any serious effort from them - like denouncing Zuckerberg - but the moment the interests of their business and their users contradict, they'd throw the users under the bus. Understandable position, probably, but not exactly the one that should be a source of pride.

daenz• 8 years ago

What actually said differs from the headline:

"The ability of anyone to know what you've been browsing about for years, who your contacts are, who their contacts are, things you like and dislike and every intimate detail of your life — from my own point of view it shouldn't exist."

He said that the ability to know what they've collected about you shouldn't exist. Very different.

djrogers• 8 years ago

You’re reading that incorrectly, the headline is right.

jacksmith21006• 8 years ago

Yet Cook hand over their customers data to the Chineese government?

Not sure people that live in glass houses should throw rocks.

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/03/apple-privacy... Campaign targets Apple over privacy betrayal for Chinese iCloud ...

kendallpark2• 8 years ago

I think there have been some valid points made in this thread about business models. Facebook is the least diversified company out of the big five when it comes to how much of their business model depends on collecting user data (and how personal that data is). At the same time, Facebook, Amazon, Google, Apple, and Microsoft weren't just handed their business models. Each company decided to what (and what not) to pursue, and how they would pursue it. (Can anyone forget how utterly PUSHY Facebook was at getting people to use Messenger?)

At the end of the day we all checked off Facebook's EULA and Privacy Policy box and uploaded thousands of artifacts from our lives onto the platform. Perhaps it was a bit naive and overly trusting, but it was our decision. This does not dissolve Facebook of its ethical responsibility to not abuse customer data, but we, at the same time, shouldn't think that we're handing off our private data to some benevolent force that's just going to hold onto it without using it for their own gain.

TBH what disturbs me the most is how much data Facebook has on people's children. There's going to be an entire generation of people whose conception to high school graduation has been archived in Facebook servers, without their consent.

qwaitwhat• 8 years ago

> TBH what disturbs me the most is how much data Facebook > has on people's children. There's going to be an entire > generation of people whose conception to high school > graduation has been archived in Facebook servers, > without their consent.

I find it unsettling that Facebook has built profiles on kids who can not, legally, _give_ consent, I mean, at all. Facebook probably has a profile on me (although I have never visited them) because I am active in a community of heavy smartphone users; but at least I am an adult and you could argue that people/institutions/organizations that I interact with have kinda given consent on my behalf (without asking me) by agreeing to these websites' Terms & Conditions. So for adults, you could say it is "Indirectly Implied Consent".

But how can you apply this argument to kids' profiles collected/built/scraped without consent?

We have a lot of work to do, as a society. A combination of laws, co-ordinated across countries, and social shaming perhaps?

kendallpark2• 8 years ago

I find it unsettling that Facebook has built profiles on kids who can not, legally, _give_ consent, I mean, at all. Facebook probably has a profile on me (although I have never visited them) because I am active in a community of heavy smartphone users; but at least I am an adult and you could argue that people/institutions/organizations that I interact with have kinda given consent on my behalf (without asking me) by agreeing to these websites' Terms & Conditions. So for adults, you could say it is "Indirectly Implied Consent".

Yeah, this would line up with privacy laws about photography/videography, at least in the US. Say I'm not a Facebook user, but I go to a party with my Facebook-using friends. My photo is taken spilling food all over my shirt and that gets posted to Facebook. My participation in an event that had no reasonable expectation of privacy means that any photos of me can be legally taken and posted to Facebook.

But how can you apply this argument to kids' profiles collected/built/scraped without consent?

Well, one of the problems is that as it stands right now, parents/guardians control that consent. And parents are largely the ones posting pics and FB statuses about their kids. I think there would have to some kind of laws that give children rights to a certain degree of privacy outside of their parents' control.

There was a case in 2016 where an 18 year-old sued her parents to remove 500 of her baby photos from Facebook:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2016/09/16/18...

It seems unfortunate to me that she had to wait until she was eighteen in order to address the issue. A lot of social damage can be done before eighteen.

wmeredith4• 8 years ago

Agreed. The shadow profile stuff is really creepy.

p2t2p• 8 years ago

Have they deleted Facebook's Messenger from App Store yet for the way they bully people into enabling access to contacts? No? They could kindly quit bullshiting us then.

forapurpose• 8 years ago

"At Apple, we believe privacy is a fundamental human right."

I agree and think Apple promoting and implementing it in their products is wonderful. But most of the world can't afford Apple products and therefore are effectively denied this human right.

It would be great if Apple could provide a low-cost line, probably under a different brand name, that implemented the privacy technologies in otherwise basic phones, laptops, etc. Or maybe license the privacy tech to someone else who does that. (I realize it might be much more complicated than what I describe; for example, the security tech could be too tightly integrated with the rest of the product. Would they have to license iOS? A stripped down version?)

I'm not complaining; it's not Apple's job to solve this problem created by other phone and OS makers. But they could make a big impact and I don't think it would take sales from Apple products; an otherwise cheap phone with Apple's boot security subsystem isn't going to compete with an iPhone.

replicatorblog5• 8 years ago

Apple's business model is unlike Facebook's business model in that it does not make money from ad targeting.

Facebook's business model is unlike Apple's business model in that it does not make money from sending 12-year-olds into cobalt mines.

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2017/11/industry-gian...

cdmoyer• 8 years ago

Huh, I expected much worse than “Earlier this year, Apple became the first company to publish the names of its cobalt suppliers, and Amnesty’s research shows it is currently the industry leader when it comes to responsible cobalt sourcing. Since 2016, Apple has actively engaged with Huayou Cobalt to identify and address child labour in its supply chain.”

replicatorblog5• 8 years ago

Apple became the most valuable company in the world in 2012 (https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidthier/2012/08/20/apple-bec...) and had been a leader for the better part of ten years before that.

A recent change in procurement doesn't change the fact that they grew their business on the backs of teenagers who were sent into unreinforced holes in the ground to dig while kindergarten age children crushed the ore without the benefit of any protective gear.

I'm an iPhone user and I understand the world is a messy place. My point is it's rich of Cook, whose sub-contractor had to install nets outside of windows to prevent suicides, to lecture Zuckerberg about morals.

At the end of the day, Facebook has built an incredibly powerful adtech platform. An unpopular person used it to get elected. That's bad. Tim Cook's career has been spent building workplaces that either crushes spirits, leading to suicide, or literally crushes bodies in mine collapses.

amazingman• 8 years ago

Facebook's business model is unlike Apple's business model in that it does not make money from sending 12-year-olds into cobalt mines.

This is the kind of response that I am increasingly finding indistinguishable from propaganda intended to sow discord.

replicatorblog5• 8 years ago

The CEO of the largest corporation in the world is calling out his competitors for perceived moral failings in their business models.

I'm calling out the CEO of the largest corporation in the world for moral failings in his business model. I wish higher profile reporters were doing so.

The goal is not to sow discord, it's to highlight hypocrisy.

newscracker• 8 years ago

What’s Apple’s market share worldwide? What percentage of Facebook users access it from mobile? What percentage of those users are using Android devices that also need the same materials? When did you last hear about Samsung or Xiaomi or others on slave labor or child labor?

I’m sure Apple has a long way to go on several fronts, but one sided hyperbole like in the above comment is unproductive.

replicatorblog5• 8 years ago

It's not hyperbole. Apple may be the best of a bad lot, but that doesn't change the reality of the situation.

Like I said in the OP, I know the world isn't perfect. Normally, I wouldn't call out Apple. But when Cook decides to lecture about the dangers of social media and privacy and calls for more regulation, which would also weaken his competitors, he should have his bad practices brought to light.

wmeredith4• 8 years ago

Ace to grind? The source you linked yourself says Apple is at the forefront of this issue which is industry-wide in small electronics.

replicatorblog5• 8 years ago

They may be at the forefront, but what does that mean exactly? They don't have the kindergarten age kids grinding the ore anymore? They're still sending people into unsupported mineshafts barefoot, but they're all now 18+?

All that said, I wouldn't highlight Apple's supply chain failings if their CEO wasn't out chastising competitors for the undesirable traits of their business models.

tbyehl• 8 years ago

Maybe Tim Cook should put Apple’s money where his mouth is and give us an alternative social network that respects users’ privacy.

Tim Cook says Facebook's collection of user data 'shouldn't exist'

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