Americans are frequently oblivious when it comes to privacy issues so it is comical to hear, especially, the uproar over Facebook. The Euro Union and Germany, in particular, have been thinking about and enacting data privacy laws for years. Few people gave it much thought in the US though until some opportunistic politicians and business competitors turned Facebook into a convenient explanation for the election of the madman, Trump, and not just the ignorance or hate of a good number of voters. Cook isn't interested in protecting users' privacy any more than Google or Facebook. The sad thing is that neither are most Americans.
All this hand writing about FB using your "private" data. You all opted in. Opt out. Delete your account. Go outside, visit a friend, raise a glass.
Simple solutions for complex problems.
2
I am totally mystified by these articles. I seem to be able to gather news by reading our local daily newspaper, and a few online subscriptions. Facebook is for friends, i was not even aware that there is news appearing in my newsfeed. if friends post religious or political memes, the unfollow feature works great. and no Instagram, Twitter or other apps. I think i'm pretty up to date with news and opinion. seems easy and no FOMO.
The problem is simple, and can be distilled down to a single word: capitalism. Private companies will ALWAYS act unethically, because ethics interfere with profits. Facebook does it. Apple does it. Theranos does it. Trump University does it. Until we can accept that people are more important profits, this will continue.
1
Mark Zuckerberg is laughing at us all. Money is his first motivation, privacy somewhere down the hill.
1
The difference between the iPhone FaceTime snafu is that it was a bug. Facebook's privacy violations are not mistakes or bugs, they are a profitable feature for them. Big difference.
It is inherently a lot harder to come up with something new for others to copy.
Though privacy and security and anti-tracking features would certainly be a huge boost for Apple. Indeed, a Facebook-proof iPhone-iPad would be desirable to me who has never signed up to FB but know I'm being still being tracked all over the web by them without my consent - including what I read on the NYTimes.com.
4
"Does It Matter?"
Theoretically speaking, however the stench of American corporate greed at the expense of consumer happiness is overwhelming at this point (see happiness index ranking by country, for example).
1
When you get down to the nitty gritty of it, EVERYONE knows that Facebook lies about privacy and collects and sells everything it can to whoever will pony up the big bucks.
EVERYONE is “outraged” by it...but are they really??? How many are NOT deleting their accounts but rather still forking over yet more personal data each time they log on.
Are you really, REALLY outraged! Well then! Delete your account!!
24
@SAH, its likely you know the problem with your answer. Its not just sharing cat videos and family gossip, some institutions and groups use no other platform for communication. Additionally platforms that did compete and offer an alternative are bought up and become another personal data sweeping tool for Facebook. So its not enough to question the sincerity of many peoples concerns and shout at them in CAPS. Its dismissive and ignores the real harm Facebook does. Finally "EVERYONE" does not know Facebook lies or are outraged for that matter. But I do know that Facebook has allowed its platform to be used in third world countries to promote and encourage violence against innocents and vulnerable minorities & that is worth EVERYONE being REALLY outraged. Deleting my account will have no effect on that.
7
@John Chastain
I know of many businesses that depend heavily on Facebook. You are correct in that. But they need to look hard for an alternative as those businesses will fall hard if FB starts to falter through subscriber revolt, government punitive action, or the much more common way of someone coming up with a better mousetrap rendering FB obsolete (think MySpace for instance!)
The more FB plays fast and loose with customers’ trust and legal regs, the harder it may fall. Business would do well to jump ship rather than go down with it!
3
Apple's business model is to sell you a phone whereas Fb's business model is to violate your privacy.
Take your pick.
5
When a tarantula fights a scorpion who cares?
1
@Blackmamba
That's how I feel about any Super Bowl.
1
Digital privacy no longer exists. You can google anybody including Ms. Swisher and get facts she would rather keep private. Cook can afford to poo poo Zuckerberg because he has customers willing to pay inflated prices for his phones. So Cook can be a privacy "advocate" all day long, because he monetized people's insecurities rather than their privacy.
1
From its beginning, Apple was about the individual not a mass market. It is its DNA. When iPod/iPhone burst into use, it was the user experience that drove it. The operative word is "user".
The bug that impacted Facetime was just that; a bug. Facebook tracking is a feature. From their birth, they were about taking data from the ill-informed and selling it to others in one manner or another.
The editorial difference is concreted in their company address:
1 Infinite loop is a science exercise about how it all comes back to the beginning. For Apple, selling a luxury product with the best UI/UX in all of technology, knows inherently they must come back to the user. Every time.
1 Hacker Way is about the definition of hacker: "a person who uses computers to gain unauthorized access to data". (source: Google - yeah, I know - ironic). Facebook is about an ever increasing audience that the loss of any of them can be replaced by yet another person with no grasp of the devil's bargain they have made.
14
Nice article, although the false equivalence between Apple’s bug discovery and fix (a few weeks start to finish), and Facebook’s stalking business model (about 15 years and continuing) doesn’t work.
I note that the Times has published frequent and well-documented articles about the deceptive activities of Facebook, the poster child for corporate ethical bankruptcy.
I also note that when logging into the Times one is presented a bold, highlighted button suggesting you log in via Facebook.
So does the Times get paid for encouraging its subscribers to use Facebook?
Just asking....
7
@JK @JK Does the Times get paid? Are you serious? I have an app on my computer that shows how many entities are attempting to track me from any website I'm on. Right now I'm obviously on a NYT page, and it shows that there are 43 companies trying to watch what I'm doing. I've seen that number climb to over 300 on the WP front page. So yeah, they all get paid. That's how they keep the lights on these days.
1
@JK So, New York Times, please tell us: DO you get paid for encouraging your subscribers to use Facebook?
3
The next revolution will be a re-decentralized web. Lots pf smart people are working on it now. We will own and control our data and give permissions to companies to use, see , or buy it. Its coming as Facebook is too shady. And overnight it will be worthless.
2
While Apple is "standing up" against other companies monetizing the private information of iPhone users, it remains to be seen if that is because Apple suddenly respects privacy or if they simply want all the profits for themselves. Apple's history suggests the latter.
One big difference between Apple and Facebook on privacy and data mining - Facebook unabashedly co-opts data from clueless users and sells it on. Apple discovers a flaw that is a privacy concern and takes action to correct it (I'll refrain from making a judgement on whether they do it fast enough).
I wouldn't trust Zuckerberg or Sandberg as far as I could throw them and have avoided FB products as much as possible. Apple on the other hand has staked out a clear position on protecting user privacy and in my opinion they stand by it. When Apple makes a mistake, I do trust them to rectify it. Facebook on the other hand will do anything to get their grubby servers on more of our personal data, and try to endlessly obfuscate and/or deny that reality. I don't think it's correct to compare Apple's issue this week regarding the Facetime error and FB's brazen flaunting of any rules to prevent them from hoovering up even more data. Facebook is intentional in what it does, Apple didn't intend to create a product that had a flaw.
3
Apple and Cook stand up for making money and becoming obscenely rich and powerful. If purporting to support privacy will enable them to enrich and entrench themselves, they will.
@No
While I'm no fan of Apple, their stand on privacy is important and admirable. The gathering of data, enabled by ignoring privacy, is immensly profitable. Far more than any other factor, it has made Google and Facebook into the behemoths they are.
1
"despite all the sketchy things the company is accused of doing by Apple and many others, most investors and analysts don’t seem to care, and they will never care"
This is why we have government. They don't self regulate any more than banks do.
As Jefferson explained in the Declaration of Independence, "That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men."
We don't expect to secure these rights by the grace of shareholders.
10
@Mark Thomason
Nor do we expect to secure these rights by the grace of the Persons who run the Corporations that try to run the Government.
1
I always enjoy Swisher's articles, but the article is a bit short-sighted.
A few things jump out that affect everyone moreso than Facebook tracking teenagers, as that is just a symptom of a larger problem: mass data collection with very little in terms of rules. One is able to learn so much about a person without putting in much effort, as large 'aggregation' sites like Spokeo, etc., have a treasure trove of information about anyone on them. I have to tell companies to take my information down they obtained without my permission?
Why can I figure out if my neighbor is a democrat or Republican? Why can I figure out what his or her criminal history is, or why are there websites which 'archive' the internet so you can go back 10 years and pull up information about someone that may have been bad?
The US needs strict laws to start stomping out mass collection, and Google/Facebook will fight back, but that's because their business model relies on the Wild West rules of data collection.
4
Anyone that believes Apple is not using every pixel and bit and byte and longitude/latitude entry that is entered or moves through their devices to sale or research or manipulate for the benefit of Apple is an absolute moron.
1
I believe in a right to privacy and in a right to informed consent without needing to go to law school. Facebook users apparently either don’t care that their lives are being vacuumed up, or they just don’t understand the specifics of how it is happening to them. Wall Street, as for most of its darlings, surely doesn’t care as long as the cash machine keeps rolling.
I have watched members of my tech-savvy family work for years to figure out Facebook’s myriad dials, switches, and trap doors. I conclude that Facebook’s interface is the opposite of being user-friendly. People seem to figure out just enough of the program to be functional, but don’t get into the seven levels of program hell needed to turn off all of the software’s data intakes.
So, Facebook is a business whose philosophy apparently is “take those suckers for all they are worth.” They fail the informed consent test. Apple’s philosophy, espoused by Mr. Cook, is the opposite. Choose your poison, but at least know the devil you are dealing with (if you care).
6
“Apple was properly apologetic and did shut down the glitch. Still, it’s not a good look to have a major privacy snafu right after touting your commitment to privacy.”
Absolute false equivalency. The Apple bug was a sloppy accident. Facebooks behavior was yet another deliberate, underhanded end run around clear rules and ethical behavior.
10
That Wall Street should be supportive of Facebooks disingenuous and vapid behavior in service of profit should surprise no one. After all this is the institution that gave us the great recession and the financial buffoonery that made it possible. But I disagree that continuing to point out Facebooks behavior and its consequences is a nothing burger. Yes Wall Street doesn’t care, what else is new. The rest of us who do care are supportive of keeping the pressure on its sociopathic chief executive and his posse of sycophants till some positive results occur. Only time will tell if greed wins out or Facebook goes to the tech graveyard it truly deserves. Share & like my comment, ha ha........
5
Perhaps an equivalency is that anybody supports an amoral, uneducated Kleptocrat with strongly authoritarian tendencies, whether CEO or other. We collectively don’t seem to have much desire to do what is in our best interest. Do we get what we deserve?
1
Twenty years ago when the Real ID Act was passed, people screamed a national ID Card would eliminate privacy. Today with Smart Phones, the general internet, credit cards, it is ridiculous to believe there is privacy except within your own head. There is no excuse not to institute universal Real ID and universal E-Verify. It seems the only people we are protecting privacy for are criminals in general and, more specifically, illegal immigrants
5
@Mike... Except privacy in your head....But we are getting there....Facial Recognition and Artificial Intelligence will monitor as close as they can what your thinking....and so goes your internal privacy.
Maybe it’s the users who don’t care enough about privacy Facebook is like fast food. We hate it, we know it’s bad for us but the convenience and the excitement we get keeps us using it.
1
Apple protects privacy so that only Apple can mine the data....this is a straw dog fight. Both Apple and FB serve the next generation of big algorithmic computers and seek to deliver the most tasty morsels deep deep deep into its ever data demanding mouth...
"Apple Stands Up for Privacy"?
That's a laugh. Apple is well-known for gathering all sorts of info about its customers, much of it by "default" settings of ones you can't opt out of at all.
This is just more PR hocus-pocus by Apple!
That's what they're best at! The biggest (or #2) company in the world is all about being "different" and counter-establishment? Yeah, right! Just like exploiting off-shore tax-havens is "patriotic," not really a big deal, and in the "customers' best interests"!
3
“(T)hey are infecting all of tech with their sloppy mistakes.” This sums it up. Stay safe, stay sane, stay off Facebook.
2
Kara -
Who appointed Tim Cook the Nanny of Privacy? If the people participating in the FB tracking program opted in for a fee as part of a product research initiative, why is Apple getting their nickers in a twist? They should question their privacy policy relative to the FB initiative.
I've seen you recently on several outlets bashing FB - CNBC, Times op-ed, this article. Did Mark Z. unfriend you? You're hardly objective - give it a rest.
Tim Cook say the right to privacy is a human right. Where does he get that from? Yes, I know it's crafted into one of the UN conventions... with a lot of blah, blah, blah. Privacy is not mentioned in the Constitution. The right to privacy is a recent invention, which goes against the grain of the human experience in the context of tribe, village, neighborhood, family. Reasonable privacy is acceptable, and is granted by the society, and can be increased or decreased to maintain the common good. My opinion, no one has a right to privacy to for the purpose of bringing harm to the social fabric of their society, community, or family, or to them-self.
@PJ Singh...Then again.. I would like to be PAID real money ,,,not worthless credits for their use of my personal data EVERYTIME its mined...Sort of like royalties paid for playing the same song....then I guess I wouldn't mind. If I am in control, then I can dictate/determine what personal data is public and what is to be kept private..
Apple accepts billions from Google to be Safari's default search engine, Google mines users' data as insidiously as the best of them, and Tim Cook is being touted as a privacy czar? Come on.
3
@Christopher Mcclintick
Use DuckDuckGo, which is also OS/iOS compatible and available on the app stores.
No one makes you use Google. It is a selection, not a mandate, for pity's sake.
I wish Apple would stand up for paying its fair share of taxes.
See NYT reporting 06 November 2017: 'After a Tax Crackdown, Apple Found a New Shelter for Its Profits - The tech giant has found a tax haven in the island of Jersey, leaving billions of dollars untouched by the United States, leaked documents reveal."
Let's not put a halo on Apple - they aren't doing this for some principled stand. It's about image building to bring in more profits, that they'll hold off-shore. Let's see some more reporting about that.
3
@Luddite
Apple pays tens of billions in taxes annually to the U.S., CA and other state/local governments, everything it owes.
Its tax kerfuffle was with the EU and where taxes are owed in those countries, specifically Ireland where it has an EU HQ.
I’m glad Apple took the action it did. Zuckerberg and his cronies simply cannot be trusted. The company was founded on amorality and it now traffics in that, plus immorality and illegality.
@Brad - Wow! Those are some heavy words. I'd be careful about making moral and legal arguments, or drawing equivalents. Is it moral for Apple to make products in China, paying workers and obscenely low wage, then lauding the gross and net margins on quarterly earnings calls?
@PJ Singh Even worse is training communist chinese in our technologies...to me they are traitors to our national security but/yet in the name of the almighty shareholder profits....
Thank you Mr. Cook.
I wish our country didn't have to rely on CEO's and billionaires to do the right thing. In a better Republic, our legislators would take this on. Maybe they will. Its a start. Now, how did they know I was looking for shoes? How did they know that my sibling is cheating on his/her spouse? Oh yeah, Facebook.
Apple has always stood up for privacy. The company is contacted hundreds of times, every day, from paranoiacs who could absolutely swear a bug in their iPhone allowed their wives to intercept a call to their mistresses.
"...they would have shut down or fixed the FaceTime bug right away"? Sounds to me they accorded it all the importance it deserved.
Apple always stood up for privacy in its hardware and software, even back in the 1980s. That's but one reason many of us bought Apple products then as now.
It's the heretofore clueless, lazy and unwashed masses of consumer tech consumers since mostly 2000+ who just didn't care - until recently - and who enabled the global hackers, financial criminal, and since 2004 the loathsome Facebook, Google, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram and other social media cartels trafficking in witless insecure and immature, egotistical and indiscrete gushing millennials who still think there is a free, that everything is all about whatever "awesomeness" they had for breakfast/lunch/dinner, their clothes, their partner, their kid, their dog, their trip to a store or a vacation, their friends, their latest date, their...them. Mercifully, there's not just an app for that, there's an entire corporation dedicated to protecting that bloat of narcissism from the rest of us and along with the rest of us. If only the federal govt. had spent a few shekels more back in the early '80s and gone with Apple to outfit the government in IT instead of the loosey goosey wide open swiss cheese insecure IBM/Microsoft hardware software tag team mess.
Thing is, do most users actually care what Facebook is doing? Seriously. I do. I'm here reading this essay, reading the comments, having feelings about it. But truth in telling: most FB users do. not. care. They are fine with it. They found their favorite new shoe brand because of it. They still get to post photos and chat because of it.
I think most people - not those who actually read about it and follow the money - no longer care about digital privacy.
@Ben It kinda/sorta wants you to give up - because it seems NO ONE is listening or cares...Sometimes i get frustrated and develope a "why Bother" attitude...but this lack of privacy/mining of personal data is ONE day going to kill us.
I don't think Tim Cook is being glib. I have been listening to Apple's earnings calls and keynote events for more than a decade. If you listen to these, you will notice how much Apple promotes their very high standards for user privacy. They have designed iOS and created features like TouchID and FaceID specifically to enhance privacy. When Apple Pay was launched, it was with great fanfare about privacy. It's much more private than using a credit card.
Knowing what I know about Google, I feel much better keeping my data off of Android. Everyone in Silicon Valley knows Google is bad with privacy.
And, to clarify, Facebook got booted off of Apples DEVELOPER platform, where they were violating Apple's terms.
To your point, "And it comes at a dicey time for Apple, which recently warned it was seeing weaker financial results and is under pressure to introduce even more new and innovative products."
- Are you suggesting that innovation and privacy are incompatible?
7
Apple "stands up for privacy"? If this were true, they would have shut down or fixed the FaceTime bug right away, not wait a week after they knew about it.
Comparing Apple's bug, which it promptly fixed, to Facebook's intentional and deceptive data-mining, contrary to the rules it signed to be on iOS, is pretty specious. One of journalism's weaknesses of feeling a need to blame both sides to appear unbiased, when in fact it creates a false perspective for readers.
25
@Jim R. "Comparing Apple's bug, which it promptly fixed ..."
That is the question: Is one week that prompt? I don't know the answer, but there is a dispute over that.
@MJ
Prompt is not the issue here.
It's the different business models: the Apple business model is to sell products worth buying to its customers, where Facebook's model is to offer its products for free as a lure to gather and sell their customers' information.
If Apple really cared about its customers’ data privacy rights, Apple would not provide the ability for apps by Facebook (or anyone else) to track everything the customers do and see on their Apple devices.
4
Arguably, yes, if you take the long view. But how many investors REALLY take the long view?
2
Kara Swisher asks "Apple Stands Up for Privacy. Does It Matter?"
Answer: Yes
This, and other actions by Apple, like not assisting law enforcement to break passwords into phones, will keep me loyal to Apple for as long as they continue these actions.
38
Apple may better protect consumer privacy than Facebook, but is product sales driven model allows it to do so without undermining revenues and profits. apple makes up for it by what should be illegal tying arrangements (e.g., apps for Apple products may only be sold through the Apple store regardless of developer) but avoids legal liability in its endless customer agreements. We all “consent” to Apple’s legal violations. If we didn’t, we couldn’t use Apple products. Facebook, which sells nothing but advertising, chooses to undermine customer confidaentiality in ways Apple needed. Both seek profit. Both seek to manipulate consumers. Both deserve greater government scrutiny and public skepticism. As to the MSNBC “interview,” it seemed more a tribute to Apple that journalism. Like any company, Apple is both good and bad for consumers. We all should be clear-eyed about this reality.
2
@Alan
Thanks to Apple's standards, it is comparatively easy to download a new app. Therefore, the iPhone is pleasant to use. What do you think would be your experience if every developer devised a way to download an app? Every one would created their own "clever" technique, which is what Android had before the Google app store. Eventually Android was forced to come to their senses.
2
Simple solution, if you want total privacy today, don’t use the internet. If you can tolerate and accept some encroachment, be careful.
1
For many people, it is not possible for their families not to use the internet. For example, If one sends one's children to a public school, public schools will have their children using the internet, and public schools will further turn over children's data to for-profit entities that will monetize it. The sharing of children's data stinks; however, so far our federal government is not doing much, if anything, to stop it.
3
@Charlie
I agree, we all are tied into an information sharing system, there is really no choice, so be careful, I.e., don’t open suspicious emails or respond to phishing. Monitor your children’s on line activity. Limit their on line time etc. prioritize homework over gaming. Absolute privacy is gone today, the only thing we can do is be smart about managing how we share.
@Charlie
Parents can stop schools from sharing data.
Suggested revision of title:
"Apple stands up for self-interested, sales-boosting policies."
9
@Paul
Apple is a business, not a philanthropic charity. Basic Drucker: There are only two revenue generators, marketing and innovation, all other functions are an expense.
The failure of consumers to view the long game or global portent of IT cast Apple on the consumer and professional tech trash heap for 20 years, despite many best in breed well-designed products, before achieving reincarnation relief in 2000 with the iPod and iMac, then in 2007 with the iPhone. During those painful early 20 years, no one else new or old in the industry came forward to even attempt privacy and security integrated into the user experience.
2
@Paul - "Apple stands up for self-interested, sales-boosting policies."
Here's my revision to your revision:
"Facebook is to the internet as Goldman Sachs is to finance."
Not sure if even that comparison will wake up Facebook users.
3
Facebook needs to be broken up, because with Instagram and Whatsapp it has now monopoly power in social media.
15
There’s no privacy.
Yet anonymous trolls abound on Twitter. Apparently anonymous entities spew insanely distorted misinformation and outright lies by countless right wing email lists, Facebook pages, and advertising campaigns. Sometime, somebody should cover the long and many branches arms of the right wing propaganda machine. It’s a frightening world of 100% opacity, 100% privacy. and 0% accountability.
2
Is Apple offering to built a private social network and search engine that is free around the world and works just as well as Facebook and Google??
Privacy is important and we ought to know what data is being collected and have some control over it. Data is the exchange to getting their services.
But - I question Apple's motives here and they aren't offering an alternative to the companies they like to criticize.
1
@Al. Apple isn’t doing anything that threatens Facebook and Google’s core businesses. It’s simply asking them to abide by Apple’s terms of service - like everyone else.
8
@Al Anyone who thinks Facebook is "free" is deluded. Facebook isn't "free", True they don't collect your "cash"... they collect your data and sell it to the highest bidders for lots of cash and they don't just cultivate this money through advertising initiatives.
1
@Fairbanks
Apple makes money off prioritizing Google as the Safari search engine, though anyone with even a shred of sense uses DuckDuckGo and ditches Google from iOS, never using it on OS, either. Ditto, with Facebook and all the others that pay Apple to be on its OS/iOS platform app stores.
It is up to the CONSUMER not to be an idiot and use those toxic, dangerous and utterly pointless identity vampires. Same as offline.
Great article, but :"It gets harder to play that role, however, when Apple makes mistakes, too. This week we learned that its FaceTime service had a significant bug..."
I think this is a false equivalency. Apple had a bug and worked to fix it, Facebook intentionally tried to gather user data despite Apple's privacy rules.
Thanks.
96
@Steve Boyles. Exactly. It’s like saying that someone who inadvertently gets into an auto accident has the same level of culpability as someone who purposely runs their car into yours.
2
Your privacy is important to us. Our policies have changed. Please read the 4,000 word "New Terms of Service" document and click "ACCEPT." While lawyers specializing in privacy law, and students of privacy law may understand parts of it, we have made every effort to avoid transparency. Thank you for donating your private information to our sales department. Our stock price is going through the roof. After clicking "ACCEPT" you may return to your cat video.
58
@William Romp, so true.
Yes of course it matters. The government needs to find a reason to throw Zuckerberg in jail--theft of personal property or corruption or solicitation of a minor come to mind. And Facebook must be shut down or change it's business model to charge users for it's services and stop spying on people, stealing their data, and invading their privacy. IF it stays in business, it needs to be. audited, monitored, and penalized if necessary. Zuckerberg who has made a mockery of practically everyone can't work for or be a Facebook board member.
5
@Charlie I basically agree but I have to question if they are “stealing” the data. Everyone knows they are using personal data,. FB acknowledges it with the bizarre reassurance that they are providing what “we all prefer”, targeted ads. It is on all of us to decide if we want to keep handing over our lives - it’s not being stolen if we keep willingly giving it over.
1
@Charlie
You are living in the wrong country. Although Facebook hasn't protected the privacy of its customers, he should not be put in jail--that should only happen in a dictatorship. People voluntarily use Facebook; Zuckerberg does not force them to use it. Don't forget that the U.S. is a country of laws, and you (and nobody else) cannot point to any law that Zuckerberg has violated. Such "laws" that you might imagine could also be twisted to apply to you.
Apple “stands up” for privacy? Are you kidding me? How much data do they collect on us phone users without our knowledge or permission? Data is currency, and Apple are in business to make money. Perhaps they kneel for privacy, they certainly don’t stand up for it. Nobody does here, unlike the EU where consumers have privacy rights enshrined in law.
Corporate lobbyists run Congress and run the nation for their own personal benefit. They craft the laws that our elected representatives pass and mostly don’t bother to read.
4
@Xoxarle It is true that Apple collects data, but as far as I know based on everything I've read about their data policies (not just from Apple), they do not share it with outside companies, and are way more conscientious about keeping it encrypted than Google or Facebook. Apple's business model is based more on selling hardware, while Google and Facebook are mostly an ad-driven business model. I know it's choosing the lesser of two evils, but that's why I made a conscious choice to only use Apple devices and computers. Also, I stopped using Facebook or any other social media years ago.
8
@Xoxarle, where were you when the FBI tried to force Apple to create a software tool to break into a locked iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino attackers? Apple "stands up" for privacy all the time. And it makes its money selling hardware, not personal info -- unlike Google and Facebook.
4
Does anybody realize that Facebook and Apple are two entirely different products? Facebook is where people put their persoanl info online, knowing the whole world can see it. Apple produces a device into which people put their info that only they can see. Why anyone is surprised that they handle information differently, is beyond me.
5
"A top executive at another tech giant termed it the “Facebook contagion,” and added, “they are infecting all of tech with their sloppy mistakes.” "
These are clearly not mistakes but intentional policy decisions by a company that has no guiding principles other than making more money anyway it can.
8
Agreed. And comparing Facebook’s deliberate selling of our privacy to an inadvertent software glitch from Apple hardly seems an appropriate comparison in this piece. I worked in technology for 30 years; these two incidents could not be more different. Sloppy reasoning on the part of the author.
15
Yes it matters. Today's exploitation of the masses by the media for the greedy gain of a few oligarchs is analagous to the West's exploition of China back in the 19th and early 20th century through the use of opium. Flood a society with an addiction to exploit, mainstream surveillance, like peeping Tom Oligarch's and their companies are the new normal.
Europe's cottoned on to this, America needs some class action lawyers to bring the Oligarchs to heel and return some of the ill begotten wealth and control of their privacy back to internet users.
1
@EC Speke You throw around the term oligarchs as if it applies to a class of people. Give us a name as to who you are talking about. And Europe has not stopped using Apple or Facebook.
@EC Speke
And what if internet users are voluntarily giving away their privacy?
@Jackson
Oligarchs does describe a group of people, there are several huge gangs that exploit American and foreigners data for their gangs enrichment, they're the usual suspects it would be too obvious to rattle off 20-30 well known names.
What's happening to BuzzFeed and Huffpost can happen to anyone if your not a paid member of the larger gangs controlling the media. What about the 2016 election?
Who's on first, I don't know's on second....
Toleration of the corruption of privacy and personal worth by the followers of Facebook and by the followers of Trump, illustrates an intellectual plague that infects a significant part of our population. The overlap between the two groups is substantial, but the weakness of character and limited insight is far wider than that overlap.
Moreover, the New York Times and many, otherwise sound, leaders of opinion and policy, have jumped on the Facebook bandwagon, by making some of their information uniquely available via Facebook. Facebook, in turn, requires membership for people to get access to that information AND requires disclosure of personal information and leverages the membership link, often sub rosa, to gather ever more information about those people.
George Orwell and Aldous Huxley and others predicted it all in several of their works, decades before the digital revolution. Shame on the Times and others for not heeding their predictions and warnings. The profit motive, for organizations like the Times, and the herd motive, for politicians and others, has facilitated survival and prosperity of Facebook, often to the ongoing and growing detriment of such organizations and individuals.
9
So, did Apple pay its back taxes to Ireland? Repatriate its long due taxes back home? Manufacture affordable tech to bridge the digital divide? Thought not. Get over yourself, Mr. Cook.
4
@WIS Gal What does that have to do with anything concerning privacy?
5
@WIS Gal
Apple paid taxes in Ireland and would follow international tax treaties like do like Honda, VW and foreign companies manufacturing here do.
Americans should educate themselves in global law and get over their jingoistic ideas of being exceptional and entitled otherwise we look like lazy crybaby snobs. The Japanese for example make quality products at affordable prices why the world buys their stuff.
@WIS Gal. Apple doesn’t owe back taxes to Ireland and taxes don’t get repatriated, so your first two points are nonsensical. And unless you yourself - WIS Gal - are manufacturing affordable tech, who are you to tell someone else that they should?
Why should Wall Street value privacy if billions of Facebook customers show they do not value it.
Congress should have a more nuanced view of the value of privacy and use regulations to limit social media companies from spreading falsehoods as quickly as they now do.
Apple is not in the regulation business nor should we expect them to be.
Facebook violated rules that govern how they distribute apps on the iPhone and Apple imposed a necessary sanction to bring them into compliance.
The question of whether Facebook has the same type of data mining app running on Android without any check from a gatekeeper represents an acknowledgement that on the Android platform anything goes.
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About ten years ago I cancelled my Facebook account. I did not have time for it and I was sick of puppy and toddler pictures. With way way cute blurbs to go with them. Last month after the encouragement of my retired friends. I decided to try this again and set up a new page. What surprised me was the old friends I had back then, showed up as recommended now. My takeaway: Facebook hung onto all that info about me for close to ten years. I am convinced they will store that forever. Just build bigger data centers. It’s gotta be worth something right? We can sell it! Brilliant. The internet once was free, if ever so briefly. It will exponentially cost everybody more as it grows up and solidifies. Today the fangs. Tomorrow the world.
Ps william is dead. I’m am his designated BOT. I created the Facebook page for himself. And wrote this commentary.
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@William RIP
@William What you've run across is not necessarily that Facebook is keeping information about you from your previous time on the platform, but rather that all your friends have uploaded their contact info to Facebook. Since they "know" you, Facebook suggests you know them and should be friends with them.
This is the real problem with Facebook. You can maybe leave, but all your friends and family will continue to leak information about you on the platform. There's no real getting away.
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I’ve never had a Facebook account and have done perfectly well without it. I get the part about connecting with friends but there are many ways to do that, including an old fashioned phone call that works quite well. I get my news from reliable sources and even (God forbid) books and manage to stay well informed in that manner. So what’s the big deal about Facebook? Nothing!
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@Mark You hit the nail on the head. Do you have a landline for those phone calls?
@MARY.....Oh...Oh....doesnt the NSA and/or the CIA monitor conversations on landlines ????
The answer is this: If privacy matters for one person, then it matters for all. This isn't a vote, where a majority, super-majority, or plurality wins.
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Great article. This is what happens when a person with no technology background (Zuckerberg ) and therefore some level of ingrained ethos of security and understanding the results of bad technology. Mr. Zuckerberg has has the viewpoint that anything goes so long as money is made.
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@Charleston Yank
What makes you think that Zuckerberg has no technology background. You are badly misinformed. You need to see the movie "The Social Network."
@Charleston YankMoney justifies anything for the greedy ones.
Bottom line: as long as we let our rights be determined and our society organized around the bottom line of a private corporation, we're living in their world. Not in a democracy.
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Privacy has been gone for a long time now.
Enabling the use of Social Security numbers to validate our identity for many transactions placed virtually all our personal information into corporate or government databases where they can be mined, sold, or hacked.
Facebook is but the latest abuser of what we once considered private information. Under the guise of a forum to facilitate community, it's enticed us to willingly offer up more data about ourselves, naively believing Facebook would "respect" our privacy.
This barn door has been open for decades, and the horses are long gone.
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@SMKNC
The NRA makes a similar argument about gun control: there are too many guns already out there, the horse has left the barn, the only protection is more guns.
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@Martin
Unlike the NRA, I'm not advocating any "solution" here. I fully support any efforts to strengthen our rights to privacy. Securing our data should be a priority for any entity that collects it, whether those entities are financial, medical, governmental, or social.
However, I harbor no illusions that we can recapture information already in circulation. We can only hope that data security efforts and protocols stay at least one step ahead of data abusers and hackers.
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The immorality of the stock market. Facebook is all good as long as it makes money.
It also explains why no one wants to regulate it. Greed is destroying democracy.
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@Gord Lehmann
No, the problem is what form does "regulation" take that does not violate the 1st Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
@Gord LehmannThe stock market is the source of a lot that’s evil. Occupy had it right all along.
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Privacy... personal privacy... is a critical component supporting the foundation of a thriving democracy. One doesn't have to dig deep. High level operatives within the Facebook world were well aware of what Putin and his sidekicks were doing during the last presidential election. They didn't care...collecting and selling people's data keeps the moola rolling in and as long as no one holds Zuckerberg and gang accountable... Facebook doesn't have to care. Facebook's behavior and lack of accountability should concern every American and every global citizen who values freedom and democracy.
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@Leslie374....we should start with campaign DARK Money. Any and ALL political contributions not accounted for and hidden from public view.
I share what I chose to share on Facebook. Anyone who thinks there is any privacy out there is totally delusional. If you want privacy don't share anything you want kept private. I do not understand this vendetta the NY Times has decided to subject Facebook to. Facebook provides me with news about my family and friends and provides small businesses with a very cheap advertising platform. The political stuff out there is all to be taken with a grain of salt and very careful fact checking.
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@Rene Frayman Why is it a vendetta to report the facts? I would argue the opposite: The Times needs to sever any connection with Facebook entirely. No “join us on Facebook” messages or anything of the kind. That just promotes a corporate leviathan that makes us digital playthings and mocks the Enlightenment idea that democracy requires the attention of informed, rational citizens.
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@Rene Frayman
Sorry, you do not "choose" what you share with Facebook. They record most of what you do on on line, whether on Facebook or not.
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@Rene Frayman. Correct. If you choose to go on FB or any other website, you shouldn't be surprised that you are treated like a can of beans and not a human. Take control of your life. Get off your phone. Talk to another person.
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Much of the country is represented by a class of privileged individuals who are forever protected from what they don’t know, and paid to not ask. Most couldn’t tell a cache from a cookie, a PDF from a USB, or apparently in their own vernacular; a Pig In a Poke.
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It appears Facebook, Zuckerberg and Sandberg are no more than recalcitrant children. The first may grow up yet, but the latter two are likely fully formed.
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If you're stupid enough to still be on FB you get what you get. How about apple just making decent products again that actually work? That's what steve cook should be spending his time on.
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@AlIndeed potecting privacy should be a top feature for any good protect that goes online.
@Al, the problem is that with the loss of Steve Jobs, the innovation and perfectionism at Apple lost its momentum. All that has been happening since is tweaking, and not always in a good way, the product line that exists. And constant updates. I remember when updates were infrequent because the product worked well until it needed to be updated. Constant updates, which often don't improve anything for the consumer or make it worse, seem to be taking the place of real innovation.
@Joanna
And what "innovation" would you suggest?
Facebook is facing the recently exposed fact that their highly promoted user base numbers are fraudulent...and are now estimated to be at least 50% lower than the company has been claiming. Think about it, Facebook says that they have over 2 billion "active" "human" users, when the entire world has less than 4 billion people who even have the capability of accessing the internet...and 800 million of those internet users are based in China, where Facebook is blocked by the Chinese government.
Facebook's stock had a nice day yesterday, exploding up on the back of a short squeezing of contrarian investors, and aided by an earnings per share boost reflecting the company's buyback of stock. Stock buyback programs temporarily nudge earnings up by retiring outstanding shares, but are not indicative of future fundamental, organic earnings growth. Importantly, the stock is still selling at 24% below its all-time high, and insiders of net sellers of shares.
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Perhaps Ms Swisher is obligated to mention Apple's FaceTime bug to show she is impartial but an error - even if one takes into account of the initial not taking the bug report seriously - cannot be equated with willful deception Facebook did with the tracking app.
Even after the deception comes to light, the COO - perhaps Ms Swisher did show her partiality by just concentrating on Mr Zuckerberg - has made the excuse saying Facebook got the teens consent. Look, these kids would swallow tide pods on YouTube for whatever reasons, if you dangle $20/mo in front of them, they'd sign their life away in a heartbeat!
Perhaps this is also the education of Mr Cook. Remember way back when Uber former CEO Travis Kalanick transgressed? Mr Cook dealt with him privately until the incident came to light. Facebook has repeatedly done things behind Apple's back! No more Mr Nice Guy. And now Google's corporate app got into trouble with Apple too. Google has Facebook to thank for that!
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Ms. Swisher lightly touches on the main issue surrounding dealing with the Facebook tantrums...it is like dealing with a very spoiled and challenged little child. I used to not touch anything Apple years ago, but admire their new direction, especially regarding privacy. Yes, it's easier to be conscientious when you're #1; but it's also tempting to not be so. Apple is giving a true voice to the privacy issue, something I work in and am concerned about.
As far as "glitch" Apple suffered: again, having made an error or mistake is one thing, making the error, recognizing it and addressing it, as Apple immediately did, is something altogether different...and better, it would seem.
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I would think that Apple could have a strong influence on Facebook. With the iPhone being the world's most common mobile device, are these 2 companies dependent upon one another? I don't know which is the most common medium people use to access Facebook-but both Facebook and the iPhone share that quality of being very hard to quit.
As you yourself pointed out some time ago, this problem of Facebook profiting from grabbing personal info and selling it will probably continue until a large company like Apple competes with them, and makes a similar product.
Apple could make a Facebook product in a heartbeat, with a low cost or free website for all users, but there would be little incentive to engage in that fight as there isn't a 38% margin involved.
Still, Apple, do a decent "Facebook" competitor, and help consumers out of this morass.
Hugh
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@Hugh Massengill
Agree. Apple and Microsoft have very profitable business models that do not rely on individuals giving personal information for corporations to sell, a la Facebook and Google.
Both Apple and Microsoft literally have billions of cash reserves.
They could team - create a non-profit social network platform, both contribute a couple of billion $ (tax deductible because it's non-profit?) to endow the non-profit site, and make it international. Privacy guaranteed - individuals share only what they want, and that sharing process is in the control of the individual.
Global, free, private. Governance could be dicey as the platform would have to be inoculated/regulated to prevent government interference, and hate groups, and fake news. That would be tricky, but it would be doable.
That platform could change the world.
@CC210
Companies don't exist to give away sevices free of charge. And you're naive to think that everyone would just start using a service alternative to Facebook. "Privacy" is not a big issue to many people.
Ms. Swisher is a bright light in tech commentary.
I agree with Ms. Swisher that Apple may be being too timid with Facebook, because I agree with another bright light, Jon Gruber of daringfireball.net, that Facebook is a criminal enterprise.
The blithe arrogance of Zuckerberg and Sandberg and their peers at Google is breathtaking. And it redounds endlessly, and not just in their quarters. They say "we" consented. I'd argue that we cannot consent to something we do not understand.
I try to explain to people why I'd rather chew razorblades than go on Facebook. "It's not that big of a deal," they say. "So I get a few advertisments."
How can we have a decent, sensible conversation about privacy when most people only gain some understanding of it when it's gone. It's not about a few advertisements. It's not about menus and kombucha.
Maybe Ms. Swisher can help enlighten us. Maybe she and Mr. Cook, one of the few in tech who seem trustworthy, can get together and help Americans understand what's at stake. Congress surely doesn't. That would be a great first step.
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