Apple accused of selling user data

[RejZoR]

I'm generally not a brand loyalist, but if someone says they don't sell private data, I expect them to be honest.

[laminutederire]

7 hours ago, justpoet said:

Apple is far from perfect…but actually, those people did.

They gave the app permission to do whatever the app says it wants to do with their data by giving it their data.  That's how data works.  If you don't trust the app, don't give it your data!

Except that doesn't hold in court. It has to be explicitly stated that the permissions will lead to that and not just to let it access some data of your phone to perform actions with it and never sell it. If nothing is clearly stated, then it is not consent to sell their data if they press that button.

And before you go this route, it being buried in TOS doesn't count, never has, never will. If it does in the us that is a massive issue, but I'm pretty sure it's there like it is in the EU, and the validity of TOS as a contract is basically zero since those are made to hide as much as possible the bad stuff, so even if it is in there its considered as deceit.

[dalekphalm]

13 hours ago, justpoet said:

Then again, some idiot dumped coffee on themselves and successfully sued McD for selling them hot coffee.  So anything is possible in the courts when justice isn't appropriately served.

Just to interject: That lawsuit was 100% justified. McDonalds was selling their coffee at a substantially higher temperature than other coffee shops. The coffee was so hot that the woman received third degree burns. McDonalds lowered the temperature after said incident and resulting lawsuit.

 

McDonalds was wrong. And the woman suing them was right.

 

It gets bandied about a lot because it sounds outrageous (Yes of course coffee is hot!) but in reality it was dangerously hot - not just "Ouch I got a little burn" hot.

 

On topic: These are serious allegations. I'll let the court settle this, since we haven't seen Apple's counter evidence, or even had the plaintiff's  evidence confirmed. There could be a lot here - including App developers breaking their contract with Apple, or data theft, or something else entirely. Apple could be guilty, but they also could be innocent.

 

So let's let the evidence from all sides be presented, and let the court do it's job.

[DrMacintosh]

On 5/31/2019 at 9:59 PM, RejZoR said:

And it's just a very shitty thing to keep saying how much you care about privacy and then sell full people names and addresses.

It's also very shitty to pass judgement without even hearing the defenses evidence. 

[DrMacintosh]

22 hours ago, BleachedFur said:

my girlfriend is 100% a victim of this

How do you know she wasn't scammed or data mined from any of the other dozens of more likely possibilities? How do you know Apple caused your gfs information to be given out?

 

22 hours ago, Gealach said:

This is the entire fucking reason I owned an iPhone. Now I have no reason to stay.

You do know that everything up to this point is just users on a forum trying to bash Apple right? There is no evidence that's publicly available that says that Apple has actually sold user purchase data to 3rd parties....

 

 

[RejZoR]

10 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

It's also very shitty to pass judgement without even hearing the defenses evidence. 

As someone who went for iPhone specifically for privacy concerns I'm not gonna go easy on them.

[DrMacintosh]

1 minute ago, RejZoR said:

As someone who went for iPhone specifically for privacy concerns I'm not gonna go easy on them.

Nobody is asking you to, but it just seems like everyone here is jumping to the conclusion that Apple is guilty simply off the claims of those filing the class action and nothing else. 

 

Entities are innocent until proven guilty. 

[RejZoR]

Just now, DrMacintosh said:

Nobody is asking you to, but it just seems like everyone here is jumping to the conclusion that Apple is guilty simply off the claims of those filing the class action and nothing else. 

 

Entities are innocent until proven guilty. 

Defend the Apple and be the bad guy, blame them and be the bad guy. I guess it's just no way of pleasing anyone...

[DrMacintosh]

1 minute ago, RejZoR said:

Defend the Apple and be the bad guy, blame them and be the bad guy. I guess it's just no way of pleasing anyone...

It's not about being the good guy or the bad guy. It's about being rational. 

[Soppro]

I like this thread - it gives everyone the opportunity to let out their anti-Apple sentiment and bash Apple because they stuffed up. How very nice   

-

An interesting accusation, I'd very much like to know what Apple will say about this. From what I've seen I don't know if that data has been obtained nefariously or was willingly and knowingly sold to 3rd parties. But right now my opinions of Apple haven't changed - they ultimately do much more than other companies (i.e. Facebook & Google) to protect users' privacy. 

[RejZoR]

7 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

It's not about being the good guy or the bad guy. It's about being rational. 

Well I'm not gonna be rational about the only last option that allegedly respected privacy after I had to ditch bunch of services and buy whole new device just for it to potentially be the same shit as everyone else. I hope I'm wrong, but until I'm proven that way I'm gonna be outraged whether you like it or not.

[Bouzoo]

3 minutes ago, Soppro said:

they ultimately do much more than other companies (i.e. Facebook & Google) to protect users' privacy. 

As a non Apple consumer that is the view in my eyes as well, however, saying they do more doesn't mean they do enough. Considering how bad the others are the bar is not that high to be the best.

[Gealach]

2 hours ago, DrMacintosh said:

You do know that everything up to this point is just users on a forum trying to bash Apple right? There is no evidence that's publicly available that says that Apple has actually sold user purchase data to 3rd parties....

Everything I said is under the assumption that the article in question is true.

 

In fairness, with how journalism is today (fake news, circular sourcing etc.) it could very well be that the article is misleading.

 

You're right and we should all be a little more careful how headlines influence our actions (and thinking)

[Yeroh]

I can‘t see why they‘d do this.

 

It‘s not like they need it as an alternative source of revenue, and the potential harm it could do to their brand far outweighs whatever I could see them earning from this. 

 

Ultimately we‘ll have to wait and see, but it would definitely surprise me if this turned out to be true. Not because I believe in Apple‘s marketing claims, but because it just wouldn‘t make sense to me. 

[SomeLinuxPerson]

On 5/31/2019 at 7:25 PM, SenpaiKaplan said:

The real question is who uses iTunes over Apple Music? 

Apple music is apart of ITunes I think like I for example use I Tunes to listen to music on my PC using my apple music subscription. 

[DrMacintosh]

7 hours ago, valdyrgramr said:

Plus, they tend do a lot of other things like patent trolling and tax dodging to scamming their consumers.

You’re right on the tax dodging. Because every corporate entity with even a fraction of the business of Apple always the lowest amount they can legally get away with. Some call it tax dodging, some call it being “smart.”

 

As for the claims of patent trolling and scamming, I ask when have they done that?

[79wjd]

1 hour ago, DrMacintosh said:

You’re right on the tax dodging. Because every corporate entity with even a fraction of the business of Apple always the lowest amount they can legally get away with. Some call it tax dodging, some call it being “smart.”

 

As for the claims of patent trolling and scamming, I ask when have they done that?

 

2 minutes ago, valdyrgramr said:

One of many examples and no it isn't being smart it is a crime.  Tell ya what don't pay your taxes and see how smart ya feel.

Utilizing loopholes in tax laws -- loopholes that exist and have intentionally gone un-filled, isn't a crime. 

 

That goes for both a corporate entity and an individual. The vast majority of people (when laziness is removed from the equation) will take any legal means to lessen their tax burden -- whether that be by deciding if retirement savings should be pre or post-tax (pre-tax savings in the hopes that the tax rate will be lower when you go to withdraw or to lower your taxable income at the moment to increase the amount you take home today it; or a post-tax ROTH in the expectation that tax rates will only get higher when you go to withdraw it) to writing off loans/debts/losses/property, etc... 

[jagdtigger]

They were rotting on the inside for a long time, wouldnt surprise me if they gave in to the temptation....

[Murasaki]

On 6/1/2019 at 2:09 AM, Captain Chaos said:

If these allegations turn out to be true, that's going to leave a long-lasting mark on their brand. 

Nah, people will keep buying as usual.

[Sauron]

"I told you so" somehow doesn't cut it here.

On 6/1/2019 at 2:31 AM, justpoet said:

This is…very obviously different.  Data is data.  Video is video.  Sex is sex.  Sex is not a video.

Apple has put in its terms and conditions for developers a LOT of restrictions on being able to sell, recombine, and re-use data that they get.  They've actively been going after developers and apps on the app store to either have them fixed or removed as well (this has recently been in the news).

 

To your point, just because somebody is allowed to access something doesn't mean they're allowed to do anything they want with it.  To use your very flawed analogy, it would be something like saying "sure, you can film this and use it in the future, but you can't sell it to other people"…but then somebody else who saw it made a copy and then sold it.

 

In short, once you allow a third party to access all your data, you can't be surprised that they then use/share/sell it based on THEIR (non)privacy policy, rather than Apple's, even if Apple has in the contract that the developer isn't allowed to do so.

I agree the sex example isn't applicable but that doesn't matter - they are abusing your personal information (allegedly, though I personally don't doubt for a second that it's true) for profit.

 

Also this isn't some deranged third party abusing iOS, it's Apple itself:

Quote

The data Apple discloses includes the full names and home addresses of its customers, together with the genres and, in some cases, the specific titles of the digitally-recorded music that its customers have purchased via the iTunes Store and then stored in their devices’ Apple Music libraries.

Their privacy concerns are just a facade they wear because they can't compete with Google on their own turf.

[Norwegiantweaker]

are you shocked ? i'm not. and they aren't the only one who does it .

[mr moose]

2 hours ago, valdyrgramr said:

Weren't they fined for it in Europe?

I do agree that pushing customers to buy new instead of repairing and actively trying to prevent them from repairing is a scam and dodgy,  but they weren't fined for tax dodging in the EU,  the EU decided Ireland wasn't allowed to set their own tax rates for Apple.  The EU was upset that Ireland managed to land Apples head office in their country by simply lowering taxes.

 

14 hours ago, DrMacintosh said:

Nobody is asking you to, but it just seems like everyone here is jumping to the conclusion that Apple is guilty simply off the claims of those filing the class action and nothing else. 

 

Entities are innocent until proven guilty. 

It doesn't matter if apple are guilty or not of selling this data, they promised to users that their products were private and secure and that your itunes data would not be sold.  They promised that and then didn't ensure it happened.  As I said right back at the start, the only way apple are not guilty is if the evidence is made up. 

 

 

[Sauron]

1 hour ago, Jack_of_all_Trades said:

Yea pretty much expected, all those fanboy claims that apple doesn't sell data or does not provide data to let say the American or Chinese government when requested are a pure pipe-dream.

Don't blame the fanboys, blame the company that explicitly markets itself like that. Though to be fair - the government doesn't get that data unless they pay $$$

 

[mr moose]

12 minutes ago, valdyrgramr said:

Apparently Apple is currently trying to appeal the case.

I assume we are talking about the same case. 

 

https://www.engadget.com/2018/05/18/apple-first-payment-back-taxes-to-ireland/

 

And this article highlights how laughable the whole thing treally is:

 

https://www.thejournal.ie/apple-tax-ireland-7-4241938-Sep2018/

 

Both parities are appealing for the same reason and Apple were forced to pay the full amount into an escrow account because Ireland was "taking too long" to collect the money.  Imagine being told how to run your own damn country.

 

[79wjd]

38 minutes ago, mr moose said:

Imagine being told how to run your own damn country.

Who asked for the definition of the EU?