Apple Took Out a CES Ad To Troll Its Competitors Over Privacy (engadget.com) 254
An anonymous reader shared a report: Historically, Apple hasn't had an official presence at CES. It's not surprising given the company's success at hosting and hyping its own product launch events -- long before the iPod and iPhone brought Apple to the top of the technology mountain, Steve Jobs keynotes were can't miss events. The company is also very deliberate about its marketing campaigns; when I see Apple billboard ads, they focus on new product close-ups with minimal messaging. This is why the giant ad banner I saw when I arrived in Las Vegas yesterday for CES 2019 caught my eye. Positioned not far from the convention center where CES takes place, the sign is a cheeky riff on the old "what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas" slogan -- and with just a few words, it casts an Apple-shaped shadow over the convention.
Free pass over privacy (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Free pass over privacy (Score:5, Insightful)
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I care, and I'd pay an extra fifty to have great privacy on my phone. I won't pay an extra five hundred though. Or put up with a screen with a wedge sliced out of it. Or no headphone jack. Or no microsd support. Or virtually no customization. Or...
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Particularly now. I can't help but find it ironic that Apple is lecturing the rest of us about privacy just a few short months after they moved all their Chinese users onto servers in mainland China — one of the most dubiously privacy-risking moves in the
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It's actually extremely easy to copy files to an iPhone. You drag them to iCloud storage on your computer and then they show up under the iPhone "files" app.
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You should make your own phone then. It will be exactly what you want.
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I have exactly what I want... Moto G4 Play.
Removable battery? Check!
Ability to install custom bootloaders for cloudfree storage? Check!
Removable SD card? Check!
Price point ($100) low enough to make losing/breaking it not a big deal? Check!
Tim Cook can go fellate someone.
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Hurray for Internet crank phone!
We non-cranks like our phones too.
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Hurray for Internet crank phone!
We non-cranks like our phones too.
Sad to see jealous fanboys making fun of common sense feature sets and pricing that offer real value.
You cannot accept the fact my 6 year old Android cost me 10x less and has more storage and 5x battery capacity of a top of a line iPhone XS ripoff device without throwing little fanboy tantrums blurting out "normal people" this "crank" that... quite sad.
I can accept whatever about your phone. I like my phone better though. I get the features I want. You get to feel good about saving some money. No problem with either one of those.
Re:Free pass over privacy (Score:4, Insightful)
That you consider yourself a "non-crank" after the above, and everything else you've ever whined/lied about here, lol.
I'm not the least bit cranky.
What's wrong with anything posted in this discussion? These guys are trying to say it's a big problem copying data to an iPhone when it's actually very easy. Kids and old people can do it, but these Slashdot readers (of all people) have trouble.
And they're trying to claim that's because everyone else is doing it wrong...? That's hard to relate to. You'd think some self-awareness would eventually be realized. Doesn't seem to be happening though.
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MakerPhone is a popular Kickstarter:
https://www.kickstarter.com/pr... [kickstarter.com]
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Kickstarter is a third party service. Is there a way I can direct-transfer funds to MakerPhone?
I have silver coins right here in an oiled leather pouch waiting for them. How do I get them to the MakerPhone people? (No third parties can be involved in the transaction because ... that would be bad somehow.)
Re:Free pass over privacy (Score:4, Interesting)
You're seriously suggesting, in a discussion about online privacy, that a reasonable alternative to sharing your digital life with whoever makes your phone is to make your own phone?
Here's an alternative suggestion: Makers of consumer devices are required by law to make all data collection and use of online services transparent, with notifications prominently displayed on the packaging and UI to legally mandated visibility standards. Moreover, any data sharing that is not essential for the device to operate must be optional, with user controls that stick once set and are set to full privacy by default. Likewise, the user must explicitly opt-in to activate any online service, even if it is essential for the use of the device. Penalty for failure to comply is 10% of global revenues from sales of the affected devices in the first year and the percentage doubles each year, in addition to any server ever touched without the correct user authority being subject to removal and destruction without compensation.
See, anyone can propose severely one-sided rules for this game. The difference is that for some reason we're accepting the rules set by big business in an industry where competition isn't functioning effectively any more because the abuse is too profitable under current laws for any big player to offer an alternative that doesn't come with that abuse.
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That's how normal people transfer files. So yeah.
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Normal people transfer files the way they are given, because they don't know any better.
Normal people are also subject to identity theft, targeting marketing, and all the other risks that come with sharing potentially sensitive data with third parties unnecessarily.
It is baffling to me that you seem to equate the common behaviour with good behaviour. Why on earth would anyone do that?
Re:Free pass over privacy (Score:4, Insightful)
Normal people transfer files the way they are given, because they don't know any better.
Also because it works. Then they go on with their lives instead of worrying about ethereal threats.
Normal people are also subject to identity theft, targeting marketing, and all the other risks that come with sharing potentially sensitive data with third parties unnecessarily.
That's a good reason to use iCloud.
It is baffling to me that you seem to equate the common behaviour with good behaviour. Why on earth would anyone do that?
Because it was about transferring files to an iPhone, not about passing a purity test on forensic data handling.
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Celebrities should use 2-factor.
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Celebrities should use 2-factor.
Now seriously, while I need a password that cannot be cracked when it turns up in a 10 million password collection that hackers have "liberated", any celebrity trying to protect things that they _really_ don't want to be seen needs a password that cannot be cracked by someone who investigates their lives, finds all the schools they have been to, the names of all pets they owned, and so on and so on.
I have passwords that resist random or dictionary attacks, but that could be cracked if someone investigate
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Makers of consumer devices are required by law to make all data collection and use of online services transparent, with notifications prominently displayed on the packaging and UI to legally mandated visibility standards. Moreover, any data sharing that is not essential for the device to operate must be optional, with user controls that stick once set and are set to full privacy by default. Likewise, the user must explicitly opt-in to activate any online service, even if it is essential for the use of the device. Penalty for failure to comply is 10% of global revenues from sales of the affected devices in the first year and the percentage doubles each year, in addition to any server ever touched without the correct user authority being subject to removal and destruction without compensation.
You just described GDPR.
Opt-in on everything is mandatory. Companies can't force you to opt-in just to use a service unless it's absolutely essential to providing that service. And if they don't comply it's 2% of global turnover.
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You just described GDPR.
Sadly, I didn't. I might have described something close to what GDPR was meant to be. What it actually is does not provide such strong guarantees to data subjects but does cause significant overheads even for businesses that have no interest in these kinds of creepy data-mining activities.
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Can you give a specific example of that? I don't know what you are referring to.
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That's not remotely true. Encrypt your data, transfer via the cloud, then unencrypt.
Unless you're using a very outdated encryption method, the absolute worst that can happen is that they keep your data for as long as it takes for that method to get broken or for computing to advance far enough that it can be brute forced. And about the only people willing to do that are the intelligence agencies of nation states, and if you're on their radar, you're probably fucked in a dozen different ways anyway.
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Since you can't sideload on Apple products, you can only install Apple approved encryption which is worthless if you are trying to not trust Apple.
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Similarly easy: email the files to yourself and open them on your phone. Or use an app that supports Box/Dropbox/OneDrive/etc.
It's very, very easy for anyone without a long string of hangups or other random complaints about anything and everything.
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It's a very easy workaround. But there's also Dropbox, etc.
Regular people who don't have hangups about WTF-ever can use one of the dozen simple ways to get files onto their iPhone. Only people like you have trouble.
Re:Free pass over privacy (Score:5, Informative)
Every method you've suggested so far involves transferring your files via a third party. There is absolutely no reason anyone should have to do that to transfer data between their personal devices that are sitting next to each other on a desk right in front of them, and your whole approach goes against the generally good principle of security and privacy by design and by default.
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...your whole approach goes against the generally good principle...
The complaint was about inability to transfer files, not about failure to optimize upon such a principle. You want files protected optimally, don't transfer them at all. You want easy transfer of files, then there are easy ways.
You want some in-between thing that's partly optimized for one thing and partly optimized for an entirely contrary thing, then no one can guess which amount of optimization you want for which side of the balance, so no one can offer a suggestion for that. Too bad.
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You want some in-between thing that's partly optimized for one thing and partly optimized for an entirely contrary thing, then no one can guess which amount of optimization you want for which side of the balance, so no one can offer a suggestion for that.
There's nothing contrary about wanting secure local transfer of data between devices. We've been doing it for decades, and no paradox is involved. A whole range of different connections and protocols exist for this purpose, and almost every other popular device can do it right now. But with Apple gear...
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So you require support for Microsoft's FAT32 filesystem in your phone.
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It's a very easy workaround. But there's also Dropbox, etc.
If someone doesn't want to transmit files through Apple's servers, suggesting to use Dropbox instead is rather lame. Apart from fears that companies could intentionally cheat on you and your privacy, sharing files through iTunes is _intended_ not to be shared with others, while DropBox is _intended_ to be shared, so it is more likely that hackers might be able to "share" your data.
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The point is that it's easy. I admit I don't understand fringe sensibilities that keep otherwise capable people from using the simplest, most straightforward, most widely-used ways to do ordinary things like transfer files.
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That's arguable. Dropbox has a system designed specifically to provide access to specific users authorized to access a given fi
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When the problem that uploading data to 3rd party servers removed private is brought up, you list other ways to upload data to 3rd party servers... fucking dumb shit
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If it's too private for your email, then keep it on an isolated computer that's not connected to the Internet. Don't walk around with those files on your phone.
You're afraid of every 3rd-party service. About 98% of everyone else isn't. I will admit I don't intuitively understand fringe sensibilities.
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You're afraid of every 3rd-party service. About 98% of everyone else isn't.
I'm not sure that's even close to true. People accepting the use of 3rd party services because they have no realistic alternative while still living a normal life does not mean the approve of those services and everything they do.
Moreover, a big part of the problem is that the average non-geek user has no idea how much damage these data leaks can do. Meanwhile, ID theft is one of the fastest-growing crimes and has devastating effects on its victims, cyber-bullying is one of the biggest problems for young pe
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You are correct. If you want to transfer files with a cable, in a ritualistic homage to historic data handling methods, then an iPhone is a poor choice.
False dichotomy is false. There is no reason any number of local wireless alternatives couldn't be used instead. Apple just chooses not to support them, presumably to promote the lock-in effect within its own ecosystem. It's perfectly reasonable for privacy-conscious users to be wary of that and make another choice when buying a device.
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IPhone doesn't support uucp or rsync over stunnel or whatever other scheme you have in mind.
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In Windows? :P
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Run a web server on your laptop, connect to said web server from your phone using a 10.x.x.x or 192.168.x.x IP address, and upload things that way.
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It's actually extremely easy to copy files to an iPhone. You drag them to iCloud storage on your computer and then they show up under the iPhone "files" app.
LOL
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It's because people don't really care. I have to admit, I use an Android phone so I guess I am encouraging privacy violations. But the alternative is to lock myself into Apple's walled garden, inability to simply copy files to my phone, and instead have to use a format iTunes will be happy with or use a flaky in app transfer; I pick sacrificing my privacy.
Android is a open source operating system with a Linux kernel.
The problem is not the operating system it's software bundled with it. Most notably Google Play Services which magically transforms anything running Android into malware.
Alternative images freely available and regularly maintained can be downloaded for many devices here: https://lineageos.org/ [lineageos.org]
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That said, some privacy must be giv
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Re: Free pass over privacy (Score:4, Informative)
If you don't like those apps then just take them out of your home screen and don't use them.
"Uninstall updates" doesn't recover the gigabyte of space that the outdated copies of these apps occupy in an Android device's read-only system partition.
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Do you think AAC is a proprietary Apple-only format?
Some people think AAC means "Apple Apple Crap", when in reality it means "Advanced Audio Codec". Among other things it is what all DVDs have been using. And as other says, MP3's work just fine.
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If you don't like AAC, you can always use the decades-old MP3 format.
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Re:Free pass over privacy (Score:5, Informative)
b0s0z0ku applauded:
Well said -- Apple practically invented the walled garden and computing as a prison.
Not even. Not at all, in fact.
Once upon a time, there was a company called Wang that owned the word processing market. If you wanted to use computers to process words, there really wasn't any choice, at least in a corporate environment at the departmental level or above. And, much like Oracle's sales model, buying into Wang meant hiring ridiculously-overpriced consultants to create document templates and teach your staff how to use their proprietary, terminal-based network and software. You even had to buy printers from them, because there were no third-party products that worked with Wang's hardware ecosystem.
Oh, and you didn't actually get to buy Wang systems - you could only lease them. And, boy, were they expensive to lease, even discounting things like support contracts and having to pay Wang technicians to install upgrades and patches.
Before that, there was IBM and its competitors in the mainframe market, with their proprietary hardware and software systems and their own legions of consultants and product support engineers.
Steve Jobs learned about closed computer ecosystems from the real pioneers in the field. In fact, it's only because in 1981, or thereabouts, the same IBM that kept such an iron grip on its mainframe environment inexplicably decided to open its PC architecture to third-party vendors that we've gotten used to open standards for personal computing hardware and the OSes that control it. Otherwise, closed gardens would be the rule, rather than the exception for the consumer and small-business computing markets.
I don't have a lot of good things to say about the current version of Apple, but Steve Jobs isn't to blame for the walled garden concept - it existed long before he was even conceived ...
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but Steve Jobs isn't to blame for the walled garden concept
He certainly is to blame. The examples you cite are from an archaic time and were limited to specific contracts between specific people. These situtations existed as corporate contracts and affected few people outside of large corporations.
Computing evolved into a more general case and the world ended up with devices at the fingertips of every normal person. Steve Jobs is to blame from introducing the walled garden concept at this general level which is orders of magnitude worse than a few ultra rich compan
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Acquired with extreme prejudice. ;)
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"Free pass", as in hauled before Congress, Secrets leaked by the UK Parliament, multiple lawsuits, so bad they had to start taking out adverts to reassure people?
You also need to understand what each of those companies is actually doing. I mean, Twitter's privacy invasion is pretty minimal. Google makes everything opt-in for the most part, at least in the EU where it is legally requires - maybe the US is worse. So really it's just Facebook, and Facebook is taking a lot of flak for it.
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When was Apple collecting unnecessary data and what data are you claiming they collected? I don't remember any news stories about Apple building a shadow profile of me or reading all my e-mail to show me "better" advertisements.
Gmail hasn't based ads on messages for 1 1/2 years (Score:2)
Gmail used to scan your incoming mail for keywords in order to deliver contextually relevant advertising. It stopped that practice a year and a half ago [blog.google]. Since July 2017, Gmail ads are instead interest-based, drawing context from your browsing history on other Google properties and on third parties' websites that use Google analytics or advertising.
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So your response is Google used to read your e-mail until recently but now they just cyber-stalk you. That's technically an improvement.
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I've been following Apple since the 80s, when did they have a privacy scandal? Honest question, I don't remember one.
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"Used to be"? (Score:2)
SMS (Score:2)
Apple still redirects 100% of all SMS traffic aimed at other iPhone users through its own servers. Installing facebook or twitter on my phone doesn't do that. If I buy an iPhone I can choose if I want to use Twitter or Facebook at all. I can't choose whether I want Apple to have all my SMS traffic.
Re:Free pass over privacy (Score:5, Insightful)
It used to be that Apple, was a bad player in this area by unnecessary collecting data.
Could you give some examples of that? Google is a company whose sole purpose is to collect data about you and hire it out to advertisers. Apple's purpose is to make devices and sell them to end users.
Google was the company who quite accidentally added code to their ads when running on a Microsoft browser that went around the user's privacy settings, and quite accidentally added different code when running on Safari that went around the Safari user's privacy settings.
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get a pass over privacy
They don't get a pass over privacy. They deliver a product and or service in return for people giving up privacy. It's like asking why Apple gets a pass for accepting money.
PRISM (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:PRISM (Score:5, Insightful)
They're still a PRISM partner with the US Government which means they are completely compromised and your data isn't safe at all. Why does anyone even buy these fucking advertisements?
Because they want to believe.
Did everyone already forget about the Ed Snowden leaks?
Who?
Are my fellow countrymen really that insipid, thick, and forgetful?
Yes
Re:PRISM (Score:4, Insightful)
To be fair there is no evidence that PRISM was voluntary, and in fact the leaked documents show that it worked by attacking those company's networks. Google took very public actions to cut off access after the leak. I'm sure Apple did something too, but didn't say what exactly.
For example, there was that infamous slide showing otherwise protected Gmail data flowing between data centres. A few months later Google had it fully encrypted.
I hate Apple but.... (Score:5, Interesting)
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Anything someone doesn’t like for any reason is called trolling now. It's easier to name-call than to spend 10 seconds thinking about what's the actual objection.
Re:I hate Apple but.... (Score:4, Insightful)
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One can troll while stating the truth, it is the act of intentionally provoking/manipulating people that matters.
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I guess the trolling would be trying to imply that all their competitors are inferior, when they are not.
Look at how many people on Slashdot drank the coolaid and think that Google tracks your every move via Android and, bizarrely, Chrome. It's not true of course, unless you explicitly opt in to location history, same as you can with Apple devices if you want to make use if their features that rely on it. But that's the myth, and they are perpetuating it.
Re:I hate Apple but.... (Score:4, Informative)
How is this trolling?
It might be true but it's clearly done in a way to wind up the companies at CES. In other words, it's a troll, and an excellent classy one. Even people here seem to have forgotten that trolling is winding up, not just shit posting.
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You really are deluding yourself if you think Android phones are any different. Basically everything is built or assembled in Chinese factories these days.
The first really badly negative news about Apple in China was an article claiming that the highest number of complaints by people building iPhones was about overtime. Then someone looked further and the complaints were about the fact that workers couldn't always get as much overtime (and extra money) as they wanted.
Then there was the scandal when 300 workers in the iPhone factory threatened to jump from a roof. Well, it was in fact at the factory where iPhones were built. At the same factory, Microsoft X
What happens on your iPhone stays on your iPhone (Score:5, Informative)
That's the slogan used, for those who don't want to have to actually click on the story and supply advertising revenue to a clickbait site.
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That's the slogan used, for those who don't want to have to actually click on the story and supply advertising revenue to a clickbait site.
It's almost like the apple-exclusive fappening never happened... You never really understand the term "Reality Distortion" until you see Apple's marketing literature (which sooner or later get regurgitated by iPhone users).
I just switched back to iPhone for this reason (Score:5, Insightful)
I bought an iPhone on the first day in '07, cause it was obviously a great thing.
In about 2012, I switched to Android, mostly cause I run linux everywhere else and like it.
I thought I'd have more privacy, then slowly realized how stupid that was.
Looked into Cyanogenmod and LineageOS over and over, but ran out of time to ever actually do it.
Finally gave up, bit down, and went back to iPhone (it was a hand-me-down 6S)
I really liked Android. Still lots that can't do on the iPhone.
I really wish there was a better choice, but for now, I'm depending on Apple to keep the worst data harvesters at bay.
With Google, you don't get that option, got burned too many times.
Re:I just switched back to iPhone for this reason (Score:5, Informative)
If you were considering Cyanogenmod (phone has unlocked bootloader and is rooted), you didn't look hard enough.
AFWall+ [google.com] lets you block apps from sending data over the network. Let's you selectively allow/deny access to the LAN, WiFi, and/or cellular networks for each app and service on your phone. (NetGuard [google.com] claims to do the same without root, but I haven't tried it.)
XPrivacyLua [xda-developers.com] takes a different approach. It allows the apps to send data back, it just turns the data they see into fake data. So your location will be spoofed as being in the South Pacific, they will see a fake contact list instead of your real one, This works better if an app you need needs network access to function or crashes if you simply block its network access.
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Recent iPhone user here. This is something I found out as soon as I moved to iOS. One of the reasons I switched was Apple's claims of caring about privacy. While it may be true that Apple won't sell customer data to third parties, I don't think they do a good job of empowering their users to control what data is being shared by installed applications. Safari is the worst offender here. With iOS 12, they removed support for legacy extensions, which apparently killed almost all of the privacy oriented extensi
Windows Phone (Score:2)
Trolling is a sign of desperation (Score:2)
Trolling is really just a cop out and a sign of desperation. It means you're all out of ideas and you have nothing new to offer. So you resort to trolling your rivals. We see this all the time in our politics, and now companies are trolling too
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Your Apple Tax dollars at work!
Thanks for proving my point.
Who do I root for here? (Score:3)
Some brands sell your data (Score:2)
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Rounded corners.
And courage.
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