I've been seeing comments on HN praising how Apple respects users' privacy etc. Though I have a genuine question: how can we be so confident that Apple follows their claims while their software remain closed-source?

For client-side Google software like Android/Chromium at least we got to fork and remove the evil bits; we have built thriving communities based on that and everyone's got an alternative to Google. In the case of iOS/Safari do we trust Apple-provided binaries solely based on claimed policy / reputation?

Also, Apple sells the default search provider space on their OS to Google for ~9B/year.

So, does it really matter if Apple doesn't directly operate their advertising business and instead outsources it?

This says nothing about apple selling user data like google of facebook.

We should be more clear in distinguishing various levels of attacks to privacy.

Google doesn't sell user data either, though.

But Apple's privacy policy is very clear that they do share user data and they do use personal information for advertisement purposes: "Apple and its affiliates may share this personal information with each other and use it consistent with this Privacy Policy. They may also combine it with other information to provide and improve our products, services, content, and advertising."

Does Apple collect less data than Google? Almost certainly, Google is crazy good at it. But are they still collecting data and using it for targeted advertising? According to their own privacy policy YES, yes they are. Including tracking people on their websites: "Apple’s websites, online services, interactive applications, email messages, and advertisements may use "cookies" and other technologies such as pixel tags and web beacons. These technologies help us better understand user behavior, tell us which parts of our websites people have visited, and facilitate and measure the effectiveness of advertisements and web searches."

Seriously, just read Apple's privacy policy: https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/en-ww/

It really doesn't match their heavy privacy-first marketing push of late.

And for things like Siri it's hard to imagine that they aren't going to get increasingly creepy on the data collection aspect of things. It's sort of necessary to build out a "real" assistant. Asking things like "What time is my flight?", which is a useful feature, requires it to know when your flight is. Which you probably didn't manually tell it, because that's not very assistant-y, but instead it had to crawl your emails to find it. That ends up being creepy data collection. They could do it purely on-device, but then your homepod can't answer the same question, which breaks the magic. Unless they build some way for the homepod to ask all your other Apple devices. But if all your devices form a collective network that can share data about you between each other is it really "purely local" anymore? And what stops Apple from joining in on that mesh network whenever they want?

What part of handing over keys to iCloud to Chinese govt need to be applauded? The sooner people realize big corportations including Apple, Google will do things to generate profit, the better. Wallstreet, for better or worse, wont be kind if Tim Cook came in and said we decided to forego profit because differential privacy

Apple obeys the laws of the countries is operates in. Are you suggesting they should not?

On your second point, they Tim Cook has already said on their earnings calls that they could have monetized user data if they wanted to and chose not to. In fact they built Apple Maps at huge cost specifically so they would not have to give personal data to Google. They've been very clear about this.

> Apple obeys the laws of the countries is operates in. Are you suggesting they should not?

They can always choose not to operate in those countries. But they do, and accordingly making a conscious decision to endorse those laws in the name of profit.

1 corporations are not people. Analogies should only be made when there's an actual similarity point.

2 if you're making that point, there's still a difference between action and omission. Nobody would held you accountable if you don't actively try to topple a murderous regime, but if somehow it's laws require to participate in the stoning of a person, well, maybe you should grab a ticket to home instead of a stone, or at least is expected for you to weight the situation, not just shrug and quote: "well, it's the law".

Companies are made up of people, and the people are liable for any laws they violate while conducting the business of the company. Furthermore if companies aren't persons, do they therefore not have any of the obligations or responsibilities of a person, to obey the law, to answer to the courts, to be held to contracts or be the subject of law suits? The argument against corporate personhood is, frankly, utterly incoherent. Clearly they are entities which can have rights and obligations, many of which are similar to and derive from those of the people of which they are composed.

What Apple is doing is more like visiting a country and being told you either have to participate in stoning someone or pay a fine, and they are paying the fine. That's why they won't operate iCloud services in China, which will instead be run by a Chinese company which Apple will have to pay for the service.

Proper analogy is Western tourist coming to China, and filing reports about dissenting Chinese citizens. It's not about waving banners.

Apple built maps, because they couldn’t come to an agreement with google, something about turn by turn. The money exchanged with google probably played a part too