Well paint me red and call me a girl scout. "In its latest push to get porn off your computer, Apple now deletes all iCloud emails that contain the phrase 'barely legal teens'. It doesn't send the messages to spam, or flag them, it just straight up deletes them, and there's nothing you can do about it." So, at least we can finally put that silly myth to rest that Apple respects users' privacy. They scan your emails, including attachments, just like everyone else.
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Member since:2012-06-02
Member since:2005-08-18
Member since:2011-05-12
I know it's going against the trend, but it would be nice if some news was checked. Certainly if it's so easy and quick to do as this one.
No doubt the writer's email and Cult of Mac's one disappeared, but it would be more interesting to find what really happened rather than just copy news and present it as fact. They may use a certain email client that thinks it's spam, an ISP may do it, perhaps some US states do it, perhaps Apple does it but only to certain users under certain conditions.
Anything is possible. The only thing I can know for certain is that my emails arrive just fine and I'm seeing others report the same.
Member since:2010-06-10
Is it only in some regions (US for example)?
Is it a scan on a regular basis that deletes the mail after it has been received (every day at 23:00 for example)?
Is it a technical error that deleted them instead of flagging them in an internal database (Which would mean that every mail is indexed by Apple what raises another problem)?
Or is it pure FUD?
I don't have the answer but I admit that I would love to know.
Member since:2011-05-12
Cult of Mac confirmed it even though I assume they would tend to be more biased towards Apple.
(many more people confirm it doesn't happen)
I don't think Apple cares were you live, so if they really wanted to ban this subject-line they would enforce it on all users on their servers in the US. For me it's also easy to ban certain subject, but I have no clue how to do this based on country or US state. It makes it a lot more complicated and not 100% reliable.
Banning porn emails based on subjects is also very unreliable. And I don't think Apple should do it. Never mind privacy, but if Apple block porn and parents still find porn in the iCloud inbox they can blame Apple for not doing a good enough job. So they might as well not do it so they can't be blamed either.
I know it's a common spam subject, so it could be the may or may not be blocking it or perhaps they were temporary blocking it during a spam run.
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Member since:
2011-05-12
I sent one from me private account to iCloud. Subject "barely legal teens" and "Porn!" in the body. Arrives just fine, no delay, no deletions.
It makes me wonder Thom also did this check.