“All of those questions, messages, and stern commands that people have been whispering to Siri are stored on Apple servers for up to two years, Wired can now report. Yesterday, we raised concerns about some fuzzy disclosures in Siri’s privacy policy. After our story ran, Apple spokeswoman Trudy Muller called to explain Apple’s policy, something privacy advocates have asking for.” Apple cares about your privacy.
You have been reading too much Gruber
No, unfortunately people haven’t been reading Gruber or they don’t understand the joke so they continue to needlessly use the tired trope and look like jacktastic assholes doing so, or Gruber has been ineffective at shaming these idiots, or the pageviews are worth more than the shame they should feel. (Thom didn’t write the headline. He just re-used the original headline from the article by Robert McMillan in Wired. I’d imagine Thom is very aware of how “finally” is used in Apple headlines.)
Edited 2013-04-19 15:25 UTC
By the way, Robert McMillan got an answer in less than 24 hours. “Finally,” indeed, asshole.
I had no idea about the “finally”. I’m pretty sure it refers to Siri being out for god knows how long and Apple never having disclosed this information. If you read the article, you’d know Wired wasn’t the one who originally raised the concern – the American Civil Liberties Union was.
Don’t jump to conclusions to feed your own preconceived notions of needing to protect poor, misunderstood, beleaguered Apple.
An ACLU member blogged about it a year ago. I do not know if they put the question to Apple. (Are we suggesting that Apple has to account for all questions indirectly posed to them via blog? And, by the way, Thom, I read both the Wired article, the ACLU blog, and several other stories aggregating this today ahead of reading your link. I am being extremely kind in even suggesting that Ozer “indirectly asked” Apple in his blog post.) I do know a reporter did ask them yesterday, and he received an answer from Apple in less than 24 hours.
Edited 2013-04-19 15:37 UTC
When you are in a hole stop digging.
When someone makes a well deserved but gentle joke, possibly at your expense, join in the laughter.
Pompous bluster is the worst possible response.
So follow your own advice and stfu.
Another angry guy with no sense of humour. Chill bro.
So pointing out the irony of your comment implies that I’m angry and have no sense of humour.
I think Swash has been lying about his use of Apple products. You’re supposed to become insanely creative immediately upon using an Apple product. But his demonstrated inability to create a funny joke (while delusionally believing it was in any way humorous) in this occasion proves otherwise.
Riiiiight, because it’s not as if you have along history of trying to dismiss all criticism of Apple by resorting to lazy rhetoric, weaselly passive-aggression, and talking points copy-pasted from Gruber.
(See also: Poe’s Law & The Boy who Cried Wolf)
That’s pretty funny, coming from a person who has repeatedly used the phrase “Apple-phobe/Apple-phobia” in a pathetically transparent attempt to equate criticism of Apple with homophoia (see also: the fallacy of guilt by association).
Ya know, somebody really ought to do a study on the whole “treating corps like ballclubs” phenomena because I have noticed it has gone waaay up as have labeling anybody who isn’t part of the ballclub attitude as shills or haters and I really don’t get it.
I mean I could understand it if they owned a shitload of stock or something but they don’t, I might even be able to put it down to buyer’s remorse, like those poor saps that got burnt by the Apple laptops with Nvidia GPUs but people will be just as insane-o when it comes to free software or companies like Google where they don’t have a cent invested…so why? Why do they do that?
I like AMD CPUs (still think the bang for the buck can’t be beat, not when I’m picking up Athlon triples that have 80% unlock rates for $45) and Asusrock boards and laptops, Like Win 7 but hate Win 8, like Samsung HDDs but hate Seagate, but if you feel differently about any of those…okay? It would be as silly for me to get upset because you feel differently as it would to get mad because you prefer tacos over fried chicken.
I don’t know, maybe I’m just too damned old and aren’t hip enough to get it or something but I have never understood why any article with the big three, Apple, Google, or MSFT, seem to have the fanboys come out in force to either “defend the company” or to tear it down because they are rooting for the other guy. all I can think of when i see this crap is that old Mel Brooks bit “All go to hell except cave 76!” because it seems just as pointless and stupid to me.
Frankly it’s the rabid anti-fans that seem more inexplicable.
If someone likes a company and it’s products I think defending it in public is an OK thing to do, especially when confronted with such shabby journalistic practices as the use of the word ‘finally’ in the article under discussion, which you will note I attacked with some fairly gently sarcasm.
Compare my comment to, for example, that of Curio’s where in response he actually shouts out in capital letters that Apple are ” controlling FASCIST, NAZI, JACKBOOTED, thugs”, presumably because of the way they administer the App store or perhaps because they won’t let Flash run on their devices. Don’t you think that such a comment is more weird, more disturbing and more worthy of counter-comment than my relatively restrained ‘fandom’?
If Curios bizzare anti-Apple rage was a one off then it would be just the ravings of nut job but such hyperbolic comments about mostly, but not exclusively, Apple are all too common and are often left un-critiqured. I think criticising a company or a product or a practice in the tech world is just fine as long as it is done in a reasonably rational way, perhaps in a way that teases out the issues in an interesting fashion or offers up a different analysis or data for consideration. But when people start frothing at the mouth about something being ‘evil’ or worse than the Nazis of whatever then I think they should be called out about their poisonous and idiotic rhetoric.
Edited 2013-04-22 06:01 UTC
All you are doing is defending the practice which again…totally batshit.
Now if somebody is posting obvious lies, like “Windows BSODs daily” or “All Apple products are made in sweatshops” now it is perfectly fine and dandy to post “That is incorrect, here are the facts” dot dot dot and preferably cite examples with citations so you aren’t just pulling them out your behind.
But I’m sorry but reading some of your posts would make one think you drive a car with an Apple sticker on it and have multiple non computer items with the Apple logo (and God have mercy if that is true) and if you don’t have stock or a vested interest in the company? that is just batshit.
Its like how you will see macheads jump through logic hoops rather than accept “Macs are expensive” which duh! Even Steve said they were, his whole strategy was to make Apple a top tier brand like Prada or Porsche and you don’t do that by providing “good value” or any of that bull, you do it by being more expensive than the other guy!
So while I agree completely that the “anti” posts are just as batshit, which I pointed out in my original post BTW, that don’t make the pro posts any less batshit, just a different kind of batshit. To defend batshit behavior by pointing out the other guy is more batshit is as pathetic as those that defend gitmo by saying “Look at what china does”…and? Who gives a crap what THEY are doing, what we are talking about is what YOU are doing and just because somebody somewhere on the planet is worse does NOT give you a free pass..get it now?
….u mad bro?
Or is all of that bluster just an attempt at misdirection, to distract us from the fact that your adorable little “finally” meme doesn’t actually apply in this context?
Hate to break it to you, but no one cares about Gruber outside of the Apple echo chamber. Not knowing specific details about Gruber should be considered a point of pride, like not knowing the titles of individual Twilight movies or the names of Justin Beiber songs.
Swash-Rinse-Repeat!
Oh joy, how novel. The captain of the Apple business practice’s sanitation squad has some input on this (every)matter.
And who cares that you’ve (and other mindless fanbois) signed-on to some wanker’s notion of the proper use of the word FINALLY within the context of Apple and all their dubious dealings?
FINALLY, first pull thyne head from thyne own ass before presuming you’ve the sack to instruct others on how to do so.
Swash-Rinse-Repeat! ad nauseum…
You´re rather rude.
Your “You´re rather rude” response would carry a lot more weight–not showing your true colors, if you had tagged all the rude comments in the thread as such. Most notably the first from user jared wilkes (below).
“they continue to needlessly use the tired trope and look like jacktastic assholes doing so, or Gruber has been ineffective at shaming these idiots.”
Then we could all assume you’re seeking a degree from The Emily Post Institute, and boning up on your skills at correcting (all) rude people. But no, you’ve self identified yourself as a Gruber parrot wanna-be and consummate “Bag Lapper” for the Apple cause by singling out my, rather mild rudeness, by comparison.
Your mild rudeness seems to be gravitating towards above average rudeness.
Typical. You do not address what he wrote before his own qualification of his own rudeness. That your comment would be valid criticism if you also said the same thing about others being rude. But if the person who is being rude used it to defend Apple then suddenly it is not so bad to being rude. You just showing how hypocritical you are.
I did not address curio as he was being rude to me as well, making any conversation pointless.
My original rudeness spotting had to do with a reply to Tony. It was this reply I was objecting to as it seemed like yet another mindless Tony Swash bashing. I don´t see why if I object to a Swash Bash I should suddenly become the moral police of this site.
Jared only directed one insult against another site member, but this was Thom who doesn´t mind insulting his own readers so he might even like it and if he doesn´t he shouldn´t do it either. I don´t see Tony Swash handing out insults and you´re not likely to see me do so either.
Directly? Of course not, he clearly doesn’t have the spine for insulting anyone directly. But he’s the master of indirect insults via thinly-veiled, weaselly passive-aggression. And when I say “thinly-veiled”, I mean that he basically just uses the term “people who” instead of “you” – even though it’s always painfully obvious who the insult is directed at.
Here’s an example of an insult that has been “Swashed”:
“I find it curious that the only people who defend Tony tend to also be prolific Apple defenders.”
And here’s how that same insult would be phrased by someone who possessed a pair of balls:
“The only reason you’re defending Tony is out of a feeling solidarity for your fellow fanboy.”
Or for a few hundred specific examples:
https://www.google.com/search?q=%22tony+swash%22+%22peop…
I guess the humour bypass is more common than I thought. The reference in my original comment was to the long standing series of posts on the Daring Fireball site mocking the use of the word ‘finally’ in reports about Apple. The reason that usage is worthy of being mocked is that it is usually an example of lazy journalism, by inserting the word ‘finally’ in a headline it implies that Apple have been dragging their feet about something or resisting something, even though there is often no evidence of that, and thus a spurious but click worthy headline is created.
Hence my mocking comment about the use of the word ‘finally’ in relation to information about Siri data retention which, it appears, Apple were first directly asked about a day or so ago and to which they responded with the requested information within 24 hours. Using the word ‘finally’ in relation to that seems mock worthy.
You will note that explaining a joke kills the humour
No doubt Thom or someone else will now ferret away to find some forensic evidence that ‘proves’ that Apple have indeed resisted in some way the revelation of the details of Siri data retention and thus proffer a defence of the word ‘finally’.
Rearrange the words ‘teacup, ‘in’, ‘a’ and ‘storm’ to suit.
Edited 2013-04-19 19:23 UTC
You’ve rightly identified the “wanker” as John Gruber, of Daring Fireball, (thank you very much), but the question was “who cares(beside other mindless fanbois)?”.
A joke? Hardly. It’s a new-ish control mechanism that’s surfaced in recent years on blogs and in their forums.
The pundit/writer enables his duller parroting fans (those with the lowest brain to shite ratios, who can’t think for themselves) a means by which to disqualify a negative argument simply by their opposition’s use of this or that word or term.
Using FINALLY in the context of Apple (here)is supposed to negate the whole argument that follows by subterfuge, while at the same time the pundit/writer/wanker (Gruber) is promoted by being quoted as some preeminent authority, couched in this instance as humor.
As to your last point on forensic evidence of Apple’s resistance where the word finally is unimpeachably appropriate.
When, FINALLY, is Apple going to pass full ownership rights on to the purchasers of their bought and paid for products? Instead of acting the controlling FASCIST, NAZI, JACKBOOTED, thugs that their actions over the years have proven they most certainly are.
Note: FASCIST, NAZI and JACKBOOT are all used in various venues within this same mechanism.
That’s a really, really bonkers thing to say.
What cannot you do with your Apple device that you want to do but are prevented from doing by Apple?
Why does preventing you from doing these things amount to behaviour so heinous that it compares to one of the most brutal and murderous movements in history?
It makes no sense to me.
As to the mocking of the use of the word ‘finally’, it is an attack on cheap and lazy journalism. It’s use in headlines is often an attempt to inject some drama and controversy in to what would be otherwise a fairly bland non-story. It’s low quality journalism designed to attract attention and clicks. It should be attacked and mocked.
The use of ‘finally’ is becoming as prevalent, and is as bad, as the gratuitous use of question marks in headlines, another awful journalistic practice.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge‘s_law_of_headlines
The problem with Apple phobics like yourself (and the use of the word phobic is appropriate I think for someone who actually thinks a software management system is somehow equivalent to the perpetrators of the Holocaust) is that you don’t care about journalistic standards as long as the bad journalism is attacking Apple. Shame on you.
If the data has been dissociated from the user, how would Apple know which data to delete when the user “turn off” Siri ?
The disassociation occurs when it is turned off, not the deletion. That disassociated data is then retained for up to, but potentially less than, 18 months before it is deleted, no need to know who it was. I don’t see the confusion.
Why were there so many protesters of google saving search data for 6 months but none about Apple holding your data for 2 years?
Since Google retains data for 18 months in most nations and only has variability based on local laws mandating retention ranging from 6-24 months and had retained data indefinitely up to about 2007 when many nations began cracking down on them (exact date not double-checked and confirmed), I have no idea what “protests” over 6 month retention you are talking about.
But if you can elaborate with accuracy, I’m sure there are differences to explore.
Edited 2013-04-19 18:51 UTC
Perhaps it’s because the two companies have different business models and therefore are driven by fundamentally different dynamics. In the case of Google their business model is to collect data on what people do on the internet and then use that data to sell targeted advertising. The people using Google services are not Google’s customers, the people buying the advertising are Google customers, and Google wants to keep as much data about specific individuals (your search history, key words from your email, what you watched on Youtube,) so that it can personalise and thus increase the value of the targeted ads it serves to you. None of that is wrong, but it does have implications about how deeply the urge to collect and retain data about specific individuals is embedded in Google.
Apple’s business model is to combine software, services and hardware to make a few well designed things that people want to buy and sell them at a profit. Siri is a service and collecting data about the voice interactions that people have with it allows Apple to improve Siri, and thus enhance the value of it’s products, but it is not necessary for Apple to associate that data with individuals, associating the data with specific individuals would not add value to Apple’s products and thus is not very important to the company. Whenever you speak into Siri, it ships it off to Apple’s data farm for analysis. Apple generates a random numbers to represent the user and it associates the voice files with that number. This number — not your Apple user ID or email address — represents you as far as Siri’s back-end voice analysis system is concerned.
Once the voice recording is six months old, Apple “disassociates†your user number from the clip, deleting the number from the voice file. But it keeps these disassociated files for up to 18 more months for testing and product improvement purposes.
“Once the voice recording is six months old, Apple ‘disassociates’ your user number from the clip, deleting the number from the voice file.”
Company PR staff may innocently think there’s no problem even though there could be. One might assume that deleting the foreign keys is enough, but consider how AOL was overconfident and once failed to properly “anonymize” data that got released. Now I doubt apple would ever allow user data to exit it’s walls, but it’s still conceivable that an accurate correlation method still exists.
http://searchengineland.com/google-anonymizing-search-records-to-pr…
If there are timestamps in both the user logs and voice records, one might be able to correlate those. Even without any IDs at all, if the records are sequentially ordered the same way in two systems, they might be identifiable. Re-correlating records could be an interesting CS challenge.
It´s too much effort while the “rewards” are very little.
If you´re going to hack Apple why not go for the credit card info from the iTunes store? Or iCloud´s email or iWork files?
Trying to get to Siri´s voice archive is like breaking in to a bank, ignoring the money and stealing the Phone memo stack of the receptionist.
MOS6510,
“It´s too much effort while the ‘rewards’ are very little. If you´re going to hack Apple why not go for the credit card info from the iTunes store? Or iCloud´s email or iWork files?”
I was only talking potential feasibility, irrespective of why. If you need a motive, use your imagination; credit card transactions from a legal store are probably much less incriminating than voice data.
But what are the chances your target has an iPhone 4S/5, uses Siri, spoke incriminating words via it and you knowing this?
Then you’d have to hack in to Apple and find that piece of voice data amongst billions of snippets.
I don’t say it’s impossible, but it’s very unlikey and it doesn’t make much sense when looking at effort vs reward.
Emails, surf stats, files, computer contents, dial lists, etc… are much more likely to contain incriminating information and are much easier to obtain. People who worry about Siri privacy should be worrying about those things a lot more.
MOS6510,
Your really missing my point, which was just because a corporation says something is annonymized doesn’t necessarily mean it is. That’s all there was to it.
Edit: Your post gives me the impression that you are only considering privacy from hackers. But one’s privacy can also be breached by insiders and court orders. If you’ve got a tin foil hat on: conceivably some countries would love to conduct blanket searches if they could get their hands on the data (illicitly or otherwise) to conduct witch-hunts. I am not familiar with Siri’s T&Cs, but it certainly would not have been obvious to me that the service was archiving user voice records on apple’s servers. It’s not really any worse than other kinds of records like you said, but we should recognize that there is a risk that’s greater than zero.
Edited 2013-04-20 07:48 UTC
I agree, but my argument is that if you worry about this (Siri commands being stored anonymous in order to improve the service) there is a very long list of stuff that should worry you much more.
If you’re a privacy extremist you wouldn’t use Siri, smart phones or in fact any connected device anyway.
It’s not caring if you only do it because you’ve been pressured.
What does pressured mean?
Seems like Apple does the right thing regarding privacy. Someone asked about it and got a quick answer.
I’m not saying it’s not the right thing, I’m saying it doesn’t mean they “care about your security”.
I doubt any megacorp “care your your security” really.
Apple always does the right thing… after they’ve tried everything else (to paraphrase Churchill).
If you care to give a few examples I may be able to agree.
Well, I was being glib (and how often do I get such a perfect opportunity to use my favourite Churchill quote?).
But off the top of my head, Apple does have a general history of starting from fairly hard-line “our way or the highway” positions, and then slowly opening up over time. E.g. the progression from the original “hermetically sealed” Macs to the very-easy-to-service PowerMacs of the mid-90s. Or the progression from the original iPhone’s “pre-loaded and web-apps only” to allowing third-party development. Or relaxing some of the app store approval terms, particularly the ones related to cross-platform dev tools.
In this particular situation, not disclosing the retention policy for Siri data in Apple’s privacy policies could arguably be a violation of privacy laws. At least in Canada, the privacy laws state that organizations who collect personally-identifiable information must provide a privacy policy that clearly spells out what information is collected, what the information will be used for, and how long it will be retained.
I say “arguably” because it’s debatable whether or not the Siri data qualifies as personally-identifiable information.
Apple adjusts itself and its policies I guess like every other company.
Not being able to (easily) service a Mac was something Steve Jobs wanted. When the PowerMacs of the 90´s were made he wasn’t around.
One thing I do find strange is that Siri data is anonymized, i.e. not tied to a person, but if that person turns Siri off the data is deleted. So person and data were still linked.
I think you’re right. From the text of the article it doesn’t make sense to assume the data is anonymised within the first six months (and Apple isn’t claiming this either). Here’s the statement:
“Apple generates a random numbers to represent the user and it associates the voice files with that number.”
This makes no claim to anonymity. My reading of this would be that all of the voice files from your phone get associated with the same number. It may be that Siri doesn’t care who the user is, but it follows straightforwardly that the phone and the data files are linkable if Apple cared to do so.
The use of a “random number” in this context is just a diversion. The number is still tied to your phone; it just doesn’t happen to be your Apple ID.
If you turn Siri off, only the data that hasn’t been anonymised is deleted. At least, this would be my reading of this:
“If a user turns Siri off, both identifiers are deleted immediately along with any associated data” (my emphasis). In other words, data that’s no longer associated with the random number is retained (for up to two years).
Then I think the data is assigned a random ID, thus anyone stealing the data wouldn´t know who is who. However Apple does keep a database that links users to these random numbers. So Apple (and anyone who can access this database) can link random IDs back to real people.
Anyway, I don´t think these voice clips would yield much interesting data for hackers and evil governments. Certainly not compared to many other sources of information.
If you send info via Siri using email or iMessage these messages can be found outside Siri´s voice vault anyway. Web searches done via Siri are also logged by the search provider and the ISP.
Why would you, if you´re a privacy extremist, use voice to operate a device when that means other people could hear you?
Yes, I’d entirely agree with you about that. I guess, for privacy extremists, the important point is that law enforcement could do this, and in many countries probably wouldn’t need a warrant to do so.
In the UK (and certainly many other countries too) companies are required by law to provide any personally identifiable information held about you if you request it. It would be a really interesting exercise to request this to get an idea about what someone could infer from it. Unfortunately I don’t use Siri to test this myself.
I guess privacy extremists want to have good functionality too? At the moment Siri is optional, but in the future this might be how all interaction are performed?
As a privacy extremist, the question I’d be asking is “why is Apple collecting this data, given there’s no technical benefit to them doing so?”. I can understand the technical benefit to them storing unidentifiable voice recordings for future testing (although how you completely anonymise what might normally be considered a biometric identifier is an interesting question), but why not remove the linkability from the outset? Personally I’d argue (and maybe this does make me a privacy extremist!) that any benefit to me of them doing this is worth less than the privacy lost to me as a result.
The same is true of Google, Microsoft, Canonical, etc. incidentally.
The data is collected by Apple in the first place because Siri commands are processed by Apple servers, not localy on your iPhone.
The only reason they hold on to this data, I can think off, is to see what commands failed, why they failed and how to improve Siri. A better working Siri sells more iPhones.
Apple sells Apple products and media/apps via the iTunes store. Siri info can´t sell more apps or music/movies, but it can improve Siri.
Google tries to get as much info about you as they can and link it all up. If Siri was owned by Google it would be far more serious.
Even if Siri is not a serious privacy risc it seems Apple protects the data well enough. Besides, Siri is optional and you can easily turn it off.
I think in the future voice controlling will improve, but you´ll still use your fingers mostly. Talking to a computer or Phone all day is not pleasant and very annoying for people nearby.
Yes, I can appreciate they need voice samples initially and that these can be used to improve the service over time (which is a good thing). I’m just not quite sure why they need them to be linked to me for six months.
Maybe it’s in case I phone up to complain or something? Either way, I’d rather they didn’t.
I’m afraid I’m not sure I agree with the distinction here. I see no reason to assume Apple wouldn’t do the same thing if it thought it made good business sense, and Google appears to only use the data to improve its products too.
The real problem is that we can’t know what either organisation will use the data for in the future. Nor do we know only Apple or Google (or insert any other company) will be the only organisations gaining access. Almost certainly law enforcement can too.
The real question I’d like people to be asking is: is there a solid technical reason why they need to collect this info? Often there are equally good alternatives that would completely maintain privacy, but are inexplicably not chosen. Given this is the case, why are they collecting the data?
Most important of all, is the benefit of the collection to you as an individual worth the cost to your privacy of this information being maintained, and the potential for persecution of others that could result?
I appreciate this sounds like an extreme position, but personally I would prefer issues of privacy to be framed in this context.
I’d also like to reiterate that this isn’t about Apple. It should be applied to all organisations equally.
Yeah, I agree it would be really annoying! I’d be surprised if voice doesn’t become the most prevalent way to control Glass-type devices though, or even the watch-type devices that are apparently on the verge of becoming ubiquitous.
Sorry for the really long reply.
Don’t worry, I don’t mind long replies.
I’m not a voice control expert, but I assume you’d like a large collection of recorded voice commands so you can keep routing them through Siri after making adjustments to see if the accuracy changes. So you’d like an archive of commands that worked and ones that failed.
Devices like Google Glass and the rumored iWatch would benefit from voice commands and probably be best operated by them. Yet it was already annoying when you kept hearing ringtones everywhere, text messages and now a whole range of notifications and alarm. Can we bear to see people stare in to the void and hear them taking to their glasses? It’s kind of creepy and annoying.
If Google Glass really is going to cost $1,500 I’m not going to buy it and I doubt many people will. Besides, would you feel safe walking around with something rare ‘n’ valuable? Something everybody can clearly see and snatch?
flypig,
I agree with you, there’s no technical need for archiving to make the service work. Maybe they can customize future responses based on archived ones, or maybe they can better target you through iAds. The obvious “nice” solution would be for apple to offer users a clear choice to opt-out.
What I think it comes down to is: the more emphatically committed your are to a position, the odder it looks when you reverse that position. And Apple appears to have a much greater emotional attachment to their positions than most corporations, they’re not mere business policies to Apple, they’re often treated (or at least perceived) almost as matters of objective right and wrong.
E.g. if Apple were to back down from their stance on jailbreaking, it would be almost impossible to do so without being perceived as weak and/or hypocritical. Just the same as if Microsoft were to start releasing (E.g.) Exchange & Sharepoint server software for Linux.
He may have been the root of it, but that attitude clearly went further than just Jobs. Apple didn’t immediately start making easily-serviced models after Jobs left (the first time), and they didn’t immediately stop making them after he came back.
Indeed, that part does seem a bit vague. As others have suggested, it could be mean that Apple only deletes the data that hasn’t been “anonymized” yet.
What pressure? A journalist asked them, they explained the existing policy within 24 hours. That policy largely reflects industry practice and local laws that were established because Google wanted to keep your data in perpetuity as recent as 5 years ago… Oh, were you saying that Google doesn’t care?
Edited 2013-04-20 12:46 UTC
That’s exactly what he was saying:
Frankly I agree with him. Profiling users is valuable data. It’s valuable to super markets (hence why we have loyalty cards that track purchases), websites (tracking cookies and what not) and search habits.
You don’t run a company of Google nor Apple’s size without putting money ahead of a few other preferences. Privacy being one of those inconveniences.
There is ZERO EVIDENCE that Apple was PRESSURED and changed/altered/modified/adjusted their policies AS A RESULT OF PRESSURE.
jared_wilkes,
“There is ZERO EVIDENCE that Apple was PRESSURED and changed/altered/modified/adjusted their policies AS A RESULT OF PRESSURE.”
Maybe, but isn’t the only reason any corporations have privacy policies in the first place a result of public pressure? That wasn’t always the case.
Do you pay your taxes? I might say “there is ZERO EVIDENCE that you were PRESSURED and changed/altered/modified/adjusted your behaviour AS A RESULT OF PRESSURE”. But the pressure is most certainly there even if there’s zero evidence that it affected your behaviour.
Good corporations will bow to public pressure BEFORE the point where there is evidence that they were pressured.
Edited 2013-04-20 17:09 UTC
No, I think it’s nonsense to redefine “pressured” to “complying with the laws of the land.”
And, again, some ACLU member wrote an obscure, not widely read blog post a year ago that never even puts the question to Apple and then another journalist asked Apple a year later and got an answer within 24 hours — if that’s “pressuring Apple” and “Apple responding to the pressure”, you haven’t been following Apple, the pressures put on it, media coverage, and how Apple responds to public pressure… because this is nothing in comparison to typical Greenpeace idiocy as just ne example.
Edited 2013-04-21 14:12 UTC
jared_wilkes,
“No, I think it’s nonsense to redefine ‘pressured’ to ‘complying with the laws of the land.'”
The point was that companies, like individuals, change their courses of action when there’s public pressure. Without pressure (and “laws of the land” for that matter too), they would be much more devious than they are. I think this is a pretty fair statement, which you probably would not have any problem with it if we were talking about microsoft, google, oracle, or anybody other than apple.
Do you feel it’s fair to say that you are pressured to not commit murder because it’s illegal?
Do you feel it’s fair to say that Apple planned to keep this data until the end of time until this one article so they changed their policy overnight?
If your answer is no to both, then what you are saying is nonsense.
jared_wilkes,
“Do you feel it’s fair to say that you are pressured to not commit murder because it’s illegal?”
Well, it’s not in my own constitution anyways, but generally speaking I think it’s absolutely the case. I believe there were a lot more murders in the lawless wild west and probably also places like the roman empire where murder was rampant (at least according to Hollywood, any historians feel free to correct this misconception). People find murder appalling today because that’s what we were raised to believe, but these same people are fine with it in war because that’s what we were raised to believe and our laws make it ok.
“Do you feel it’s fair to say that Apple planned to keep this data until the end of time until this one article so they changed their policy overnight?”
My point apparently hasn’t sunken in yet. Apple undoubtedly WOULD keep the data IF they thought they could get away with it without public criticism. Good companies can ANTICIPATE public criticism BEFORE it gets to that point. I still view this as a form of public pressure, and it’s good when things happen this way.
It’s against YOUR constitution to commit murder, but generally MOST PEOPLE absolutely would commit murder if they weren’t “pressured” by the law not to? Seriously? You’re going to argue that? Based on what?
Oh… based on MOVIES set 150 or 4000 years ago. Good argument.
Your point is understood by me and it’s wrong. We don’t write articles about the entire population everyday saying, “John Doe Finally Pressured into Not Killing.” It’s absurdity to claim that Apple was pressured or finally acted in response to a single article. Another example, if Google announced Maps updates tomorrow, it would be nonsense to say, “Google finally responds to competitive pressure from Apple Maps.” You can regressively say that it is generally true that companies respond to competitive pressures or you can point to a year old blog post that says Apple Maps will hurt Google, but if I made that claim in comments or in an article, people would have every right to say there is no basis for such a claim. Argue and argue all you want about how you can justify that which you have no evidence for (or are you going to mention Westerns again?) but my sole point initially was that “finally” was fundamentally absurd and something you rarely see being perpetrated against any company other than Apple in a generally routine, systematic, and accepted fashion.
jared_wilkes,
“It’s against YOUR constitution to commit murder, but generally MOST PEOPLE absolutely would commit murder if they weren’t ‘pressured’ by the law not to? Seriously? You’re going to argue that? Based on what?”
Please don’t stoop this low, I never indicated that most people would commit murder. I think it was tasteless to use murder as an example (my example was taxes), but the point stands even at the extreme of murder. The laws and consequences for it are undoubtedly better at discouraging it than having no laws or consequences at all. If this is wrong, then ask yourself why there are laws on the books against murder?
“Oh… based on MOVIES set 150 or 4000 years ago. Good argument.”
It was half joking there, there’s no denying humanity can be brutal when there are no rules.
“Your point is understood by me and it’s wrong. We don’t write articles about the entire population everyday saying, ‘John Doe Finally Pressured into Not Killing.’ It’s absurdity to claim that Apple was pressured or finally acted in response to a single article…”
You are obviously not getting it. Your too stubborn in your quest to defend apple at all costs that you don’t realize that this criticism is waged at all corporations. Corporations don’t care except to the extent that it would hurt sales, apple is not an exception. This is what Laurence, Soulbender, and I have been saying from the get go. If you truly did get it, then you’d have to admit that your argument is a straw man because I certainly never said apple’s actions are a response to a single article. This article is not relevant to my views at all.
Edited 2013-04-22 01:16 UTC
Jared may be considered stubborn defending Apple, but he is right that Apple didn’t got pressured in revealing the retention period of Siri data.
What is more impressive is people still trying to claim Apple DID got pressured, even when they didn’t, because apparently all companies and people are under constant pressure to behave a certain way.
I consider pressure an active force influenced on someone or something to achieve something. Apple, or any other company, can live by the law and still be pressured to do something. Just following the law or in this case just answering a question doesn’t equal giving in to pressure.
Do you feel pressured to stop for a red light?
If you don’t obey the law there could be consequences. This is what you evaluate when you are tempted to break a law. Being pressured is being forced to do or change something.
Despite laws people are still getting murdered, sometimes in groups. I doubt many murders were prevented, because someone was pressured by the law not to kill someone.
It’s a kind of deja vu, but each time people try to accuse Apple of something, someone points out they are wrong and then people go to great lengths to twist and turn to try and prove Apple is in the wrong anyway.
In this case were are talking about a spokeswoman answering a question. How did we get from her to movies set in the past, the Roman Empire and the dark side of human nature?
MOS6510,
“I consider pressure an active force influenced on someone or something to achieve something.”
I’ll concede there might be different types of pressure. What you are referring to is more like an active campaign against the company to get them to change. That doesn’t fit here. Never the less, there is public pressure for companies not to do the wrong thing in the first place without waiting for a direct confrontation, which is what I’ve been referring to.
“Do you feel pressured to stop for a red light?”
Don’t you? Other examples could be a stop sign, or school speed zone. Many people adapt their behaviour to avoid consequences and not because they want to. Corporations are the same way. If we get rid of all these silly examples, I think that maybe you and I could agree on this point.
“Despite laws people are still getting murdered, sometimes in groups. I doubt many murders were prevented, because someone was pressured by the law not to kill someone.”
I do disagree here, without laws, there would be a lot more violent crime. I believe there is a deep rooted connection from a young age to follow the rules. Maybe I’m wrong.
“In this case were are talking about a spokeswoman answering a question. How did we get from her to movies set in the past, the Roman Empire and the dark side of human nature?”
Blame Jared for that tangent, I was just responding to the murder question and trying in vein to run with it. I didn’t like the example either because it was hardly representative of typical people. On that note, I should thank you for choosing a red light example instead
I was once stopped by 3(!) policemen for walking through a red light, but never mind that.
I agree that laws and rules prevent unwanted actions and events. But what I argue is that “pressure” is something that is actively applied and doesn’t need to have a basis in law.
Apple isn’t breaking any laws offering an iPhone without a keyboard. One can apply pressure to have them build on with a keyboard. Pressure was put on Apple to make Tim Cook visit Chinese workers for example.
A red light or a law forbidding murder are things you are aware off when planning your next move, but these laws don’t actively apply pressure. They are more a factor in a combination of personal morals, needs/wants and calculated risks.
Laws you can break or obey, pressure you can resist or give in to.
Regardless of definitions, I don’t think companies would do really nasty things or they would lose their customers. It gets bad when they band together and you’re left with no choice.
MOS6510,
“I agree that laws and rules prevent unwanted actions and events. But what I argue is that ‘pressure’ is something that is actively applied and doesn’t need to have a basis in law.”
Really? When we talked about “peer pressure”, I think it’s usually passive rather than active. Kids didn’t start drugs because they were actively pressured into doing it, it seems like more of a passive sort of thing. But if you want to use a different word for it, it’s fine by me.
“I don’t think companies would do really nasty things or they would lose their customers. It gets bad when they band together and you’re left with no choice.”
Agree, this is what I was trying to get at with Jared. Even if we don’t want to call it pressure, the public reaction is something that prevents them from behaving too badly in the first place.
Edited 2013-04-22 10:09 UTC
I guess that’s why it’s called “peer pressure” and not “pressure”. You can pressure someone in to talking drugs. Peer pressure is what you call a psychological situation.
peer pressure
noun [ mass noun ]
influence from members of one’s peer group: his behaviour was affected by drink and peer pressure.
pressure |ˈprɛʃə|
noun [ mass noun ]
1 continuous physical force exerted on or against an object by something in contact with it: the gate was buckling under the pressure of the crowd outside.
• [ count noun ] the force per unit area exerted by a fluid against a surface with which it is in contact: gas can be fed to the turbines at a pressure of around 250 psi.
2 the use of persuasion or intimidation to make someone do something: backbenchers put pressure on the government to provide safeguards | [ count noun ] : the many pressures on girls to worry about their looks.
• the influence or effect of someone or something: oil prices came under some downwards pressure.
• a sense of stressful urgency caused by having too many demands on one’s time or resources: he resigned due to pressure of work | [ count noun ] : the pressures of city life.
But let’s start with not murdering anyone and not ignoring red lights.
Did you actually read what I posted? Or were you so busy defending your sacred company that any comments that threaten your holy believe gets dismissed without a consideration?
Your reply comes across the latter because it’s the typical fanboy response that doesn’t actually take into account the wider point I was making.
When a wider point isn’t applicable, you aren’t doing a good job making it.
Why isn’t it applicable? You honestly trying to tell me that Apple put customers before money?
If you honestly believe that then you’re even more deluded than the average fanboy.
One possible use is that since Apple keeps recordings of your voice, the government can use Apple’s database to identify unknown voices using voice comparison software.
EDIT: Isn’t this what the new CISPA is directly for?
Edited 2013-04-20 17:27 UTC