Submitted via IRC for Runaway1956
Apple has faced criticism from lawmakers for several reasons recently, including its presence in China and its repair programs. Now, The Washington Post reports that Apple is being questioned for using its focus on user privacy as a "guise for anti-competitive behavior."
The concern comes from Congressman David N. Cicilline, a Democrat from Rhode Island who serves as chairman of the House Judiciary antitrust subcommittee. Cicilline explained that he's concerned about "the use of privacy as a shield for anticompetitive behavior."
The lawmaker went on to explain that a "strong privacy law" in the United States would mean that companies like Apple would no longer have to regulate privacy themselves:
"I'm increasingly concerned about the use of privacy as a shield for anti-competitive conduct," said Rep. David N. Cicilline (R.I.), who serves as chairman of the House Judiciary antitrust subcommittee. "There is a growing risk that without a strong privacy law in the United States, platforms will exploit their role as de facto private regulators by placing a thumb on the scale in their own favor."
Cicilline's concern was prompted by the changes Apple made to location services in iOS 13. Essentially, Apple has cracked down on the access that third-party applications have to a user's location, and made more information about to users about when an app is using their location. Lawmakers are now concerned that Apple itself has access to additional location data that is not available to competitors.
Source: https://9to5mac.com/2019/11/26/apple-privacy-anti-trust-concern/
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 28 2019, @09:40PM (1 child)
Those third party apps are the least trustworthy with your data. You can be pretty much guaranteed that all those Apps that fleeting ask for location permission so they can 'tag a photo', 'better target ads' or 'localise your service', will sell your data at the drop of a hat.
At least Apple is a single entity with many eyes watching it. With hundreds of piecemeal Apps, it's pretty much impossible to keep an eye or even remember who has what data sometimes. And it's even harder to work out who's out there actively selling it off or passing on more information than you thought they had access to.
Privacy laws would definitely help, but I see those as necessary anyway - if only to keep the information protected from prying eyes within organisations like Apple - or to stop the big companies from reusing that data for other purposes than what it is being explicitly used for. ie. location in google maps is used to tell you your location while you're using google maps for the purpose of using the map in the App - not for knowing where you are and targeting some localised ads, or alerting a local shop that you frequent their area often.
If I'm not using an App - I DO NOT want it knowing where I am and reported back. Obviously, if I'm using the App, I expect it know where I am. But, location services is a nightmare where every second App seems to need to know where you are. I don't really want my weather App tracking me while I'm not looking at the weather, and I definitely don't want my browser keeping a background travel record that can be sent to some website that has 'paid for my information'.
IMO, Apple is doing the right thing, and extra privacy probably wouldn't even go far enough, because all the special interests will lobby/bribe to have it watered down so they can keep their own agendas rolling along.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Friday November 29 2019, @09:31AM
Doesn't change the fact that restricting third party apps is anti-competitive (assuming it is anti-competitive, which isn't clear, but whatever). "It's good for users" is not as of yet a valid defense for anti-competition lawsuits; I'm sure Microsoft's lawyers tried that already.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by acid andy on Friday November 29 2019, @12:25AM (1 child)
I didn't quite catch that...
A strong privacy law is only good if it is properly enforced. The important question is who if anyone are Apple sharing the data with? It should only be with organizations that the user consents to.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Friday November 29 2019, @02:07PM
Privacy is only security from being spied upon, slightly more specific that using generic security as the excuse for anything. Windows Vista kept users secure from being accused of piracy. Apple is constantly making the walls of their walled garden higher, stronger and prettier.
It's sad how many people regard Apple as a good friend, rather than a giant vendor of extremely proprietary product who should be viewed with suspicion and distrust.
And as for trusting a congressperson, well... yeah. Wonder who's bribing the good congressman of RI to get concerned about this particular issue, now, with all the other stuff we have going on, you know little things like an impeachment and Global Warming. Must've needed a break from such heavy duty issues.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 29 2019, @03:26AM (2 children)
You're holding your privacy wrong.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 29 2019, @03:42AM (1 child)
Your holding your privates wrong.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 29 2019, @04:08AM
You're holding my privates wrong.
Well, at least that's what she said.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 29 2019, @06:49PM
This has almost *always* been this way. Since the mid 80s.
They use weird parts that are hard to get a hold of. They use NDA to lock people out. Expensive training programs to lockout 'low end'.
There is a reason MS crushed them in the 90s. Not because MS was that much better. But because the MS/PC/IBM system was openish. Also fairly inexpensive to get into. I could outfit a fully decked out PC dev for about 3k-4k. A mac dev during that time would cost 25-30k. For comparatively the same amount of hardware and software.
I knew of dozens of shutdown apple repair places over the years. All because apple would change some rule and poof they could no longer get parts or manuals. The people who did repairs ran in the other direction towards MS/PC because there was money to be made there. Not because Apple did not break. But because people stopped bothering to fix it and would just replace with something equivalent or cheaper. They treat their software ODM's like shit. Always have always will. That 30% and 'we banned your app because of reasons' is just the latest form of it.
MS encouraged people to tinker. Their software stack was cheap. The hardware was cheap. That brought in a whole raft of other issues.
I have told people over the years if you think MS is bad Apple is 1000x worse.
Apple is like that very pretty narcissistic girl friend who yells at you for 3 hours because you used her blue towel instead of *your* blue towel. Very pretty, nice to look at and play with, but is a total bitch.
(Score: 2) by gtomorrow on Saturday November 30 2019, @06:17AM
From TFS...
Am I the only one here who can't parse this phrase?