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Credit to Author: Jonny Evans| Date: Thu, 09 May 2019 06:10:00 -0700<\/strong><\/p>\n Why is privacy a luxury? Possibly because surveillance capitalist firms<\/a> have subsidized product prices by collecting and trading in the personal data of the people that use their products, enabling them to sell hardware cheap.<\/p>\n The crux of Google CEO Sundar Pichai\u2019s argument against firms such as (obviously including but never named) Apple is that his company offers convenience in exchange for personal secrets, makes its services available for free, and has a \u201cprofound commitment\u201d to protecting user privacy.<\/p>\n Except these arguments gloss over several inconveniences:<\/p>\n You can read Pichai\u2019s piece here<\/a>, but for all the statements around democracy and \u201cmeaningful choice\u201d, the arguments he\u2019s making still expose weakness in his attempt to rebrand the notion of \u201cprivacy\u201d.<\/p>\n Privacy should not mean entities such as Google promise not to sell your data without your consent.<\/p>\n It should mean they don\u2019t collect your personal data in the first place.<\/p>\n Not only this, privacy also means that when a company does gather your data it should work strenuously to ensure it cannot be tracked to you.<\/p>\n Just tell 50+ million Google + users about that\u2026<\/p>\n History shows that providing personalized services while knowing very little about the person demanding those services is much harder, but not impossible.<\/p>\n In Apple\u2019s case, all that CoreML analysis taking place using personal data held on a person\u2019s device but not shared with any other entity illustrates this.<\/p>\n You get things you need, but you aren\u2019t required to provide unregulated third parties with access to that information. Apple\u2019s whole system is based on providing convenience but not at the cost of your privacy.<\/p>\n Funnily enough, Google now claims to be developing its own on-device AI.<\/p>\n We\u2019ll see how that turns out.\u00a0<\/p>\n Google says it will introduce a range of privacy-protecting features later this year when it ships Android Q.<\/p>\n \u201cPrivacy cannot be a luxury good offered only to people who can afford to buy premium products and services,\u201d the CEO wrote. \u201cPrivacy must be equally available to everyone in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n Except, this isn\u2019t quite how it works.<\/p>\n Those new Android Q privacy protections won\u2019t be made available to billions of Android users.\u00a0Some may get a software upgrade, but most of whom will need to spend money on new hardware capable of running the OS.\u00a0<\/p>\n In the real world, tens of millions of users will be as unable to afford a new Android Q device as they are a new iPhone. No one really wants to buy a new smartphone every year — the financial and environmental costs of doing so soon add up.<\/p>\n Contrast this with Apple\u2019s approach to privacy. Not only has Apple worked to protect privacy for years<\/a>, but its iOS updates are available to devices up to around five years old. On the day they ship.<\/p>\n That\u2019s not luxury.<\/p>\n That\u2019s expectation<\/a>.\u00a0No one should expect less.<\/p>\n Realistically, Google\u2019s attempt to define privacy as a luxury item actually serves to illustrate something else \u2013 that its business model demands you sacrifice privacy in exchange for cheaper good and services.<\/p>\n Some people like that convenience, but I don\u2019t.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t trust it.<\/p>\n Lots of people don\u2019t \u2013 which is why there\u2019s such a strong market in older model iPhones<\/a>, all of which support iOS 12 and Apple\u2019s latest privacy protections inside devices that cost about the same as those non-luxury Androids that won\u2019t ever run Android Q or any of the new privacy protections Google\u2019s promising a decade since it shipped its first phone OS<\/a>.<\/p>\n I\u2019m not convinced at all.<\/p>\n Please follow me on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>, or join me in the\u00a0AppleHolic\u2019s bar & grill<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Apple Discussions<\/a>\u00a0groups on MeWe.<\/em><\/p>\n http:\/\/www.computerworld.com\/category\/security\/index.rss<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Credit to Author: Jonny Evans| Date: Thu, 09 May 2019 06:10:00 -0700<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n