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0 pointsGeekyBear2y ago0 comments

> Then you know what will happen.

There is an interesting lesson you can learn from history: Google Maps vs Apple Maps.

Google set up their system to track each individual's location history forever, even if the user turned off the setting that Google said would stop this behavior. This data can be handy when you're trying to keep map data updated.

However, you don't have to track each user's location constantly to get the benefit.

> “We specifically don’t collect data, even from point A to point B,” notes Cue. “We collect data — when we do it — in an anonymous fashion, in subsections of the whole, so we couldn’t even say that there is a person that went from point A to point B.

The segments that he is referring to are sliced out of any given person’s navigation session. Neither the beginning or the end of any trip is ever transmitted to Apple. Rotating identifiers, not personal information, are assigned to any data or requests sent to Apple and it augments the “ground truth” data provided by its own mapping vehicles with this “probe data” sent back from iPhones.

Because only random segments of any person’s drive is ever sent and that data is completely anonymized, there is never a way to tell if any trip was ever a single individual.

https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/29/apple-is-rebuilding-maps-f...

0 comments

Draiken2y ago

That's an awesome story and I'd love to believe that's how it will always be. But I can't.

I'm sure we could find great examples of other companies that made similar privacy aware decisions, only to then turn around and throw all that out of the window for increased profits.

Call me skeptical, but these entities have one purpose: profits. Why would I trust they won't ever misuse my data?

GeekyBearOP2y ago

> these entities have one purpose: profits

A bit more history.

A shareholder once berated Tim Cook for doimg things for reasons other than profit.

Tim Cook's response:

> When we work on making our devices accessible by the blind, I don’t consider the bloody ROI [return on investment]. When I think about doing the right thing, I don’t think about an ROI.”

If you want me to do things only for ROI reasons, you should get out of this stock.

musictubes2y ago

That was the point of their post. Apple isn’t collecting that data. They collect very little data for the little advertising they do. Once they start collecting more invasive things like Meta and Google do then sure, avoid them.

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