Well, yes, to implement Safe Browsing is a major decision to trade some privacy for security (security is part of providing privacy, too, though.) You could argue it should be turned off by default, too (I think it should be on by default in major browsers.) A lot of people are learning about the option this week, which is good.
Tencent maintaining the same service as Google isn’t really significant, though. Apple already gave Chinese iCloud keys to the government. All traffic is already intercepted by their firewall. Chinese users already use lots of Chinese services so provide data to them directly. There’s not really any new information here for the government. I understand how it’s symbolic, though, and I am glad it’s being talked about and scrutinized.
It’s not just trade privacy for security. Apple was not transparent, and it almost seems like it tried to hide it. Why? Does it mean that if Apple is forthcoming towards the Chinese government, it does the same towards other governments and we just don’t know about it yet? Again, I think every big corporation does it, but at least they don’t tell their users that their privacy is a “fundamental human right”. But Apple’s PR is often idolised
I trust Google – to do what it says it will do. And what it does is grab personal data to sell ads. It anonymizes the data, but anonymization doesn’t work as well as marketers would like us to believe.
For example, if you knew my age, gender and zip code you’d probably be able to uniquely identify me. Add my place of birth to that mix, even approximately, and that probability gets even higher.
Doing business with Google is like going to a comedy show where a guy smashes watermelons with a sledgehammer, and sitting in the front row. It’s fine if you know what to expect.
There’s a third option between total disbelief and belief of Apple’s PR, which is to examine what the products and services do (or read others’ examinations) and conclude what Apple values. I realize from the 1Password thread that you don’t think that is possible, but I do.
Apple values money because it is a corporation and making money is its purpose. Believing anything else is just naive. And you, me or any normal person is not able to examine products from Apple thoroughly. So when I have an open-source solution, like in case of Safari or 1Password, I use it.
I believe they also did that in the UK with the harvested wi-fi data collected by the Google Maps mapping vehicles. The court told them to delete the data, Google agreed, and then didn’t delete it until the court said we really mean it. Not to mention the data they’ve harvested off of school Chromebooks despite telling the districts that they don’t harvest kids’ data.
