[ad_1]
At Apple's annual developer conference on Monday, senior vice president of software engineering, Craig Federighi, showed a familiar pop-up – a login box offering the choice of "Connect with Google" or "Connect with Facebook ยป. have been erased and replaced by a new box called "Connecting with Apple".
Although the Facebook and Google login services simply provide the convenience of not having to create another user name for every application or site you use, Apple will do the same, but probably as a courtesy and not profit. In other words, each new connection will not be linked to an ever larger file of activity information, which will then be used to target you with ads and follow you on the web.
"Sign In With Apple" even generates random email addresses for every application you use, acting as an intermediary preventing outside services from collecting your actual email address and using it to connect your activity on sites and applications. This means that you can connect to applications with dozens of partial aliases and cut them at any time. Even Federighi seemed surprised by the reaction of the public to this, which was a series of very enthusiastic shouts.
The new feature will be part of iOS 13, available this fall. Also packaged with iOS 13: ability to give applications unique access to locations (rather than allowing site sharing indefinitely) and the ability to view a simple report that explains the amount of data you need. location collected and their use. have been put.
Another connection option may not seem immediately exciting or innovative, but it's a pretty aggressive step for Apple, which has spent the past few years putting more emphasis on privacy, especially compared to Facebook and Google. The headlines that Tim Cook "snaps his rivals" about privacy are quite common. Already in 2015, Cook used the slogan: privacy is a "basic human right", but he has been increasingly talked about in the wake of the great privacy scandals of recent years. .
"The stocks of personal data are only used to enrich the companies that collect them," he explained at a conference on data protection in Belgium last year, shortly after an MSNBC interview in which he distanced Apple from the rest of Big Tech. "The truth is that we could make a lot of money if we monetized our client. If our customer was our product, we could earn a lot of money. We chose not to do it. "
In January, Cook published an editorial in Time asking Congress to pass a "comprehensive federal privacy law" that would limit much of the regular data collection by Facebook and Google. A few weeks later, Apple briefly prevented Google and Facebook from using the App Store to distribute application test versions, which constitutes a somewhat controversial and quite dramatic sanction for policy violations. # 39; Apple relating to the addition of unapproved software on customers' devices.
On Monday night, during the CBS Evening News show, Cook insisted that Apple was "trying no one" with its new feature, adding, "We are focused on the user. And the l & # 39; user wants to be able to browse many properties on the web without being monitored, we are advancing privacy protections. "
As Russell Brandom wrote for The Verge earlier this year, "As with most Apple projects, it's more of an ecosystem than a particular service. If you really think that Apple protects your data better, you will not just use an Apple card to make payments. You will want to use Apple services for all your sensitive data and, of course, you will need Apple devices to do it. "
Apple has not hesitated about the commercial benefits of selling confidentiality. Privacy has featured prominently in the company's recent advertising campaigns, including a billboard at the Consumer Electronics Showcase in Las Vegas in January, in which the company did not even participate. The billboard, titled "What's Happening on Your iPhone Remains on Your iPhone", has been placed so that anyone visits Google's huge land-themed setup gambling, which easily costs millions of dollars and includes a Disney-themed theme park running ride.
Of course, Google and Facebook are now working to become advocates of privacy. In March, Mark Zuckerberg published a manifesto of several thousand words in which he insisted that his company now focuses on private groups and the interactions between close friends over the public news thread. Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, published an editorial in the New York Times in May in which he criticized Apple: "Confidentiality can not be a luxury product offered only to people who can afford to buy products and high-end services. At Google's annual developer conference that week, the company announced "incognito" modes for Google Maps and Google Search. This decision has also been criticized as it forces clients to choose not to be followed.
Until now, Apple is the least incentive to collect your information (because its main activities are hardware and subscription services, not advertising), while Google has a little more and Facebook in always has a ton. And while watching adult men at the head of some of the world's most powerful organizations quibble in the press is usually not fun, it would be good if these pots of dots still fuel the arms race to become the technology company. the least invasive. .
Sign up for The Goods newsletter. Twice a week, we'll send you the best merchandise articles, exploring what we buy, why we buy it and why it's important.
[ad_2]
Source link