Apple features expose the worst of predatory surveillance by Facebook, Amazon and Google
While wrong is wrong regardless of the perpetrator, when it comes to gargantuan tech behemoths, a company with a clearly defined mission such as Apple or Tesla are in a different category than Amazon, Facebook and Google.
While Tesla’s stated mission is to “accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy” and Apple’s original mission statement, written by Steve Jobs was “to make a contribution to the world by making tools for the mind that advance humankind”, predatory vultures hide behind ridiculous slogans like “aim to be Earth’s most customer centric company” (while decimating partners and competitors by any means necessary) and “don’t be evil” (don’t get caught) and “to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together” (…all while stealing data for profit from every person on earth).
It’s just not the same – particularly as Steve Jobs, while at Apple, pushed himself and his company to invent and build many powerful examples of “tools for the mind” and Elon Musk’s Tesla brought the electric car back from the dead (after it was nearly snuffed out by big oil) and is making incredible headway in revolutionizing battery and solar technology, all with a view to literally save the planet from a climate catastrophe.
Bezos? Became the richest living human via the destruction of millions of small business and jobs all while undercutting competitors by selling virtually anything he got his hands on at a significant loss; simply to cause the demise of any competitor or partner that might threaten his rise to idiotically massive personal wealth.
Zuckerberg? Pioneered ways to suck data from virtually every human with a view to monetizing every living soul exclusively for himself and his company. Illustration? Dividing Facebook’s market cap by the number of employees it has yields the sum of $14,906,500.00 per employee. Macy’s? That’d be $16,829. (Thanks to Scott Galloway for the numbers)
Google merely owns (91.75% as of June 2020) the search entryway to all web sites. It decides if you should or should not find them. If it can boost profits by hiding one and featuring another, either through “paid search” or by pointing you toward its own properties while hiding competitors from you, it will do exactly that. Ask the European Union’s anti-trust investigators. For them, this company is a convicted law breaker.
Infinite Tracking Epitaph: Apple’s EcoSystem will Protect Users Privacy
Announced at WWDC 2020, Apple is adding serious features to its various new operating systems. One big feature in Safari is the ability to track, and block as desired, all manner of data intrusions. These are not only identified, but shown and tracked and analyzed with a kind of professional dashboard, showing just how invasive and persistent these invisible spies are.
Apple is big, with more than 1.4 billion devices. Starting in around 2021 they will all be able to identify and block data surveillance by Amazon (the largest of all spies), Google and Facebook, among others. Thanks that’s not a big deal? Think again.
Tracking the trackers is a clear and aggressive privacy stance, taken by the one company among the big four, that does not have a huge stake in you being the victim of online surveillance and tracking.
Not to say that Apple is blameless. Many are complaining about its fee structure for software sold by third parties via the app stores. While this issue is certainly a valid one, the overall stance being taken regarding online tracking and surveillance should be seen for what it is: the first step to correcting the mistake of history that allowed the internet to be kidnapped and held hostage by a handful of companies that pretend to be “free” or “customer obsessed” while they are, in fact, Robber Barons that make the Standard Oil monopoly look like Santa Claus.
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