The Washington Post ran a sensationalistic story this morning that claimed Apple would have user’s location, unique identifying codes and search terms when using Spotlight in OS X Yosemite and iOS 8.
The function is part of Spotlight search, which was updated with last week’s launch of new Mac computers and Apple’s latest operating system, Yosemite OS X, which also is available for download to owners of older machines. Once Yosemite is installed, users searching for files – even on their own hard drives — have their locations, unique identifying codes and search terms automatically sent to the company, keystroke by keystroke. The same is true for devices using Apple’s latest mobile operating system, iOS 8.
There’s only one problem with the story—it’s not true.
On iOS 8, here’s what Apple actually gets (PDF document):
To make suggestions more relevant to users, Spotlight Suggestions includes user context and search feedback with search query requests sent to Apple.
Context sent with search requests provides Apple with: i) the device’s approximate location; ii) the device type (e.g., Mac, iPhone, iPad, or iPod); iii) the client app, which is either Spotlight or Safari; iv) the device’s default language and region settings; v) the three most recently used apps on the device; and vi) an anonymous session ID. All communication with the server is encrypted via HTTPS.
To help protect user privacy, Spotlight Suggestions never sends exact location, instead blurring the location on the client before sending. The level of blurring is based on estimated population density at the device’s location; for instance, more blurring is used in a rural location versus less blurring in a city center where users will typically be closer together. Further, users can disable the sending of all location information to Apple in Settings, by turning off Location Services for Spotlight Suggestions. If Location Services is disabled, then Apple may use the client’s IP address to infer an approximate location.
The anonymous session ID allows Apple to analyze patterns between queries conducted in a 15-minute period. For instance, if users frequently search for “Café phone number” shortly after searching for “Café,” Apple may learn to make the phone number more available in results. Unlike most search engines, however, Apple’s search service does not use a persistent personal identifier across a user’s search history to tie queries to a user or device; instead, Apple devices use a temporary anonymous session ID for at most a 15-minute period before discarding that ID.
Apple has posted its privacy policies on its Web site, so you can see exactly how they feel about it any time you want.
The fact is, Apple doesn’t collect data about its customers like other companies do, like say, Google. Apple sells products, not advertisements or customer data. By anonymizing the data it receives, Apple is able to make the operating system work better for you, while maintaining your privacy.
This rebuttal seems to be cherry-picking. What does Apple received from OS X searches?
Apple may not be in the business today, but who says they could not enter a similar business tomorrow? Otherwise they wouldn’t record superfluous data at all.
Google has not been the data villain all the time either, that business model grew in time. For that Google has advanced algorithms like for Google Now that far exceed the utility of similar services on OS X or iOS. I doubt that Apple would stand by idly and do nothing. Not to mention that even Apple has its own ad service, even though it’s not its core business.
So your complaint is not what Apple is doing, but what the could be doing at some point in the future? That’s seems a rather broad brush. The “superfluous” data is to make the searches better. It’s not stored and it’s not tied to your identity. This is in complete contrast to the Google method of making as complete a dossier as possible on as many people as possible.
Apple makes nice things and sells them for money. It’s a simple and successful business plan. Not keeping your data is a competitive advantage.
Wait wait wait, So does this mean that after i explicitly tell Apple not to collect my usage diagnostics (privacy.prefpane). They will still collect this spotlight stuff??
And i agree with Ikalliance, the rebuttal is pure fanboy talk…
Yes, Apple is tracking your searches…all of them. They say the session is anonymous but what gets me is example. If you’re searching for “cafe” does it mean my results change since you’re doing a specific search or is it specific to my searches?
If the latter, they track you. If the former, that sucks.
Nothing.
If it is anonymous, there is no way for them to know it is you. They really don’t care. Really.
“Apple sells products, not advertisements or customer data”
You are a lying propagandist. One simply needs to look at iAd to know that your words are not true.
Actually, you are an uninformed dolt.
If you actually looked at iAd you would find that it’s exactly true.
In fact, it’s exactly because of lack of tracking that iAd is not competitive and has not become a successful advertising platform.
One of Google’s biggest victories is the fact that they convinced idiots like yourself that online advertising and tracking are inseparable.
They are not. iAd does ad targetting the same way, print publications, TV, Jim and Gruber do: by inferring what their audience should be interested in from the content they offer.
They store the fact that somebody made a certain search, not that you made a search.
It’s nothing new, Siri already does this.
But I guess we were overdue for a new Apple scandal.
You’re a moron who can’t read. The lying propagandist writes “Apple sells produts, not advertisements”.
I point out that Apple has a whole website called advertising.apple.com devoted to selling advertisements under its iAd programme and your reply is “iAd does targeting blablbla”.
I don’t give a damn what iAd does. Fact of the matter is Apple sells ads just like the other big brother companies that want to make a profit from unduly exploiting the fact that they made the equipment we chose to buy and presume to own.
The key word is “customer data”.
The fact that you “don’t care what iAd does” demonstrates that your mind is closed to any and all facts which go against your religious viewpoint. So there’s no much point in continuing to talk to you.
Bwahh-hhahahaaaa-hahaha… Oh dear me. Thankyou for that wonderful piece of comedy. Tuesday morning gold.
It’s not specific to your searches. It’s specific to aggregate of the anonymised searches in that area. When you next search for that thing in that area, the result given isn’t based on what you selected previously – it’s based on what the most common selection is.
So basically, if lots of people in a specific area always search for a specific thing, suggestions will favour that thing over other options. It’s a way of improving search suggestions without tracking individuals.
This is massively simplified, but imagine that you search for “cafe” when you’re close to your daily commuting station. You pick “Cafe Macs”, which is your favourite. Apple notes that, and chalks an anonymous “1” in favour of Cafe Macs. If lots of people always choose Cafe Macs, that will be the option everyone in that area who starts typing “Cafe…” will get.
However, it’s based on the aggregate, not your individual data. So if you chose “Cafe Wah” instead, it would add a “vote” to Cafe Wah – but if Cafe Macs was still the most popular selection amongst the anonymised group, you would still get Cafe Macs as the top selection next time you did the same search in the same location.
What Google could do – because it DOES keep a constant, non-anonymised track of your individual choices – is change what it shows you as the suggested result so that you always go Cafe Wah, whereas when I do it (as I’ve never searched there for cafes before) I’ll get Cafe Macs.
Whether you think what Google is doing is a good thing or a bad thing depends on your beliefs on balancing privacy with convenience. Some people think it’s absolutely unacceptable for companies to track your choices like this. Others think the convenience of getting suggestions which are precisely tailored to you is worth giving away that personal data. I’m just happy that we have a choice: give Apple less data, but get only broadly-tailored results; or give Google more data, but get something which is more convenient for you.
There’s no right or wrong solution, as long as the companies involved about what data they store, whether it’s identifiable or anonymised, and what they use it for. Apple gets plus marks for this. Google… well you have to dig a little deeper to understand what they’re doing.
Isn’t the Washington Post owned by Bezos? Couldn’t be any incentive for his employees to misrepresent Apple’s privacy policy, could there?
A lot of nob jockeys jumping on this one. just sayin….
“Our targeting is built upon a foundation of registration and media consumption data that’s exclusive to iAd. Whether you need specialized insights around their lifestyle, purchase habits, or want to reach your own customers, we’ve got you covered.”
Sounds like they do more than affinity targeting.
Jeff, Jeff, Jeff (Bezos), shouldn’t you be keeping your mind on your own business (Amazon)? How’s your Fire Phone doing these days?
I wouldn’t call it a scandal by any measure.
Wait, you’re taking Apple’s word for it?! The approximate location for the Post reporters was within the same building –too close for comfort! Apple also apparently modified or says they did that It wouldn’t be each keystroke, such the search terms.
Anyone looked at the Siri privacy policy? To use it, you have to give Apple the go ahead to mine your contacts and calendar–even gathering information on others in your device but without their permission. It’ small or nothing–use Siri and we (Apple) get all your personal info or, tough luck, don’t use it.
It should, of course, be opt in–allowing people to use Siri without turning over their information –not requiring and allowing Apple to scoop it all up!
Exactly my point on it sucking. I don’t care about Cafe Macs. I want the cafe I use, not what the popularity chooses.
They’re tracking w/ iAd so I wouldn’t be shocked if they did track you here. It doesn’t make sense, to me at least, to have a localized search client not personalize itself to me.
Meh.
Go to Settings > Privacy > Advertising. You have two options:
– Limit Ad Tracking
– Reset Advertising Identifier
Now, props for putting those there but it is 100% clear they are tracking you. If they aren’t, why tuck a limit feature 3 screens in from within a menu many probably don’t even know exists.
You also can reset your identifier which, in essence, makes you a “new user” they will yet again track.
Oh and if that’s not enough they recently added retargeting so if a user adds items to a cart, for example, but never completes it you, the advertiser, can target them specifically to get them to buy. You can’t retarget anonymous users.
They track, full stop.
Privacy policies don’t matter. Have you read Google’s then looked at any pro-Apple blog? Truth is relative to the perspective they are pushing.
(hint: Google outright states it never sells your information)
Did you miss the part about location blurring?
“[Spotlight uses] less blurring in a city center where users will typically be closer together”
You don’t get much more dense than downtown D.C. The Post is only one of over a dozen businesses in their own building. A building which is at the middle of a D.C. block, in the middle of an intersection of five roads (where, in fact, a GIS-aware as opposed to naive blurring algorithm might tend to intentionally focus).
Of course, if I don’t give Siri access to my contacts, it won’t know who I’m trying to call,much less be able to tell the difference between my mother and my wife. That’s a big difference that I prefer Siri to understand.
I think people go a little too far in thinking just how far any of this software uses the things it requests access to. It’s like the kerfuffle a few weeks back when everyone was warning people not to use Facebook Messenger because it requested access to your photos, and apparently they didn’t even realize the reason is so you can post pictures to Facebook — you know, that thing so many of them do every day.
By the way,every phone I’ve ever set up states things at set up about allowing Siri to do things or not, and asks again for other things when you use it the first time. Seems pretty opt-in to me. And it’s easy to turn off at any time, too.
“anonymous session ID”
Even if apple someday changed they way they do business, it doesn’t change the fact the whatever has been searched in the past (now) is useless to them.
Also, you are tying the existence of advanced algorithms to data mining, when they don’t have to go hand in hand. Just because that is what Google does this practice doesn’t mean it is the only way it can be done.
looks about the same to me.
http://www.theverge.com/2014/10/20/7022881/apple-yosemite-spotlight-privacy-concerns
Wrong.
Go to Preferences > Spotlight > click “About Spotlight…” button at the bottom:
“When you use Spotlight, your search queries, the Spotlight Suggestions you select, and related usage data will be sent to Apple. Search results found on your Mac will not be sent. If you have Location Services on your Mac turned on, when you make a search query to Spotlight the location of your Mac at that time will be sent to Apple. Searches for common words and phrases will be forwarded from Apple to Microsoft’s Bing search engine. These searches are not stored by Microsoft. Location, search queries, and usage information sent to Apple will be used by Apple only to make Spotlight Suggestions more relevant and to improve other Apple products and services.”
Continue the discussion but knock off the name calling. It’s not necessary, appreciated or allowed here.
Your local newspaper sells ads. This site sells ads. Are they also big brother?
Just like many people, you’re too lazy to think, but not to lazy to argue with people who do think.
If instead of jumping to conclusions you would read the actual description available from that exact page, you would see it has nothing in common with the kind of tracking Facebook and Google try to do.
That setting is about allowing iAd and third party apps to access a unique identifier. If it is disabled, iAd keeps on file what ads it showed you and which ones you interacted with. That’s it.
Apple does not try to track you all over the Internet and the physical world like Google and Facebook do.
Your conclusion does not follow from the quoted text.
No conclusions jumped here. They absolutely track you.
I never once said it matched the way Google or Facebook does but arguing Apple isn’t tracking you is a failing argument.
How exactly is Apple tracking me?
Do you have anything concrete or just vague FUD?
iAd works by showing you ads based on your interests, their words not mine. How do they know your interests? Through anonymous user data?
“To give you the best advertising experience, iAd provides ads based on your interests.”
From the KB illustrating my above referenced settings: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4228.
I already answered that. The same way Jim knows our interests: by guessing and by measuring the effectiveness of previous ads.
if you read apple’s iAd privacy policy, youll see it’s much less reaching than Google’s, and easier to blur yourself in.
but nice try, keep on FUD’ing it!”
this just in — google is TRACKING ALL GMAIL MESSAGE CONENT! grab the pitchforks.
people are:
https://fix-macosx.com/
…suggesting its broken and needs to be reverted to a “fixed” state.
“iAd sticks to the same privacy policy that applies to every other Apple product. It doesn’t get data from Health and HomeKit, Maps, Siri, iMessage, your call history, or any iCloud service like Contacts or Mail, and you can always just opt out altogether.”
https://www.apple.com/privacy/
bob, get a clue:
https://www.apple.com/privacy/
“One very small part of our business does serve advertisers, and that’s iAd. We built an advertising network because some app developers depend on that business model, and we want to support them as well as a free iTunes Radio service. iAd sticks to the same privacy policy that applies to every other Apple product. It doesn’t get data from Health and HomeKit, Maps, Siri, iMessage, your call history, or any iCloud service like Contacts or Mail, and you can always just opt out altogether.”
it’s a fraction of their revenue, numbnuts. thus it’s entirely plausible to say that isnt their business and products, the vast majority of their revenue, is.
HAHAHAHAHAHA. So Apple has people behind the scenes measuring what I, John Bland, like and are serving ads to my interest? 😀
I like your world.
they track some stuff. and dont track other stuff. google tracks as much as possible.
“One very small part of our business does serve advertisers, and that’s iAd. We built an advertising network because some app developers depend on that business model, and we want to support them as well as a free iTunes Radio service. iAd sticks to the same privacy policy that applies to every other Apple product. It doesn’t get data from Health and HomeKit, Maps, Siri, iMessage, your call history, or any iCloud service like Contacts or Mail, and you can always just opt out altogether.”
https://www.apple.com/privacy/
he does. could also be why they slammed Apple for iphone encryption and asked for an FBI backdoor.
Ahh…there we go. See, this isn’t about Apple v Google. It’s about whether they track at all and EVERYONE here is saying “they don’t” but that’s just not true.
You’re tracked, period!
Copying this to every comment brings nothing to the conversation as it doesn’t address, in this instance, my issue w/ having an inferior experience.
Again, I want them to track me. I trust Apple just like I trust Google. Track me. Learn me. Give me what I need before I need it (hello Google Now). I’m for Apple doing this.
they dont sell it as a shrinkwrapped package w/ your name on it, no. but they do indeed sell you as a targeted market recipient to those interested in selling to people “who like X (google+, live in Y (maps), searched for Z (search)”…they have all that data and leverage.
also, when somebody else buys google and decides to do more, then what? they have that data. own it. apple doesnt, because the data theyre collecting is blurred.
That’s not a scandal. Developers have to “fix” OS X often to get it to do things we want.
I could def’ be wrong here but news about something does not make a scandal. A scandal would be Apple saying “we never track anything” but their policies and actions state they do, secretly.
sshhh, dont pour water on the hater parade…
How do they have information about my lifestyle, media consumption or purchase habits unless they track?
No, they do not sell you. You love privacy policies so much:
“We do not share personal information with companies, organizations and individuals outside of Google unless one of the following circumstances applies: (your consent, domain admins for Google Apps, affiliate data processors, legal)”
https://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/privacy/#nosharing
(quotes mine to sum it up)
But…let’s roll w/ your definition. Targeting = selling you.
Apple targets and allows re-targeting, per their docs (launched that feature this summer’sh), so advertisers can target you.
Apple sells you.
(logic works)
Exactly as many people as Google has reading your e-mail.
Don’t play dumb for so long, you might get stuck that way.
From the iAds you interacted with and the content next to which they were displayed.
Or do you think Siri is watching what you put in your shopping cart at the grocery store?
Nice…no valid rebuttal so go to the extreme. #classic
So you interacted with some content or an ad and…hrmm…let’s see, how do they know the next time you did that?
(hint: they stored that info; in one word: tracking)
😀
This thread is funny as all get out. Keep it up…good laughs on a busy Tuesday.
I think the question was meant – and interpreted – as meaning “what does Apple get paid for OSX search”, in reference to Jim’s final paragraph.
What extreme is that? And I don’t have to rebut anything.
You have to show proof that Apple is tracking me.
Do you even know what tracking is? iAd is not tracking me because it does not follow me anywhere. The fact that it remembers previous interactions is not tracking.
Do you call tracking when somebody remembers what you told them in face to face conversation?
I read “Apple sells products, not advertisements” as not being a denial that Apple Ever Sells Ads.
I read it as being a 100% true statement about the markets the companies are in.
Google sells ads. That’s their revenue source; ads that are worth more to the buyers precisely because they know so much about their customers.
Apple sells hardware and software/content for that hardware.
iAds is … barely rounding error on Apple’s income.
(I can’t find numbers from Apple, but 2012 estimates are maybe $125M for the year in net.
Apple’s net earnings for last quarter were $8.5B.
That’s … 68 times as much as iAd made in those 2012 estimates.
Apple could write off iAd tomorrow and nobody would even notice except adware developers for iOS.)
I would note that Safari is not mentioned as a place they don’t get data from.
You could absolutely be right and if you are, my apologies Swordmaker. If not, I stand by the comment. 🙂
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Have a good one def4. 😀
Oh and the extreme is “Or do you think Siri is watching what you put in your shopping cart at the grocery store?”
But let’s end this line of conversation. 😀
That’s not extreme. That’s exactly what Google Wallet does.
It’s getting embarrassing def4. Please, let’s stop right here.
John C. Bland II addressed it above, but I felt that this post rebutted the original iOS claim but left the OS X claim unaddressed. Seemed incomplete and evasive to me.
Exactly my point. Apple does not retain these data for any purpose except to enhance the user’s experience while searching and doing reasonable subsequent searches. Apple has no ulterior profit intent in retaining such data so it does not. I used one word, “nothing,” to convey that concept. Thanks for supporting my view.
My apologies Swordmaker. I thought you were on the “they don’t track you” bit so I responded in that vein.
I agree. Apple, to public knowledge, does not get any direct profit from these searches.
The truth often is embarrassing.