Like you said, there are very few companies who have done nothing wrong. But there certainly are companies who are better than others, and it's fine to praise them for that, just as it's fine to call them out for their mistakes.

Then go support Librem 5, Tinkerphones/OpenPhoenux, Pyra and other similar projects. Apple doesn't differ much from others like Google - at best it's just the friendliest of your enemies.

You're correct. But I feel that the innate californification of Apple along with systemetic PR showing Apple to be saviour of privacy is stopping privacy enthusiasts from putting Apple into same rigor as we do for Google, Facebook.

> the innate californification of Apple

?

You're correct. But in my opinion the innate californification of Apple & systemetic PR helping itself to project as saviour of privacy has prevented the privacy enthusiasts from putting Apple through same rigor as we do for Google, Facebook.

I might have missed something, but I though Google at least did get a pass for prism because not only were they not involved voluntarily but they reacted to the news by going all out in encrypting internal communications in an effort to make sure it couldn't happen again. Or am I confusing 2 separate programs?

>Or am I confusing 2 separate programs?

You are. PRISM is a lawful program that Google agreed to be a part of in 2009. Google's data centers were hacked (or the link through the dark fiber was) by the NSA and that's when they started encrypting that link.

>PRISM is a lawful program

This is, at the very least, debatable: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_(surveillance_program)#A...

Correct.Google reacted the same way as other companies did for PRISM.

But they didn't know that their data was also accessed via other means & they took action to prevent it.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t PRISM an endpoint for companies to comply with legally mandated warrants? I find it very hard to fault them for reducing their compliance burden - it was either have employees pull that data or have a computer do it. The data is getting pulled either way.

This is correct, and not often understood.

This article is basically all about commercial ad-tracking and spying, so this is mostly off topic, but if you want something to look at, Apple is repeatedly hardening their hardware against FBI surveillance and congressional demands.