GP never said there's anything Apple could do at this point to win them back.

IMO, a company that really took privacy seriously would never, ever have let humans listen to Siri recordings without explicit user content. There is in fact nothing Apple can say post-mortem to change this.

Now, whether any of the mainstream alternatives are better for privacy is a legitimate question—but at this point, I don't think anyone should choose Apple because of their privacy claims. If there are no more incidents in the next five years, maybe we can reconsider at that point, but that is how long it should take for Apple to regain trust. (That, or Apple opening their systems to public audit, which will never happen.)

Until Google gives us a way to turn off their buying a copy of everyone's brick and mortar store credit/debit card transaction data, they cannot be taken seriously as a privacy option.

>Google has been able to track your location using Google Maps for a long time. Since 2014, it has used that information to provide advertisers with information on how often people visit their stores. But store visits aren’t purchases, so, as Google said in a blog post on its new service for marketers, it has partnered with “third parties” that give them access to 70 percent of all credit and debit card purchases.

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/607938/google-now-tracks-...

Even if the mainstream alternatives are also bad, two wrongs don't make a right.

"We didn't include an option to turn off data analytics for Siri in the privacy section of the control panel where all the other data analytics options are" is a far cry from "We are now buying a copy of everyone's credit card transactions so you should buy all your targeted ads from our fully armed and operational surveillance capitalism Death Star". (to borrow a Star Wars metaphor)

The trouble is that we don't know what Apple is doing. It's mostly a big black box. Maybe they are tracking everyone's location and credit card transactions.

I've been on the exact opposite side of this argument for the past year, both here on the internet and IRL. Sure, we can't look inside Apple's systems, but if they say they're doing X Y and Z, we ought to believe them. Apple knows that if something comes to light after they've billed themselves as a privacy company, it will be a big scandal, so they'll want to keep their word.

Well, here we are, and now I feel stupid. Fool me once...

The fact that Apple is bragging that they take privacy seriously while Google has been bragging to advertising customers that they have been violating the privacy of everyone's banking transactions is everything you need to know to see that the two companies have a very different approach to user privacy.

However, Google can still adopt Apple's position that data collection should be turned off by default and only turned on by the users after you explain what will be done with the data.

They won't since spying on users is how they make the vast majority of their money, but they could.

Well they can perhaps also stop doing business with Chinese government and then continue preaching about privacy. They've proven flexible with their morals when it came to money too many times to be trusted. Just like any other corporation.

Maybe they should also stop doing business with the American government? ;-)

If Apple stopped doing business with China they would have to stop selling products all together.

There just isn't the manufacturing capability anywhere else in the world to compete with China. It's a shame that the world outsourced such an important skill but that's where we are.

Other phone makers manage to manufacture phones in China without handing all Chinese customer data to the Chinese government. It is possible to manufacture in China without selling to Chinese consumers.

Don't forget that they take google's money and put them as the default search provider in safari.

Apple loves privacy, but they love money more.