agree - apple says they're doing this for "privacy" but there is no way to verify they are not tracking/storing this data themselves. in todays world its simply too valuable and apples tentacles are far too reaching for the data to be thrown out. in fact, there are reports of an increased advertising push already [0].
id wager there is an internal team analyzing this data for predictive trends across all their product lines, akin to facebook using onavo data to target and value whatsapp relative to messenger.
it could be used to guide which new streaming series candidate gets more funding/marketing, popular colors for new iPhones, price elasticity across the range, etc.
and of course the surveillance aspect always looms in the background.
[0] - https://www.macrumors.com/2022/05/09/apple-services-push-str...
There was no way to verify before that Apple wasn’t tracking you either. Whether or not you trust Apple should have nothing to do with Private Relay.
This is the point - Apple doesn't have that information either. From the article, in the "How Private Relay works" section:
> when you browse the web in Safari, no single party — not even Apple — can see both who you are and what sites you're visiting.
The article specifically mentions that the Apple relay wouldn't see the DNS, whereas the second relay doesn't see your IP.
Secondly, Apple makes the OS. If they wanted to spy on you, they could have done so in much easier ways already.
…did you read the article?
Have you read Apple's privacy policy?
So where as in the olden days, in order to figure out who you were, some actor had to buy logs from the destination sites and from the ISPs, then correlate.
Now they can just buy the information from Apple. How convenient for Apple.
I know Apple says they will only share your information with trusted partners and only with your consent which is implicit when you use private relay. No one ever asks who these partners are though. Probably the same people that used to buy your data from the destination sites and ISPs...