ArchStanton

It's a feature that sounds great and a number are advertising similar but it is very unwieldy to have a large number of sites in a videoconferences. It can only work if videoconferencing etiquette is fully enforced. Otherwise you get a lot of audience drift (they stop paying attention because the discussion topic is constantly muddled).  For large numbers of sites it is better if the germane sites are in the full participation part of the conference. The remainder get the conference as a non participation site (they get it streamed, in effect).
I've learned this on multiple occasions.  

sbdude said:

Let’s see, 50 people piling into an Apple Forum thread commiserating over the same issue. That must equal, what, thousands of defects? Millions even!!

Sound like 50 people commiserating over their own stupidity. Too bad the attorney(s) trolling those forums only see opportunity.

"Thousands of defects? Millions even!" -- that is the hyperbole they'll use with their goal to get as meany people to believe the product is defective and not to buy it. Their MO is based on Apple hate and/or looking for 15 minutes of YouTube fame.
A quick search AI  and other similar sites will show you that a vast number of Apple products are breaking, burning, bent and brazenly bad! It is the M.O. of these people. Get enough then maybe a lawyer/class action suit can be ginned up. These are very rarely won but their main goal is still usually achieved--15 minutes of fame.

It never tangibly effects sales of Apple, Apple isn't ever tangibly hurt at all. But it tangibly effects and harms us consumers. All companies (not limited to Apple) are in bunker mentality from these scams coming from all sides. Companies would be paying out on virtually every product if they didn't fight these scammers. So in the end the scammers get their 15 minutes of fame, the company isn't hurt, we consumers get the short end of the stick if a real issue ever does arise. 

elijahg said:

ArchStanton said:

Fyi, Apple Watches burn your skin, iMacs are crooked by fraction of a mm that hurts one's neck, people killed! from airtags, etc etc etc etc 

There is a cottage industry of free money grabbers and media attention creeps that make every product mysteriously break, crack, blow up or try to harm you. What these slimes have done is make most people believe very one of these stories you hear are just grifters look for the aforementioned. You see that with stories like this and dimwits like a previous poster claiming he wonders how many iPhones did this too!
Just fools and grifters harming consumers from getting recompense when an actual, and rare, problem arises.  

There are plenty of spurious lawsuits that is for certain, but there are also people like you who claim no problem is ever Apple's fault. It's usually somewhere in the middle.

In the post I wrote (that you “responded” to): “Just fools and grifters harming consumers from getting recompense when an actual, and rare, problem arises”.

I realize reading is a difficult proposition for some, however, even a clearly, ahem, modest reading comprehension ability should be able to understand “getting recompense when an actual, and rare, problem arises” if they make an effort. Further, even this modest ability should not make one unable to identify, within the statement, the following: 1. no company was named ergo it was a company/corporation agnostic statement.  2. It speaks exclusively ,and as an absolute, to protection and just compensation for consumers. 3. (This one is likely going to be beyond the previously identified limited comprehension) “Fools” was seemingly much more appropriate than “grifters”.  

gatorguy said:

ArchStanton said:

gatorguy said:

StrangeDays said:

gatorguy said:

Alex_V said:

I agree with all the comments so far. I had an exchange with a guy on FB over this issue. (There is irony there, I acknowledge.) He was talking up Google’s recent privacy changes, as if to say that they were the same as Apple’s. I pointed out that they stopped third parties from snooping, but Google can still snoop. I asked him: Google doesn’t make money selling phones, and they provide Android for free. Why would they do that? How do they make money? The answer is: they sell data on their users. The guy responded that he knew that because he was in marketing. So, why was he arguing about it on the internet?

Your friend lied.
Google doesn't sell user data. 

Selling targeted advertising access to sub-categories of users based on user data, is exactly what is meant when people say “sell your data”. They’re selling access to your metadata. Your little semantic games will never change that and just leave you looking intellectually dishonest. 

It's more YOUR little semantics game, and a very misleading one played by a few others. There's no advertiser access to user data, especially not YOUR OWN personal data. 
User data is not for sale, tho there are companies that do, even ones you inherently trust (perhaps because you don't know any better?)

Google places ads for companies based on baskets of ANONYMISED USERS WITH SIMILAR DEMOGRAPHICS in much the same way Apple creates baskets of users for delivering targeted ads in certain Apple services. Baby steps. You know why Apple treats that as OK to do? Because they aren't selling that data or even giving it away, and neither is Google. The intellectual dishonesty is pretending they do.

Is maintaining a talking point so important to you that using half-truths to do so is acceptable? Don't work that FUD. Be better than that. 

"In much the same way Apple does". And you accuse others of using half truths? Using the standard lie of 'see they all do it' to confuse the issue. It's becoming a time honored obfuscation for the Android crowd. 

The difference between what private information Google(and Facebook) collect on you(personally you not an obscure group) and what Apple collects on you is massive, and I mean MASSIVE! Anything Gatorguy says from this point will not factually contradict that, period, end of story.  He's trying the bait and switch with 'who gets to see that personal information'. Then using that to push ''see, they all do it' equivocation. It's used by the Android crowd time and time and time again -- and it's dishonest.
but they have to do that. The issue of privacy data mining is not just won by Apple, Apple wins it running away by 100 miles. That's not the simple claim of an Apple user, that is verifiable, quantifiable, indisputable fact. Everything they try to push from here will be to obscure that 100% fact.

But to play the obfuscation game: who gets to see the massive private information of a user on an Android platform and the minimal information that Apple collects? For both platforms it is negotiable via ToS updates(especially using gray area wording in the ToS. Don't ever believe that a company (Google, Facebook, even Apple) may not change their policy. They will.  For Google (and Facebook... among others) whose main income of 100 to 200 billion dollars per year in "advertising" revenue, this huge number is achieved by knowing as much about you as possible. I can almost guarantee there will be changes to ToS especially if these many billions in revenue start going south. 

It's free and relatively say to do: get a copy of the private data recorded by Google, by Facebook, by Apple. See the truth for yourself. Just be prepared to be shocked at how big the file and how huge the private information Google and Facebook have recorded on you (again this is fact, nothing Gatorguy or the others trying to cloud the issue can honestly dispute). 

Oh, Google places far more emphasis on maximizing the value of their advertising services than Apple does. Why wouldn't they? That is absolutely not the same as "selling your data". They don't. "They all do it" is not the point at all.

At the same time Apple is making sure to keep their fingers in advertising and if a time comes that hardware isn't delivering the revenue gains they want don't' believe they won't make ads a much bigger piece of their business. While iAd failed, and they will probably never be as good at it as Google anyway, Apple never has given up on testing the targeted ad waters. There's so much money there, why would they? Apple can see how successful Alphabet is, all they have to do is look at recent results. MASSIVE gains YOY. I'd be shocked (and so would you IMHO) if they wouldn't like a bigger piece of it, just as Google wants a bigger piece of hardware. 

Awesome obfuscation again. Your list is growing! 
-It's fine that Google does this because Google doesn't share it (oh and because they make well over 100 billion on it too). See Google itself having this massive amount of private personal data gathered they own, they wouldn't share it (Jigsaw)!  Nothing to see here, it's perfectly ok. (they'll never change ToS either).
-Apple just isn't successful at amassing huge private data on its users. ((I tell you what, this is a new one and remarkably entertaining. Yes, you're right, it would be a marvel of Apple engineering to code iOS to amass private data across iPhone and app usage, then send it back to central servers. Yea, that is some real high technology right there. But credit for trying a new tact in defense of private data amassing.)) 
- At the dawn of surveillance capitalism, Apple did try IAds. See, 'they are all the same'. ((But Apple failed! Small software companies monetize personal data but Apple isn't capable! Oh no, lol. Fyi, Apple abandoned it and I'll be glad to provide the quotes to back that up. But if Apple ever started down the Google path I'll be on them 100%. That makes us very different)). 
-Apple does advertisements? Oh no, oh goodness! Just wow. Another great try and dishonest equivocation. Because of course a beer commercial on TV and amassing a huge trove of your private data is all the same (again, 'see they all do it, they are all the same'). That you would equate all advertising to massive amassing of private data as the same thing is just sad. That right there is a desperate attempt to try and make that amassing of private data ok.

Again, at the end of every equivocation and obfuscation post you type,  with all the ';they all do it' and 'they don't share it' and 'advertising is advertising' and 'Apple is incapable of gathering data or selling the metrics to advertisers' (just wow) etc etc, you are still against the same concrete and steel wall. Indisputably, factually, you can't (and haven't) refuted the reality: Google and Facebook amasses a staggering amount of private data on you that they own. Period.
To those reading this, hey don't believe me and certainly don't believe Gatorguy, see it for yourself. Get a copy of that data for free from Google and Facebook. Also get a copy from Apple. Do your own reading and comparison. Then see for yourself what Gatorguy is trying to do here (hint, it isn't to help you believe or see the massive amount of private data Google and Facebook own on you, and certainly isn't to help you maintain your right to privacy, that's for certain). 

bloggerblog said:

EU is desperate for cash, they're out to sue anyone with a treasure chest, I think this high fine is to prepare for the big one, Apple. I actually don't mind Amazon collecting my data while browsing their site, I already gave them my address, CC info, and I'm there to shop, no big deal if they show me what may interest me. What I do mind however is Google swiping my data across sites and without me knowing, only to build a profile that could be used and sold in many nefarious ways.

I think this is largely true. Good chance it is a regulatory shakedown. As gov regulators don't pay for the pursuit of these fines, taxpayers do. Amazon pays for their own mighty expensive defense (that Amazon can afford it or that some don't like Amazon is irrelevant in application of law or regulation). Ultimately if they can get Amazon to agree to pay something and change an Amazon action on the peripery, the particular gov people/politicians win -- they get their name in the media and a chance to move up the political ladder. 

With that said, little IMHO is actually being done about the massing of private data. On that front the EU has done more -- not a lot but more. But what makes it suspect is they seem overly eager to go after United States companies regarding private data amassing. The reality is EU companies are just as guilty but don't have as big a share of markets. 
Regarding France going after Apple, if France can show Apple has actually gathered private data outside explicit ToS? Apple deserves it. Apple sets the bar, a high one, for data privacy protection, so holding them to the standard is good. But Apple gathers little data, make's very little off monetizing data, and blocking what data they gather is readily available in iPhone(and explains fairly good what is gathered). There can't be much there for France other than headlines for a politician. And if France goes after Google or Facebook? If the fine is commensurate with the amount of data gathered? That's gonna be one massively huge fine (as much as I don't like the surveillance capitalism industry that FB and Google lead, it would be a grossly unfair to them).