Microsoft to force Chrome default search to Bing via Office365 ProPlus installer - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/22/21077280/microsoft-chrome-bing-extension-office-365-proplus-installer-default-search-engine <comment><USER2> No particular advice here, I just want to point to the fact that bing allows users to search their organization documents (office 365 files) when using bing [1] when connected with their org account. This feature is named "Microsoft Search in Microsoft 365". It's not mentionned in the article. See original ms doc article for details [2].

So it's not just a way to force users to use bing, it's also a way to push this feature in front of them.

> By making Bing the default search engine, users in your organization with > Google Chrome will be able to take advantage of Microsoft Search, including > being able to access relevant workplace information directly from the > browser address bar. Microsoft Search is part of Microsoft 365 and is turned > on by default for all Microsoft apps that support it.

[1] [https://support.office.com/en-us/article/find-what-you- need-...](https://support.office.com/en-us/article/find-what-you-need-with- microsoft-search-in-bing-0b64be13-f20f-4e17-82b6-4deaea4940fb)

[2] [https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/deployoffice/microsoft- sear...](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/deployoffice/microsoft-search-bing)

<comment><USER3> We had that back like 10 years ago when google provided a tool (I forgot it's name, Google desktop search?) which scanned and indexed files locally. It was accessible through a shortcut, I laid mine to double-Ctrl and upon invocation it prompted a search bar

It was so great in search quality, number of formats it could index and performance that at one day I index the whole company file share. People showed up next to me and I rediscovered files which would have been lost otherwise.

This tool also integrated after configuration with the browser which issued an invocation to localhost to integrate local search results. As this was widely regarded as a terrible security feature to potentially tell google all about local files, reception of that feature was poor. This feature was the only incentive for google to provide the tool and therefore the tool got quickly axed.

<comment><USER4> I assumed the reason the tool got axed was because in short order, Microsoft released its own desktop search, and then integrated it into Windows (Vista?); and Apple added Spotlight to OS X. In retrospect it's a little surprising to me that in just a couple of years, the notion of indexing your entire hard drive went from novel to taken for granted.

<comment><USER5> I think desktop search existed before Google's. But not a lot of people used it in my experience. I found Google's to be fantastic,a and it was nice it showed results in line with the mostly used search engine. I was surprised when they discontinued it too, and suspect it was some "gentlemen's (anti- consumer) agreement" between companies around turf.

<comment><USER6> My theory was that google saw it as a way to seed their drive service or the strategy changed and the future was not desktop

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Dear Microsoft,

Shit like this literally undoes every bit of goodwill you earn. Much like replacing user's wallpaper for Win7 EOL (why you didn't just put notification text like "Windows $VERSION - End Of Life - Unsupported" in the bottom corner instead is beyond me).

I mean, I _WANT_ to see the new MS, which is really present on the developer tools and azure side of the business. Windows and Office teams seem to be bent on destroying that at every chance... it's time to fire some upper and mid- level managers that have these attitudes and make these decisions.

<comment><USER8> I'm getting skeptical about the developer tools. The cynic in me says it's just a ploy to gain market share before forcing everything to an online subscription like they're doing with Office.

Things like Visual Studio Online, GitHub Actions, Azure Pipelines, etc. worry me. Once everything's a subscription and you're paying to spin your mouse wheel, you lose the ability to spend time in lieu of spending money.

I think it'll happen slowly, but it'll happen. Eventually they'll have a complete, online only development solution that's charged based on usage. Development on local tools will get de-emphasized so they lag behind and suck by comparison and there will be "donations" of subscriptions to educational institutions to ensure no one ever learns to deal with, or even think of, a local development environment.

I think it's ok to have ongoing costs like IntelliJ's products. I don't like the way they screw you with an outdated perpetual license if you drop your subscription, but it's a hell of a lot better than something like Visual Studio Online which is literally pay per hour.

Based on the willingness to pay astronomical markup on CI minutes, I wouldn't be shocked to see people paying $1000 / year (no joke) to use VSO.

<comment><USER9> It will happen only if they develop a bulletproof self-hosted environment for corporate clients. Otherwise the enterprise clientele will never trust writing code at an online environment that they don't own.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The Edge team is trying really hard to create a "we do things right" story around their project. They must be annoyed that a different department squanders the goodwill they're working so hard to create with stuff like this.

If you're a team in a big company and you're trying to optimize for long-term success, you better have the power to stop other teams that try to drive short-term success with campaigns that hurt you.

<comment><USER11> Very large companies like Microsoft usually have a problem of the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing.

<comment><USER12> They should go next door and ask how that's working out for Boeing.

<comment><USER11> Well there is a bit of a difference it is unlikely a web browser is going to directly cause of a person's death.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Google doesn't really have any right to complain as they've had Google Chrome and the Google search bar as drive by installs in third party software installers

[https://www.labnol.org/software/chrome-with-adobe- reader/201...](https://www.labnol.org/software/chrome-with-adobe- reader/20123/)

<comment><USER14> Yeah, but _I_ have a right to complain.

Microsoft pulls a consumer-hostile move, and the first thought of a lot of commenters on here (not just you) is, "what is the impact on Google?"

Who cares about the company? Stop messing with my computer behind my back.

200 years from now, someone on Mars will be reading the headline "Google Drones Lethally Injecting iPhone Owners On Sight", and there'll still be people on HN who's first reaction is to wonder whether or not that counts as anti-competitive towards Apple.

<comment><USER15> This is an enterprise system, though; it won't be running on _your_ computer, but business computers. Still bad, but _less_ bad – arguably on the level of Google pushing its search engine in Chrome and Firefox to begin with.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> People are going to get fed up with all these stupid, user-hostile tricks coming from the major tech companies. I'm not just talking about this one incident. There's a bar that's not only lowering, but crashing fast.

Ploys like these tend to be a symptom from companies about to become obsoleted by innovators who actually understand and give a shit about their target audience.

<comment><USER17> I have been hearing that for a decade. I remember the time when installing anything would change your browser's search engine. Those companies are still alive and going.

What eventually hurt their market space wasn't some trendy hippie customer oriented startup but other "lesser evil" big companies with bigger pockets.

<comment><USER16> There's nothing hippie about capitalizing on the opportunity created when a market leader alienates its customers by letting its products rot with pain points.

In some ways Google is just as sinister as Microsoft ever was. It's not any sort of intentional master plan, it's simply what happens when you lose sight of the user. Some of the crap being pulled by today's incumbents... They might as well put a little imp in the box that beats you with a whip to drive the behavior they want from you.

All of them began as tiny startups with a couple of smart people and disruptive tech... take a long enough view and I'm still optimistic the cycle will continue.

<comment><USER18> Yes! I believe "the people", in this case the users who are getting abused/exploited/disrespected, need to be more attentive and vocal about borderline illegal behavior of corporations, tech companies included.

It's shame how Facebook, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, et al have behaved in recent years, patronizing and manipulating users on a mass scale with a brazenness and near impunity. (OK, Microsoft deserves some love with VS Code, TypeScript, and other open source goodness, but..)

I'm with your optimistic comment that the pendulum is swinging back. These companies have lost sight of users, what "customer care" means, and they're leaving an increasing gap in the market for more humane service and technology.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I think people are missing a key point here . This is included with the pro plus installer which is exclusively a business product. My company installs a bunch of tracking and other crap software on my windows machine in the name of data privacy, security and other bullshit. All it does is makes my i7 laptop with 16 gigs of ram behave like a slow crappy laptop. So if you have an issue with this complain to your work organization because somebody higher up made a decision to go with Pro plus .

<comment><USER20> Have you ever tried to 'bing' a python error you've ran into? This is specifically bad because it's a business product meaning that trying to get work done will only get harder.

<comment><USER21> I use Bing regularly, I made it my default search engine just for kicks about 2 months ago just to see how terrible it was and for the most part I can't even tell the difference. Sometimes I can't find what I want and then I search Google and it can't find it either. I can think of exactly two times in the last two months when Google found something Bing couldn't. One was when I searched for Hearthstone cardback browser and Bing couldn't find the link to it, but Google did, but it was like halfway down the page. I actually prefer not giving Google any more info about me and still getting decent search results.

Honestly the worst part about Bing is coworkers seeing I use it. It's kind of embarrasing, but it's stupid that it is because it's actually a good search engine.

<comment><USER22> > the worst part about Bing is coworkers seeing I use it.

I use Bing Images (because I don't like DuckDuckGo's image search) and link people there sometimes, and I used to have a Bing-branded wallpaper just to call attention to that there is a choice. Didn't even work, nobody around me finds that weird, many already use DDG or chose to remain with Google.

Bing seems to have switched away from branding a Bing logo onto their wallpapers, though, so that's no longer a thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I moved back to linux (fedora) a while ago, what a relief and what a joy it is compared to Windows.

I use Firefox with duckduckgo search engine, no pages full of ad results like with google nowadays. I cannot think of 1 single reason to install Windows 10 and use Chrome browser, you just bite yourself with that choice.

<comment><USER24> The primary reason I boot into Windows is to play videogames, especially VR, which just isn't stable on Linux yet. But that's not a bad compromise either; my Windows boot is for companies that are _happy_ to sneak rootkits onto the OS to detect cheaters, and honestly I'm totally okay declaring my Windows partition unsafe, and booting back to a sane OS to do real work.

It's really a shame, because the core OS underneath Windows 10 is fairly solid. It's specifically the user interface and Microsoft's behavior around telemetry and advertising their own products at the expense of the end user that turns me off Windows as a platform. Like, I feel like if they focused on making Windows a solid and _boring_ OS that was so stable and reliable that no other choice made sense, their overall brand image would improve so much. Experiment elsewhere, the OS is not the place to tarnish your users' good will.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> The title only mentions "Office 365 installer", but note that only Office 365 ProPlus is affected, which is a product targeted at businesses.

<comment><USER26> And Education. IIRC that's the version the large university I work for provides for students, faculty and staff

<comment><USER27> Student checking in. This is indeed the version that my University supplies at a discounted rate.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> This infuriates me insanely. By what right does Microsoft think it is ok to manipulate a third party software by injecting their own code?! This is outright malicious. Malware.

I hope the EU fines them and forces Microsoft to stop such actions (as they forced them to stop bundling IE with Windows a couple of years ago).

It's time these big corporations get broken up. It really is. Stop f*cking with my hardware and the web.

<comment><USER29> By what right does google set the search engine to begin with? They use their browser's popularity for a competitive advantage and that's legal.

Now, your comment is popular because of the hype train but nobody complains when a linux distro has a non-google default search for chrome or firefox. Microsoft(or any OS maker) has a competitive advantage also by dominating the desktop OS market like Chrome dominates the browser market,the installer gets to configure the browser.

Anyone has the right to bundle 3rd party software and make n installer that configures the software a certain way,even if the config gives them a competitive advantage.

I don't disagree with your comment about corps getting broken up but I disagree with this being your reason. Think of it the other way "It is now illegal to make installers that change default settings of the publisher" that would sound as more of a reason to get worked up over to me.

<comment><USER30> > By what right does google set the search engine to begin with? They use > their browser's popularity for a competitive advantage and that's legal.

I'd say it's customer expectation. The slogan in the Chrome website is: _Now more simple, secure, and faster than ever - with help from Google built‑in_ [0]

So, if I install Chrome I expect Google search to be built-in, and I am okay with that because it was clearly stated on the product page.

Now, when I install Office, which is _not_ a browser to begin with, I don't expect it to change my default search provider.

[0] [https://www.google.com/chrome/](https://www.google.com/chrome/)

<comment><USER31> Exactly. The browser provides a URL bar that is coupled to a search engine. It makes sense for the browser to provide you with a default option for that search engine. A web browser is something that needs to be on every computer; so it makes sense that the OS installs a default web browser.

What doesn't make sense is that some software (office) tampers with your preferences for a (mostly) unrelated piece of software (chrome). That is not office's responsibility.

<comment><USER32> Do you know how many years and millions of dollars the US government spent prosecuting Microsoft for their belief that " web browser is something that needs to be on every computer"?

<comment><USER33> That's, to my knowledge, a pretty big misrepresentation of the case, that from my understanding has quite a few facets.

> Microsoft would terminate Compaq's licence if it removed IE and substituted > Netscape, or even if it put the Netscape icon alongside the Explorer one.

<comment><USER15> That sounds like the G-suite on Android.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Microsoft introduced a feature in Internet Explorer 11 to specifically combat this type of abusive action, that is the interference of browser settings by third parties, via extensions. It's a shame to see them on the other side of their users' interests.

<comment><USER35> I thought Chrome had similar protections (both in terms of policy and technical enforcement) - while of course the browser can't protect itself against software running with root privileges, it can ensure that any attempt to pull this off requires tampering that would clearly be considered malicious by most, and I thought that Chrome was doing just that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> People here are justifying Microsoft stance of modifying default browser in third party browser, What if they get away with this and what we could see is that, after every windows update Microsoft would change default search engine in Windows to bing.

</comment><comment><USER37> I guess, Google can, in turn, extend Windows 7 support in Chrome until 2029.

</comment><comment><USER38> If this is something that IT admins can opt in to, rather than compulsory, it sounds like a good feature. The article hints that might be the case.

If this happens by default, in a user hostile way, Google could respond by having their installers set the default search engine in Edge to Google.

<comment><USER39> It's opt-out. Here's the email they sent out to admins recently:

You must exclude the extension before you install or update to a version of Office 365 ProPlus that installs the extension for Microsoft Search in Bing. Implementing the exclusion after the extension has been installed will not remove the extension.

• For new installations of Office 365 ProPlus, the Office Deployment Tool may be the best method, as outlined in this support document

• For existing installations of Office 365 ProPlus, modifying the Group Policy may be best. Enable the policy setting Don't install extension for Microsoft Search in Bing, which makes Bing the default the search engine.

• If you use Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager (current branch), from the Features section, set Microsoft Search as default to the Off position.

• If you use Microsoft Intune to deploy Office 365 ProPlus, clear the check box Microsoft Search as default on the Configure App Suite pane.

<comment><USER40> My Intune instance does not have these checkboxes yet, I wish they'd make the changes before they push the new Office, or there'll be heck to pay.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> I haven't followed closely, but Chrome took many steps over the years to make sure software installers couldn't sneakily install extensions. How is this possible?

<comment><USER25> Google does offer a method to install extensions in an automated way for business use cases: [https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/6306504?hl=en](https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/6306504?hl=en)

I guess that Microsoft uses that method in the Office 365 ProPlus installer (also targeted at businesses).

<comment><USER41> This seems a method for enterprise administrators that centrally manage Chrome installation. That page doesn't seem to show a way for third-party software providers to bundle extensions into installers.

<comment><USER42> Since Office is a first-class Microsoft component in Windows Update, I'd assume they can use the Windows Updates mechanism to set any group policy or registry settings they need to manage Chrome.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Considering MS Office has overwhelming market share in the office suite space for businesses, this will surely attract attention from the regulators, no?

<comment><USER44> Only if it ruffles enough customers feathers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> This is malware, as simple as that. Chances are Google will soon blocklist this extension as side-loading extensions is NOT supported, see [https://blog.chromium.org/2013/11/protecting-windows- users-f...](https://blog.chromium.org/2013/11/protecting-windows-users-from- malicious.html).

</comment><comment><USER46> A counter to the incessant nagging google forces on people who use google search with a browser other than chrome

<comment><USER47> Nagging != Install

<comment><USER46> still F&%ING annoying though

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> And just try to save your Excel spreadsheet to Google Drive without having to click all over the place. And autosave only works when your stuff is saved to their infrastructure? Childish, destructive behavior.

<comment><USER49> Autosave _only_ working when saving to your local OneDrive folder is infuriating.

As every HN reader knowns, there is no good technical reason for this. It's anti-competitive bullshit, pure and simple.

<comment><USER50> thanks for pointing this out. I have to use MSO in the future because of corporate s __t. would not have realized this until to late.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> The EU courts are going to have a field day with this one. I expect some fines to come out of it.

They talked about this in the reddit article that was linked,but I feel it warrants further discussion.

<comment><USER52> Google is likely just going to block this behavior.

<comment><USER53> How, when installers get root privileges?

<comment><USER54> Chrome browser is constantly updated, whereas installer just runs once. They can change things in an update

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> HN may not be the target audience for this feature, but I've absolutely proposed writing a browser extension to synthesize confidential search results with public search results before, because it's a need that remains unmet to this day. If Bing is integrating their confidential cloud with logged-in search, that is a game-changer. I hope everyone gets past the visceral reaction against it and starts building browser extensions that compete. It is possible to do this without depending on a single search engine to perform synthesis for you. Metacrawler can live again.

</comment><comment><USER56> Please do correct me if I'm missing something, but this seems like a lot of uproar over not much... the article states that this only applies to enterprise, who would most certainly have IT admins, and those IT admins are able to block the extension through Group Policy. They've also been given one month prior notice about the change. This also only applies accounts which are owned and operated by IT, making it IT's decision what happens on them, not the actual users.

Disclaimer: I work at msft, nothing related and no knowledge of this besides the article. Opinions are my own.

<comment><USER57> A bit underhanded, given the text from the bulletin.

"Once this feature has rolled out, your end users can change their search engine preferences only via the toggle in the extension; they cannot modify the default search engine in browser preferences."

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> well the default office365 installer, is bad anway. without [https://config.office.com/](https://config.office.com/) it already installs a lot of unnecessary crap. sadly in config.office.com they made the choice to opt-out the feature (it's a checkbox: [https://imgur.com/a/O43EI2M](https://imgur.com/a/O43EI2M) sorry for german language)

</comment><comment><USER59> Oh they are burning down the house pretty badly. I think even good ol bill is cringing at recent events. My god ..

But, it takes a fire to feed a forest sometimes. Let them

<comment><USER60> Cringing?? Are you familiar with the MS of the 90s? The stuff that happened on his watch was not much better.

<comment><USER59> I am, but honestly, i actually feel this is worse.

<comment><USER53> Changing people's defaults search engine is worse than EEE?

<comment><USER59> Combined with ads in word? Sorta.

I still remember the toolbar days. They were indeed dark.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> I really like these corporative battles. Seems it's the only thing that keeps the market being for consumers and not for profit.

<comment><USER62> I don't like malware tho'

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> This feels very stupid from MS, the bad publicity must surely outweigh the tiny increase to a product that's not substantive and underperforms anyway.

Presumably a product decision by the same people who though inserting 200% additional whitespace into Outlook would go down well.

</comment><comment><USER64> Google is doing everything it can to tighten its stranglehold on the entire WWW, if another behemoth like Microsoft wants to put up a fight, I say have at it!

I certainly am not shedding any tears for Google, who relentlessly funnels people into their tools, automatically logs them in in chrome, pushes their products into schools to get young people into their data-vacuum as soon as possible. Not to mention shady practices like AMP trying to force developers to use their own version of HTML & serve their content on google.com, "or else say goodbye to your search ranking."

MSFT is definitely "picking on someone their own size" and certainly not doing anything more underhanded than what google routinely engages in, so I don't see the issue.

<comment><USER65> One doing it is bad so 2 doing it is great? Competition is usually good but I don't think this kind of competition is actually helping get rid any of those problems just changing who's name might be on the particular problem today. No amount of giant tech companies shuffling is going to result in the return of an even playground for all in those areas.

<comment><USER66> At this point it's hard for me to feel sorry for anybody still using either Google or Microsoft.

They've both been bad actors for years now, and the excuses people come up with to keep using them anyway have worn very thin.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> While this is bad, Google got Chrome installed on many computers using equally bad practices (Chrome defaults to Google search), which might be worst because they got executable files installed.

</comment><comment><USER68> The article does not mention whether or not Firefox will also be affected. Does anyone know if Office365 ProPlus already does this or are they just ignoring Firefox?

</comment><comment><USER69> Why people are complaining about that? If you don't want it just change your search engine to whatever you want. That just take a minute.

PS: Just for experimenting I switched to Edge (new) & Bing to see what's different. And I really liked Edge, it's faster than chrome and has some privacy controls like cross domain cookie handling. Tried firefox before edge. But did not liked it, because It's ui is crap also some functionalities may not work because devs are optimizing the websites mostly for chrome.

But Bing as a search engine is not powerful like google because of lack of data.

</comment><comment><USER70> I think a large number of people can't tell a browser and the search engine apart anymore. They are so entangled, internet to people means something that when they click on it, it shows the iconic Google search page. Wonder how that happened. I heard that Google is introducing Chromebooks to school kids. By the time these kids graduate, they'll be confused by any computer that is not a Chromebook.

I think if the OS, browser and the search engine belongs to the same company, its perfectly fine to set it as the default. As long as on first launch they give a clear option to choose something else.

</comment><comment><USER71> Previously discussed here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22121150](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22121150)

</comment><comment><USER72> I don't know why people here are surprised about this. Companies like Microsoft are not interested in acting in the interest of users and their privacy, but they do whatever they please with their products; thus you don't own them. If there are laws to prevent this, they'll find other ways in bending them to continue to do nasty things.

With that, personally I don't trust any company with a closed source OS these days and will treat all closed source programs as malware.

</comment><comment><USER73> Seesh, even Adobe gives you a McAfee checkbox.

</comment><comment><USER74> It's old Microsoft all over again!

<comment><USER75> Old Microsoft never went away, despite what the kids think. It just put on some new clothes and pretends it has been reformed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER76> That's stinky but doesn't really hurt. Once I was given a new Windows 10 PC at the office, I've tried Edge (the classic, non-Blink version) and sicked to it because it's A LOT faster than Firefox. I haven't bothered to change the default search engine and the results Bing gives are Ok.

<comment><USER77> YMMV, bing search results do not work at all for me.

<comment><USER76> I guess this may depend on the subjects you search information on and the country/language. I used DuckDuckGo and StartPage before that and was satisfied too. On a rare occasions when these wouldn't give me what I need I just go to Google manually.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER78> IANL, anyone feels this is an invitation to another antitrust investigation?

</comment><comment><USER62> Another reason to hate MS.

</comment><comment><USER79> By what source is the claim that this is being forced verified?

<comment><USER57> [https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/DeployOffice/microsoft- sear...](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/DeployOffice/microsoft-search-bing)

<comment><USER80> This source confirms the exact opposite. The extension install can be prevented by using the documented group policy.

<comment><USER79> Additionally, it looks like this is a product intended for enterprise deployments, where the admins would probably already be comfortable with managing group policies. This is basically how software ends up on your computer in big companies.

Because otherwise you could be like Deloitte and have some jaggoff management consultant leak all your clients' private email addresses because they didn't follow internal technology policy and used Google Docs to stow it all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER81> Sounds like a Chrome issue if true. Bug report filed yet? :)

</comment><comment><USER82> Why can't users choose their default search on installation?

</comment><comment><USER83> it would be nice if some of the CFAA abuses that are a plague on the world actually get directed at companies who do this kind of crap

</comment><comment><USER84> It's all the more infuriating when you consider how Windows 10 throws a hissy fit if you should dare to change your default browser from Edge to something else.

<comment><USER85> Not just the constant notifications but it even shows messages on the lock screen!

</comment></comment><comment><USER86> i hate to say this, but at this point it really doesn't matter which search engine i use as they all have ads as 90% of the results above the fold :( it saddens me that this is what has become of the search market :(

and let me just get this out of the way now by saying, no, i will not use duckduckgo as my search engine cause it has given me nothing but _the_ most irrelevant search results i have ever seen.

</comment><comment><USER87> That sounds like an excellent plan.

</comment><comment><USER88> I know this generally sucks, but given google's recent track record maybe this isn't the worst thing.

</comment><comment><USER89> Loving the new Microsoft.

</comment><comment><USER90> since google does chrome os, microsoft should simply ban all google products from their platform altogether as a direct cmopetitor :D :D :D

I'd love to see them fight it out.

</comment><comment><USER91> Use Linux.

</comment><comment><USER92> Google did the same for years with any kind of installer, I remember installing CCleaner and finding Chrome on my computer for no reason. They put chrome everywhere using super shady techniques.

</comment><comment><USER93> A lot of a weird arguments here. You are OK with Google being the default and not Bing? Sounds silly to me.

Have you heard of "other browsers" on iOS and how Apple forces them to use Safari specs?

This is more of you folks having an issue with Microsoft itself, not what they have done. Because your favorite company is doing it already and you just choose to look away.

<comment><USER94> I'm not OK with software messing with my other software.

I install Office because I _need it_ , not because I think it and everything else Microsoft has made is the best thing ever.

<comment><USER95> Lets not pretend browsers are like other software. They are essentially a VM that can run remote untrusted code.

Software has changed the start page, search providers, and installed plugins into browsers for a very long time, this is nothing new.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER96> This is good news, given the circumstances. Google doesn't show a welcome screen in Chrome to select your default search engine, and this action somewhat helps with mitigating that imbalance.

Considering Chrome's market share, it's only a matter of time until Google will be required to show a search engine choice screen in the browser, they were already ordered by the EU to do it for the default Android browser and search engine.

<comment><USER97> I don't know how forcing people to use another search engine is better is good news. It's not like Microsoft is giving a set of options here. The way microsoft is trying to force its products through its other products (like edge and bing in windows 10) is sad and really annoying.

<comment><USER96> Microsoft is doing the same as Google, they set a default search engine that can be changed, instead of offering an active choice before setting a default.

Both companies behave inappropriately, but then again, actions like these are needed to highlight how choices are made for us, and to shake us out of complatence.

<comment><USER98> Actually Microsoft are installing a chrome plugin that forces the search engine to Bing so users can't change the default back until they remove the plugin</comment></comment></comment></comment>


VS Code can do that? - <AUTHOR> https://www.vscodecandothat.com/ <comment><USER2> I love VSCode. I switched over last year and it's by far the best editor I've used in a long time.

The plugin system is great too.</comment>


Show HN: Easily monitor your Google Analytics metrics with Leftronic - <AUTHOR> https://beta.leftronic.com/tutorials/Create-a-Google-Analytics-Dashboard/

<comment><USER2> I like the idea of being able to create a dashboard from selected Google Analytics metrics (I don't use Basecamp or any of the other datasources), and I also dig the design of the dashboard.

However, I don't see myself using this on a daily basis, but rather for creating a customized dashboard for a presentation (although it'd be nice to change the colors). As well, it'd be nice if you created new metrics that Google Analytics doesn't already provide.

<comment><USER3> Just curious, what would prevent you from using this on a daily basis? And what other new metrics would you like to see?

<comment><USER2> I only use Google Analytics out of all the datasources that you integrate with. I believe the value your product brings to the table is the aggregation of all those datasources. Hence, I wouldn't get much value out of it, as Google Analytics allows me to customize my dashboard, and provides more metrics.

Regarding my second point, I don't have any specific suggestions, but it was more related to my first point. If I don't use the datasource aggregation feature, then there currently is no added value for me to use your product on a daily basis. Some ideas would be to create more visual mashups of data, such as illustrating how a user got to your website, what they did, and for how long.

So to conclude, I wouldn't use it on a daily basis with my use case, however, you are probably going after a different market segment, is that right?

<comment><USER3> Yes, there would be more value for you if there was more than one data source that you were interested in - either a third-party source, or custom data you push using our API. =)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Would love to see a similar/complementary integration with New Relic.

<comment><USER5> We are launching a new app that has a dashboard component and New Relic is part of the initial integrations offering. Also, Cloudkick. Check it out at www.streamerapp.com and let me know.

<comment><USER6> wow - I've been tasking an agency partner to build custom reports for a client, that is catered to manager and exec level, it's been quite expensive, and taking a while to get right. Just requested access to your app, can't wait for access - retweeted to get access "quicker" :)

thanks for sharing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Clean and dynamic - great start. Multiple dashboards would be a great addition, like you mention in your FAQ.

Is a Salesforce feed a future option?

<comment><USER3> Thanks! Yes, Salesforce is in the works. What specifically would you like to see?

<comment><USER7> Awesome tool! something we wanted to build internally. Do you guys allow access to my DB? (like chart.io)

<comment><USER3> Hey Vivek! We have a push model, where you send the data to Leftronic using our API.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I know this is beta, but are any pricing details available? I didn't come across anything on their site.

It looks like a very useful service.

<comment><USER3> We'll be putting out pricing information very shortly! Please check back in a couple weeks!</comment></comment>


Tim Cook makes blistering attack on the "data industrial complex" - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2018/10/24/apples-tim-cook-makes-blistering-attack-on-the-data-industrial-complex/ <comment><USER3> I'd like to think I'm one of the good guys here. I was one of the inventors of RSS and Atom and worked to push open content and social media.

I started a social data search platform named Datastreamer ([http://www.datastreamer.io/](http://www.datastreamer.io/)) which is basically a petabyte-scale content indexing engine.

We provide API feeds to search engines and social media analytics companies needing bulk data but don't want to have to build a crawler.

For the last 5 years we've had major problems with customers coming to us asking for data which we felt was unethical (at best).

We actually had Saudi Arabia approach us... It was clear that they were intending to something pretty evil with the data.

Their RFP questions were a bit frightening:

\- can you track people by religion?

\- can you give us their email address?

\- can you provide their address?

\- can your provide their ethnicity?

\- can you provide their social connections?

We're actually losing business to other companies that are performing highly unethical and probably illegal techniques.

We just can't compete with data at that type of fidelity.

If you're a researcher and you want to access bulk data for combating this type of non-sense WE WILL PROVIDE DATA AT COST. We can provide up to 1PB of data but for now we have to charge for the shipping and handling of that data. We're reaching out to some other companies like Google and also the Internet Archive to see if we can provide more cost effective solutions.

I'm working on more tools to give the power back to the users.

Polar ([https://getpolarized.io/](https://getpolarized.io/)) is a web browser which allows people to control their own data. The idea is that I can keep a local repository of data and eventually build our own cloud platform based on open systems like IPFS and encrypt the data using group encryption.

<comment><USER4> And people wonder why I've argued that, at some point, IT needs to be a certified and regulated profession like lawyers, doctors, engineers, nurses, pilots, accountants, electricians, plumbers, teachers, etc. If the future is going to be built using software and data, it's probably going to be essential that the general public have some agency -- public or private -- to safeguard the public interest.

It takes years of dedication to be a professional electrician or plumber, but anybody off the street can build an application that aggregates personal information and isn't subject to any sort of regulation or oversight or system of professional ethics.

That doesn't just safeguard the public. It also safeguards the employed individuals when they say, "No, that is not allowed under the ethics of my profession."

This isn't about "let's make the government save us," it's about creating a legal framework to protect the interests of the public and give ethical considerations in data management and software design some legal backing.

<comment><USER5> That won't help even a little bit in this case. That's like trying place the responsibility to reduce the amount of garbage generated on those who drive the garbage trucks. The decision to engage in the bad behavior usually doesn't come from IT staff or engineers, it comes from management. Hold the leaders of these organizations responsible and you'll see the problem fixed real quick.

<comment><USER6> Why not? The decision first comes from management, but engineers are the ones who implement it.

I think things would change pretty quick if engineers responded to such requests with "I can't do that, because my professional association would remove me from their membership, which would revoke my license to write software in this country at all".

That's how (AIUI) law, medicine, (real) engineering, etc., work today.

<comment><USER5> Unless you've got a legal/regulatory structure to enforce it, it can't work. And there is absolutely no will on the part of corporations or Congress to do such a thing as it runs contrary to their interests. Even if it were feasible, software development is one of the easiest things to jurisdiction shop since it can be done anywhere. So unless you further mandate where the development must be done, it still won't work.

Keep in mind that most law/medicine/engineering work has some local component anchoring it to local laws. (i.e. currently, someone typically needs to be 'boots on the ground' in the jurisdiction to provide the service) Software doesn't have that.

(edit: obviously, this is a U.S.-specific view of the situation. Other countries may not have the same issues)

<comment><USER7> What about an organization which

1) Maintains a membership list 2) Maintains a list of software which is signed off on by members 3) Browser/OS/etc utilities which refuse and/or warn when trying to run software not in the registry 4) Member expulsion if registered software is found to be nefarious

This is basically the system Apple/Microsoft/Debian/etc/etc already use for official software distribution. We just need the organization to move out of their walled gardens.

The big leak here is users which have to use resources they don't control. I can imagine an IaaS company which won't run software unless its in the registry, and then companies can boast that your data is 'safe' (or at least not nefarious) because they run in this kind of environment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Disclaimer: I use Apple products, and trust them slightly more than anything Google/FaceBook/startups because they don't have a business front selling my data to advertisement companies or 3rd party miners(as much as I know of).

But, I'm baffled by this PR as if they are the privacy messiah. Didn't they just sellout their Chinese users icloud data to the Chinese government?

Yeah. "It's the law, and Apple has to obey the law" is an argument, but here is a company that is willing to compromise their user's privacy in order to be able to sell phones in China. So, if US govt finds a way to say "it's the law" to reveal user data, I'm sure they'll bend over. This grand stand in media is just sickening and theatric.

/rant.

<comment><USER9> I struggle with Apple's China situation as well, but the more I turn it over in my head, the more I think it's that Tim is pulled between two parties:

1) His team + Apple Directors that I firmly believe, both in words AND in their action, are strong proponents of privacy of the user

2) The Apple Board + Sharedholders that would revolt if the privacy principles from (1) prevented access to a market of ~1.4 billion people, and potentially gave a competitor like Huawei a further leg up.

In this scenario, I don't see it as "grand-standing," but more of a necessary public act that US should move more in the policy direction of the EU, in spite of steep lobbying from most of the Valley / FANG group that would benefit from less-strict privacy regulations.

<comment><USER10> You can make this exact argument for Google or Facebook or anyone else. Simply bringing up "evil shareholders" doesn't absolve any company or individual from criticism.

<comment><USER9> I think you misunderstood my argument - apologies for not being clearer.

There is a difference between a company's _incentives_ to do something that is permitted by law - for which I would agree that said company is worthy of criticism to a reasonable extent - and that which a company is _compelled to do so by law._

My point was that Tim Cook's speech was largely to prevent scenarios that would lead to law-makers wanting to create laws like the latter. And Apple _should_ get credit that they have a bunch of incentives to collect user data at will, like many other tech companies, but explicitly avoid that as company policy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I like Tim Cook, I think his heart is in the right place and as much as a corporation can, Apple generally does the right thing.

I was having lunch with several lawyers at my company a few weeks ago. One of them was talking strongly about quality devices and Apple's strong privacy stance. He literally said that we as a society should be grateful for having Apple.

<comment><USER12> Perhaps it is cynicism, but I'm pretty sure this is just Apple exploiting a competitive edge, and does not necessarily reflect his own opinion, he is speaking to benefit the company.

Of course, it's very nice that Apple made the decision to pick this edge, but they did it because they could not compete with Google on web services. So now they're publicly speaking to try and take the sting out of Google's edge. And that's healthy competition, the direct result will be that the consumer benefits, and I can agree we can be grateful to have these powerhouses fighting for our satisfaction.

<comment><USER13> Apple is also the only major computing player that doesn't make its revenue primarily off of mining and exploiting user data. Maybe Microsoft, too? Certainly the rest of FAANG have huge financial temptations to misuse their data.

So Apple is the one big technology player whose interests are most closely aligned with the consumer in terms of supporting data privacy.

<comment><USER14> Amazon, fwiw, has giant revenue streams (AWS, retail) that they can pile on the privacy bandwagon and attack Google / Facebook / rest of the shitty adtech. In fact, it would be great if Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Mozilla et al all combine their forces and propose strong privacy friendly regulations.

<comment><USER15> Amazon has gotten into the advertising business [1] and I believe are growing quickly. I find it a disturbing move on their part; I have to trust that they're not mining my purchase history for ad targeting. If they do do so, it may be susceptible to targeted discovery. (Run ads with unique URLs for each selection keyword; everyone who sees the ad is apparently someone who bought that kind of product.) I hope Amazon is smart about the risks they take.

[1] [https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/09/23/amazon-is-now- the-...](https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/09/23/amazon-is-now-the-third- largest-digital-ad-platfor.aspx)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> It would be interesting if there were a civil penalty accessible to individuals if their personal data was divulged by someone to collected it. Lets say that it was $1,000 to $10,000. And that individuals need only file a simple form with the appropriate agency naming the company, identifying themselves, and the information divulged and get paid. The amount would vary based on how detailed the information was, more detail more penalty.

So someone like Equifax would be on the hook for $1.4T in civil penalties for losing the data on 143 million customers. That would have effectively put them out of business.

If you set up such a system, then it is very easy for engineering in an organization to explain why they need to invest in the security safeguards they need, and it is very hard for product managers to argue for collecting even more detailed information. All because you have created an existential threat to the company if they screw up.

<comment><USER17> Can I waive the company's liability for my data? Regardless of the answer, herein lies the problem.

<comment> ux-app > Regardless of the answer, herein lies the problem.

don't pursue damages?

<comment><USER18> I think the point being made was companies would add a statement in their terms of service. As always, you would likely agree to this without reading it and one the clauses would have you waive your right to sue for damages. and then we're back to square one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> It's sad how the introduction of a new class of devices "smartphones" brought along with it a surveillance software platform in the form of Android. Where it is clear that the only incentive for google to develop it is exfiltration of as much personal data as they can. In contrast in the case of Apple you have a customer relationship with the company that sold you the device and they have an incentive to keep you as a customer without having a need to extract as much advertisement revenue as they can.

<comment><USER20> I would kill for a Linux phone, but until that happens I would settle for a phone that comes with root access (or at least allows technically capable users to get it) and let's me control my own data and device from the bare metal up. Because even if Apple has less incentive to exfiltrate data, I don't want to have to trust _any_ company to do the right thing or to keep doing it.

<comment><USER21> You don't have to kill... but some compromises you'll have to do. Librem and (partly) Sailfish/Jolla give you much more control but they are by far not as polished/broad as iPhones or Androids. Here a link, maybe the Sailfish 3 version will get a bit more traction?

[https://together.jolla.com/question/191235/official-event- sa...](https://together.jolla.com/question/191235/official-event- sailfish-3-day-helsinki/)

<comment><USER22> Can I buy a Sailfish phone ready to go that works on Verizon yet? The biggest thing about this niche OSes is you always have to flash them on a limited set of compatible hardware yourself, and they generally only work on GSM carriers.

<comment><USER21> I'm not sure, but from a [https://together.jolla.com/questions/](https://together.jolla.com/questions/) search I suppose it doesn't work on Verizon. Maybe ask on together?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Seeing as Google pays Apple $12bn to be the default search engine on iOS devices I'm tempted to call hypocrisy here...

[http://fortune.com/2018/09/29/google-apple-safari-search- eng...](http://fortune.com/2018/09/29/google-apple-safari-search-engine/)

<comment><USER24> > I'm tempted to call hypocrisy here..

You can call it hypocrisy but it doesn't affect the validity of Tim Cook's argument [0].

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque)

<comment><USER25> It may not affect the validity of the argument, but it may suggest something about the motivations of the person making the argument.

Each person's idea of where something sits on the spectrum of right and wrong differs.

If someone is being hypocritical, it can lead people to question the motive behind the words.

<comment><USER23> This is considerably better than the way I put it! Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> The only problem is that Apple is the Mercedes of mobile devices. We really need a Honda and Kia version, a more affordable device that doesn't track you.

Apple is never going to give up their premium position.

<comment><USER27> why not just buy an older device? bought a brand new iPhone se as soon as the new iphones x maxx was announced. mobile phone development as plateaued imo, there is nothing out there you really need unless you're fooling yourself. photos - I bought a nice mirrorless with the money I saved. apps - se runs everything tolerably fast except for snapchat and Instagram, which I've decided to cut down on anyways.comparison is the thief of joy and all the new social media apps promote comparison as the primary feature. games - bought a Nintendo switch and it has fortnite as well.

all told 300+400+300 = 1000 which is STILL lower than the cost of the iPhone x max

<comment><USER28> >why not just buy an older device?

As devices age, they stop being supported by security updates.

<comment><USER29> Apple, unlike many Android outfits, supports their hardware for a pretty long time. This chart ([https://www.statista.com/chart/5824/ios-iphone- compatibility...](https://www.statista.com/chart/5824/ios-iphone- compatibility/)) suggests that they're supporting devices up to 5 years old; since the SE is just 2, it has a good 3 years of software and security updates to look forward to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Dwight Eisenhower's Farewell Address ...

 _We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. .... Yet in holding scientific discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite._

[ source : [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eisenhower%27s_farewell_addres...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eisenhower%27s_farewell_address) ]

</comment><comment> move-on-by If anyone is interested in watching the Keynote speech for themselves and form your own opinions, it can be watched on YouTube here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVhOLkIs20A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVhOLkIs20A)

Warning, Google will be tracking that you watch this speech :P

</comment><comment><USER31> I wish I could separate his position from Apple's marketing stance. Unfortunately here he seems to use such hyperbolic language that it puts me on the side of "this is marketing". It seems very hard to separate cause and effect (is Apple's market strategy because of his beliefs on privacy, or is it the other way around?). But this kind of tilts me towards the latter.

<comment><USER32> Why not both?

Apple's market strategy was already primed towards a privacy-focused stance, since their profit center is selling physical devices. Thus, when privacy becomes a Big Deal in the world, Tim doesn't have to push hard to get Apple to line up with his beliefs. If Apple had been an advertising-focused company before Snowden, I doubt we'd be seeing as hard a push as they're giving right now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> This is pretty much a textbook example of an attempt at regulatory capture, though more explicitly aimed at hurting competition than normal.[0] It's hard to take Apple as sincerely looking out for the best interests of consumers given their stance against repairs.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture)

</comment><comment><USER34> I think that it's ironic that Techcrunch make it so hard to read the article without agreeing to surveillance when they could just look at the Do Not Track headers.

<comment><USER35> It actually works very well if you disable JS - unlike many other sites, you get a nice view of the article, without any distractions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> I have owned couple of google phones (Nexus and Pixel). Today for the first time ever I am considering buying an iPhone. I would pay premium for privacy on Google devices if they make it available. And we now know what the price is - $40 in EU. Just sell it like this Google.

<comment><USER37> _have owned couple of google phones (Nexus and Pixel). Today for the first time ever I am considering buying an iPhone_

I was a BlackBerry die-hard until they switched to Android. A privacy-focused phone using a Google OS, what a joke. Switched to iPhone and it's pretty good, only thing I miss is the real keyboard.

<comment><USER38> I have a Key2 which I bought because I like the physical keyboard, battery life, features, and physical appearance/feel, but I don't buy any of the security/privacy marketing for a second. The phone runs a boatload of services from Google and BlackBerry which I don't know what they're actually doing and you can't turn off or disable without breaking features. I operate under the assumption that Google can (and does) track what I'm doing and where I'm going, even though I've disabled as much of this tracking as the settings allow, and that BlackBerry could decrypt my "secure" file storage locker and bypass my fingerprint/PIN in an instant if they wanted/were compelled to.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Good to see. Also nice to watch Facebook and Twitter and Youtube employees being called out for what they have enabled. If you are smart enough to get a job anywhere, why even work to keep these toxic machines propped up? Time to bail before things get worse. Or read a book about the decline of Yahoo.

</comment><comment><USER40> Well Apple can start by making Siri work locally/without internet and then I believe their stance.

<comment><USER41> If they could I believe they would. They rather not be reliant on whoever is providing their speak recognition.

<comment><USER42> A limited subset of functionality should already be possible, especially if they can have the speech recognition trained specifically to the user.

<comment><USER43> I get the impression that this is already happening to a certain extent and they are testing the water. On newer/faster devices, you'll notice Siri transcribing on the screen nearly instantaneously, faster than any server round trip, but with poor accuracy. Then a few seconds later once the server connection is established you'll see some of the transcription change to be more accurate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> I originally took this opportunity to critique the idea that Cook can stand to take a strong stance on privacy because their business model relies on selling an actual product and said product can only be affordable if you leverage cheap labor (and given historical context: very questionable working conditions).

However, for the sake of maintaining consistency with the article and staying relevant I have revised this post.

Tim Cook is there to give a speech at a Privacy conference. I thought his comments were consistent with how Apple has been presenting itself over the last years. This gives me some confidence that Cook will continue to lead and push for stronger privacy laws while fighting against politicians who look to weaken encryption

<comment><USER29> I'd like to take this opportunity to point out that Apple was in fact aware of those issues, and has in fact worked both on documenting them and fixing them: [https://www.apple.com/supplier- responsibility/](https://www.apple.com/supplier-responsibility/)

This is transparency - following through and actually giving a damn about things like child labor. They found 2 cases of underage labor in 2017 after auditing 756 facilities and over 1.3M workers. They made it a core violation of their supplier code, meaning that if and when underage labor is found via audit, that supplier loses its business with Apple.

Go read the report - you might find that Apple is a pretty damn thorough company when it comes to responsible labor. Is there more they could do? Yes, there always is - but they're doing quite well so far.

<comment><USER44> Indeed, my original comment referenced the transparency reporting that I have grown to appreciate from Apple. I wish more companies did as thorough job showing every piece of the supply chain. I revised the comment because I felt like it was just bashing without relevance to the actual article content. Thanks for the follow up comment to further clarify the transparency aspect. I know not every company wants to show exactly where they get their material from, but it is pretty incredible to see where material is sourced from and how it is manufactured and ultimately made into a product. Supply chains need to be this transparent

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Hi Apple. Please:

• add VPN on/off to control center

• allow per-app VPN via Apple Configurator, without enterprise MDM

• once the above two are available, we can use Tor, IDS, DPI or pihole on a per-application basis, to reduce data harvesting

• bonus1: allow the open-source iOS MDM community OR the iOS Shortcuts community to make it easy for novice users to have one-click install of "privacy-plus configurations"

• bonus2: provide open-source code for on-device, silicon-enabled voice recognition using Neural Engine. In the meantime, allow anonymous (no iCloud login) use of Siri via Tor on a per-application basis

<comment><USER46> I'd like to see better sand boxing of the Photo album on iOS. Facebook, LinkedIn and others are known to raid your photos if they have access to it. Ideally you could limit their ability to read and write to just a specific photo album. Or limit write and read separately. At the moment your ability to enable and disable the permission is based on what permission the app requests and they show up together.

<comment><USER47> iOS has long had an API for allowing access to individual photos from the system photo picker. Unfortunately many apps eschew this because they prefer having access to all of the user's photos.

<comment><USER48> That shouldn't matter. The OS should let you create a fake photo collection which gets shown instead of the real one to apps you don't trust. This idea is obvious and very old. At least in the case of Android contact lists people have been asking for this for as long as I can remember. Why has it still not been implemented on iOS at least? Or has it now been implemented? I've been avoiding both Android and iOS because of stuff like this.

Does anyone want to sell me a phone that runs Debian with the option of running Android or iOS in a VM with appropriate management functions that would make it very hard for an app to misbehave?

<comment><USER49> > The OS should let you create a fake photo collection which gets shown > instead of the real one to apps you don't trust.

Many times yes. And even more important, the contacts!

Now it's you have to "give the app _all_ the contacts" even if you know you want to give it only one or two. And of those one or two, just the number. Not the picture, not the date of birth, not the address.

In short we should be able to pre-select what any app actually sees of of all the databases, records and fields.

It sounds too technical but it could be done properly.

<comment><USER50> It could be done properly for us (techies), but this would go over poorly for normal people.

"Why do I have to click through all this mess when I just want to post this picture I just took to Facebook?"

"I think I set it right but now Facebook can't see the picture I wanted to post"

et cetera. These granular controls aren't something that regular people want to deal with.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> First response: This sounds good, maybe I should consider Apple for my next device?

Second response: Was undermining Google the reason he held the speech in the first place?

<comment><USER52> Also my first response, 'is this just marketing?'.

'Buy apple products, we care about your data. We will help protect it. Encrypt it. Not share it. And block others form trying to get your data'

But are Apple as benevolent as they say? Do you trust such a gigantic corporation? Are they colluding with governments instead of just advertisers?

<comment><USER53> Let's put it this way:

Apples' core business is not to violate your privacy left and right, which probably gives them an edge about the likes of Facebook and Google (at least in my book) in this sphere.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> That's very good. The more high-profile people speak up against what's happening, the more the general public realizes what's really going on. Frankly, most non-technical users have no idea how they're profiled and what the real and potential dangers are.

You know what's funny? We reached a point where 100% private conversation between two endpoints is finally possible, without the dependence on any third party (be it the Post Office, GSM operators,, Google, Apple, or anyone else). That's a huge step for communication privacy. And yet, most people choose the other way, they prefer to share their most intimate details with Facebook via Messenger and WhatsApp, with Google via Gmail, with Microsoft via Skype... Mostly because they're unaware of how things work and that other, more secure ways are available. So kudos to Cook for helping that cause just a bit.

<comment><USER55> WhatsApp is (we are told) end-to-end encrypted using the same protocol as Signal.

<comment><USER56> As far as I understand this, correct me if this is wrong, this means the content of your messages is encrypted. There is still important data to fetch about who you talk to, how much and when.

<comment><USER57> Indeed. Besides, the app itself has access to the full content of your conversations so what happens in-between is pretty much irrelevant.

<comment><USER54> I don't know why you're downvoted because that's exactly the point: the creators of closed-source applications may claim whatever they want, but you have no way of verifying their claims. Especially if the owner is the company whose income is based on profiling you, and the fight over FB<->WhatsApp profile linking is no longer a secret now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> Why doesn't he put the the money where his mouth is? I haven't seen Apple making any attempts to create funding model for publishers, even though the success of their products depends on the wide availability of free content.

<comment><USER59> There was iAd, and nobody used it because it didn't steal users data.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> I read this as "military industrial complex" and was positively surprised to see such a strong sociopolitical statement coming from Tim Cook, then I noticed the article talks about "data industrial complex" and realised this is still tame enough to count as aggressive marketing.

<comment><USER61> Apple can effect data industrial complex, unlike the military industrial complex. Doing the opposite would be empty posturing.

<comment><USER62> Cook is only making this statement because it's in Apple's business interest to cripple ad-based competitors by convincing policy makers to hobble them with regulation. He's not a neutral observer.

<comment><USER46> Does Apple really compete with Facebook and ad platforms? Does Apple even really compete with Google? Isn't the Android competition mostly not Google, e.g. Samsung?

<comment><USER60> But non-stock Android still typically uses Google services and these integrations are built into the OS. So whether the Android devices are sold by Google or Samsung doesn't really make much of a difference, Google still gets the data it wants.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> a-dub He's right.

Apple's schtick has long been "technology without the bullshit"\- and well, the behavioral data gold rush is basically bullshit for consumers, so sure, they're on the privacy bandwagon in the interests of their own company and it's market strategy.

Regardless, it does not make him any less right.

</comment><comment><USER63> Video available here: [https://www.ped30.com/2018/10/24/tim-cook-brussels- data-secu...](https://www.ped30.com/2018/10/24/tim-cook-brussels-data- security/)

</comment><comment><USER64> Is that the same type of moral speech as he did when he said "Privacy is fundamental human right" and then gave keys to iCloud to Chinese government some time later?

He's a CEO of a multi-billion publicly traded corporation. Content warning applies for everything he (or any such CEO/PR service) says.

<comment><USER65> Apple's stance has been completely consistent. They comply with the law while making their ethical beliefs and stance as a company clear where they disagree with it.

What do you suggest Apple should do instead of comply with the law? Require it's employees to incriminate themselves?

<comment><USER66> _What do you suggest Apple should do instead of comply with the law? Require it 's employees to incriminate themselves?_

I'm not the GP but I've seen this exact form of complaint many times. I think the usual response is "stop doing business in China." I don't know how that's supposed to work, though, since Chinese companies make all of Apple's hardware.

<comment><USER67> I guess it would extend into "dont buy chinese hardware"

<comment><USER68> Then you'd have a competitor stepping in that bought Chinese hardware. A company's ethics stretch only as far as it's survival is guaranteed.

Corporations are black boxes that optimise for profit, not ethics or integrity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> I know this is a little unrelated, but Apple makes me agree to giant EULAs and "terms of use" every time they update their damned iTunes store.

I wish that would go away and the Apple EULAs and agreements would get shorter instead of getting longer.

</comment><comment><USER70> I think that framing these new requirements as rights is a really good approach.

Being able to find out what data is being collected and how it is being used is a prerequisite for any accountable system of balances that could create negative incentivizes for abusive practices.

Obviously preventing all abuse will prove impossible just as preventing all crimes of any other type is impossible — but as with other kind of crime, undesirable outcomes can definitely be reduced when deliberate will is informed by wisdom and fueled by effort ...

</comment><comment><USER71> Well overall Cook is right but... apple needs to provide alternatives to the common people!

1\. There is no equivalent for Facebook and apple cannot build a one with privacy 2\. There is none from Google-Search and apple has not built one 3\. About WhatsApp? (iMessages - yes only within walled garden!) 4\. Google groups-? 5\. Browser? Safari? 6\. Calendar -> Even creating a icloud account needs iDevice 7\. Cant create more than 2 Apple account from same iphone!

</comment><comment><USER72> _We should celebrate the transformative work of the European institutions tasked with the successful implementation of the GDPR. We also celebrate the new steps taken, not only here in Europe but around the world — in Singapore, Japan, Brazil, New Zealand. In many more nations regulators are asking tough questions — and crafting effective reform._

I disagree, I think technology should solve that pproblem, like Tim Berners- Lee's.

</comment><comment><USER73> Are there any good resources or studies on the effects of laws against technology that is widely available & easy to implement?

I would imagine a culture's history has a great effect to. Guns in America for example.

I am curious how one would police data privacy when it's incredibly easy to collect data secretly. Do you only go after the big offenders?

</comment><comment><USER74> Then why take a check from google for $12B so that they can remain the default search engine?[0]

[0] [http://fortune.com/2018/09/29/google-apple-safari-search- eng...](http://fortune.com/2018/09/29/google-apple-safari-search-engine/)

</comment><comment><USER75> And how would this announcement have looked if Apple's iAd platform actually succeeded?

While the weaponization of data is a legitimate cause for concern, Apple - <USER2> company that maintains a score on you - is hardly the one to be believed as a defender of your data or privacy

<comment><USER76> "Why iAD failed"

> Advertisers grew increasingly frustrated with Apple's unwillingness to grant > them access to the wealth of data the company possessed from its customers > and Apple's hundreds of millions of iTunes accounts. Every decision in > advertising is born in data — 70 percent of agencies and 73 percent of > brands use data to target the desired audience. Strong analytics tools are > becoming ever more important as advertisers strive to keep ads relevant.

From: [https://techcrunch.com/2016/03/28/the-downfall-of-the- walled...](https://techcrunch.com/2016/03/28/the-downfall-of-the-walled- garden-heres-why-iad-failed/)

<comment><USER75> This is an opinion, not a fact.

It's likely that the incumbents, Google & Facebook, were both much further ahead and entrenched for Apple to break through. Apple also tried social networking (ping) and failed. And self diving cars. I don't see any real evidence for Apple not sharing data out of some moral high ground. If they could actually boost their bottom line and not drive away existing customers, they'd do it. They rolled over like a timid puppy when China asked for all, that's ALL of China's iCloud data. They could've walked away from the China business if they had a sliver of moral turpitude, but they obviously don't, which is also evident from their tacit tolerance of child labor and unreasonable working conditions from their suppliers in China

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER77> "Those Google guys are really evil! Here, buy our privacy-first $9 DRM dongle!"

</comment><comment><USER78> While I agree with this in principle let's also be frank and say that this is a much simpler stance to take when your company doesn't exist based on data.

<comment><USER59> What's hard is to not base a company on data. When you have more than a billion of active users, and you don't have just another app, you have the entire operating system and you are the sole gatekeeper to third party applications.

How many investors did Apple lose for not data mining users?

Look at the P/E of Google and Facebook and then look at the P/E of Apple... Apple sweats every dime of their $1T valuation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER79> And regular people won't care thanks to years and years of "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry"-type bs.

</comment><comment><USER80> Damn. This makes me gain a bit more faith in apple, even though I can't see myself buying a new Apple product anytime soon.

</comment><comment><USER81> If Apple is serious about the data practices of these companies, why don't they ban them from their platform?

</comment><comment><USER82> Is there a video of the talk I can watch?

<comment><USER83> Someone provided this link above

[https://www.ped30.com/2018/10/24/tim-cook-brussels-data- secu...](https://www.ped30.com/2018/10/24/tim-cook-brussels-data-security/)

<comment><USER82> Appreciated. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER84> Smells like Regulatory capture by a competitor.

</comment><comment><USER85> Pretty rich to hear about ethics from Tim Cook considering the criminal enterprise that is Apple's repair scam

</comment><comment><USER86> I generally agree with Tim Cook's words here as I also believe the large amassing of personal data and the aggregation of it there of is potentially (and I believe as to many others, already is) very dangerous territory indeed. We have already seen the downsides of this with things like Cambridge Analytica for instance.

I have to call out Apple on something here, and this is something that Tim Cook could personally do something about very actively, however. And it has nothing to do with customer/consumer privacy, which I think Apple does a wonderful job with, typically. It has more to do with the ethos of the corporation.

Apple is just as guilty as anyone else about actually _buying and using this data_. It may not always be the case that is sourced from wherever, but they use the same tactics in their hiring and keeping tabs on employees that they are so deride in the media. For instance, if any of you are Apple employees, go ahead and check out the HR policy and procedure for publishing your information _including your salary_. I think you'll find that to be very eye opening. I can't recall the firms name off the top of my head, but they report that information to one of these firms that aggregates this information and in turn sells it in turn.

Oh and use a personal device at work? Apple's own employee contract states that if you connect a personal device to their network, even once, they have the right to demand any contents of that device subject to termination.

I get some of that is for secrecy, don't get me wrong. I understand that i'm highlighting things from a point of view that I don't agree with these policies and that I'm not, and it is quite intentional, discussing why these policies may be in place. For what its worth, I'm okay with secrecy, in the sense of protecting investments, IP, etc. I get business need. What I don't understand is why Apple's own policies don't reflect these values they often tout in public. I personally feel like they have this dual face a lot, where they say things publicly that I agree with but I know `privately`, if you will, the corporation does not reflect these values when its not convenient for doing business

Don't even get me started on Apple not being at the forefront of the Net Neutrality debates, where I think Apple could have real impact (the general population as a whole tends to listen to Apple/Tim Cook more so than any other CEO I can recall in recent memory, as do politicians of all stripes, its quite a trip how must esteem they hold in the public mind, which is why I think its so important they talk about something that should, at least according to their public statements, be right in line with their ethical underpinnings Tim Cook talks about very often).

Rubs me the wrong way, I guess. Am I glad he's at least a CEO of a huge public company that has weight and is talking about this in a way that is agreeable (mostly) and likely far better for the average person? Yes, yes I am, but I think its important we remember the other facts too.

Disclaimer: I did work at Apple, and for what its worth I left on good terms, and I would generally recommend working there, I just want to be honest about the things I saw and felt. There is a lot of good too, believe me.

</comment><comment><USER87> Fun fact: I emailed Tim Cook in August after reading this story in the NYT, asking him to publicly oppose a weak federal privacy bill in the US [1].

I thought they might do it when Bud Tribble, Apple's privacy czar, testified in Congress at the hearing about privacy [2]. He was mostly non-committal until about the time when someone asked if California's law should be preempted, and he answered 'yes' but only if the law is strong enough, so I kind of had a feeling that Apple would at least advocate for it in a minor way. Now it makes sense why he was so non-committal, they were saving it for Tim Cook.

This is a full-on endorsement of GDPR in the best possible forum for this, a keynote speech at a conference for data privacy regulators. This is more than I could have hoped for. Crucially, this removes any possibility of a united front as the ad-tech lobbying machine kicks into gear.

I don't know if this was already planned or if it was my email, but I'm ecstatic either way.

[1] [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/26/technology/tech- industry-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/26/technology/tech-industry- federal-privacy-law.html)

[2] [https://www.c-span.org/video/?451963-1/google-apple- amazon-t...](https://www.c-span.org/video/?451963-1/google-apple-amazon-tech- companies-testify-data-privacy)

<comment><USER88> Since Tim listens to you please tell him to buy SNE.

</comment></comment><comment><USER89> Apple blew it's lead with Siri and is now trying to hamstring it's competition from passing it by with features that aren't animated emotions or only allowing certified Apple parts in repairs.

<comment><USER89> Thirdly, Mr Cook should put some of that $250b cash mountain he sits on to work making this stuff happen.

Prove that localized models built on small datasets work.

Invest in cryptography and user anonymity technologies.

Instead he's just sitting on it like smaug.

<comment><USER47> > Prove that localized models built on small datasets work.

> Invest in cryptography and user anonymity technologies.

That's what they literally do. Much of iOS's "proactive" features are done on- device, as is things like photos analysis. And most of Apple's products utilize at least some sort of cryptography and anonymized logging.

<comment><USER89> Clearly they're not doing enough, if they were, Siri wouldn't have fallen so far behind. I know it's a new and difficult field (I work in it) but it's also one where you could throw buckets of cash at the problem and get better results.

<comment><USER90> Siri is far behind _because_ Apple has a pro-privacy stance.

They've effectively hamstrung themselves by anonymising the data and not cross-correlating between users as much as Google does.

Google on the other hand has no qualms about using the mountains of data they collect on every single user on their platforms. They can teach Google Assistant stuff that Siri can't even try to do yet.

<comment><USER27> siri is behind because apple thought buying a natural language assistant startup was enough work/money spent to get into the smart assistant game. there is literally no research coming out of apple on smart assistants or machine learning(that isn't photos) and it shows

<comment><USER47> > there is literally no research coming out of apple on smart assistants or > machine learning(that isn't photos)

[https://machinelearning.apple.com/](https://machinelearning.apple.com/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER91> It must be difficult to uphold such strong principles for the free world while routing all your Chinese customer data through government surveillance servers. I guess it's better than the alternative- not selling in your (2nd?) largest market.

</comment><comment><USER92> Well done everyone. Never let the actual content of an article get in the way of some good old Apple bashing.

At the time of writing, I can only find one top level comment (by 'dvfjsdhgfv') that's making any attempt to discuss or expand upon the content of Cook's comments.

This is one of the most important issues facing mankind, and the ball is very much in our court. We all get plenty of opportunities to criticise our favourite tech companies and their practices, but if every single mention of them becomes an invitation to shoehorn in our gripes and complaints then this entire endeavour is just a massive waste of time.

<comment><USER93> > This is one of the most important issues facing mankind

I'm not even sure it rates in the top 50 outside of paranoid tech workers with nothing more important to worry about.

<comment><USER94> Hmm, I mean I'll take climate change, racism, education, and some particularly nasty geopolitical issues above it, but other than that, I would say it ranks pretty high.

<comment><USER92> I'd argue that the weaponisation of personal data and hyper targeted advertisements/disinformation are making all of those issues worse. It's what has created the current wave of climate change denying nazi sympathising maniacs to grow.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER95> _"Our own information — from the everyday to the deeply personal — is being weaponized against us with military efficiency," warned Cook. "These scraps of data, each one harmless enough on its own, are carefully assembled, synthesized, traded and sold._

If personal data has value, and companies are making billions or even trillions of dollars from it, shouldn't these firms be paying the source (us) to use it? Real cash, as opposed to discounts or in-kind exchanges?

<comment><USER93> For many of them, we get to use their services for free. That's the arrangement.

<comment><USER95> Not all. Certainly not brokers serving the ad industry, credit bureaus, and retailers. And for others such as Google business services and Microsoft, we pay them. Even for the "free" services, is it a fair exchange of value?

<comment><USER93> We seem to be willing to pay it, meaning the market will bear it, so yes?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER96> Until Apple growth streak breaks and they start to use data like everyone else and using data is a good thing.

<comment><USER42> That would mean they pivot from a hardware company to an advertising company; I don't see that happening myself.

<comment><USER97> I thought they were a design/branding company -- what proportion of hardware do they make themselves. Again I thought they outsourced [most of] that?

<comment><USER98> > I thought they were a design/branding company

A design/branding company that designs their own chips? Sure then they are a design company. A company that builds brands, also sure.

What proportion of hardware do they have to "make" themselves to be considered a hardware producer? Having TSMC fab silicon doesn't make Apple any less of a hardware company than BMW not being a car company because they buy ECU's from Bosch.

<comment><USER97> I've no idea about BMW but if they did the design and someone else did the manufacture, then BMW would still be a car company; they would 'just' be designers and not manufacturers. What's wrong with that?

So, if Apple make [all] their own hardware except the silicon then you could have answered the question rather than composing a strawman.

Yes, if BMW don't make their own electrical systems it makes them less of a car company. Is that controversial to you? It's supremely sensible for a company to buy expertise by outsourcing elements of manufacture of complex products IMO.

<comment><USER98> > I've no idea about BMW but if they did the design and someone else did the > manufacture, then BMW would still be a car company; they would 'just' be > designers and not manufacturers. What's wrong with that?

In a nutshell, it ignores modern reality. BMW isn't in the business of building ECU's, they leave that to Bosch. Similarly to how Airbus and Boeing both don't build their own APU's and buy/contract out the building of that to experts.

> So, if Apple make [all] their own hardware except the silicon then you could > have answered the question rather than composing a strawman.

Strawman how? You've an absolutist view of manufacturing that no manufacturer could meet. I'm almost certain that any phone you have has an 8 bit micro that guaranteed wasn't designed or built by the people that put it in. Same as capacitors.

Apple designed their A series chips, their faceid stuff, touchid, security enclave, ac chargers, etc... They contracted out to someone else to build it and used other things like qualcomm LTE chips when there isn't much other choice. I work at a company that does the same for custom hardware as well. I'd be hard pressed to hear that we didn't "design" our own stuff.

> Yes, if BMW don't make their own electrical systems it makes them less of a > car company. Is that controversial to you? It's supremely sensible for a > company to buy expertise by outsourcing elements of manufacture of complex > products IMO.

Is it controversial to me? Yes only in that you completely contradicted your own viewpoints in a single post. Your end is sensible, the start is not. Mostly as its not a very useful view of modern manufacturing. Lots of components are off the shelf from other companies. More than you might think.

Doesn't mean BMW isn't a car company, or Boeing isn't an aircraft company. It is no different than pulling in a shared library for xml or json parsing instead of rolling your own.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER99> Personal information is extremely valuable. I don't understand why people are opposed to collecting and making use of it. Not doing so would be inefficient and foolish.

While I believe that those who collect such data would make the world a better place if they freely distributed it, I don't think they should be forced to.

I'm sure that whatever hypothetical problem that could result from such collection of data could be solved more efficiently in a different way.

<comment><USER100> Edit: OP changed his comment, so my response is looking off-topic now

Sure, please paste here your email and other accounts logins.

Maybe you say you can't trust some random stranger on the internet but why would your trust companies, they have no morals, they want only to make money for themselves and on top of that they are incompetent and they can lose your data and random people on the internet will have it.

<comment><USER101> > _Sure, please paste here your email and other accounts logins._

That is not privacy, it's security. Are you implying that Facebook and Google don't take security seriously?

<comment><USER29> Facebook sure doesn't seem to. 50,000,000 of their accounts were breached just last month, apparently by spammers intent on harvesting private account information.

And Google supposedly shut down their Google+ service over a potential security bug that could have exposed a few hundred thousand accounts, but of course there were more reasons than that.</comment></comment></comment></comment>