[blihp]

Take the marketing pitch with a grain of salt. They've been keeping track of aggregate usage data pretty much from the beginning. Also, they already have to keep track of things like which apps/music/movies you have bought for accounting purposes at the very least. For subscriptions they most likely also have to track consumption (i.e. per access data) for royalty/revenue share payments.

I remember a story from the tail end of the Jobs era when they were trying to get their ad network going that their sales force was using as a selling point to advertisers the fact that they had metrics such as how many minutes a day users spent using various apps etc. They just don't share this data outside of Apple and also (according to their public statements) don't access the private data that you create.

[toufka]

I think society is okay with some knowledge about individuals. And that information is valuable. But it's still unclear where the line gets drawn that becomes creepy and inverts its value. If you have the corporate structure and policies to be able to draw an arbitrary line, you're likely better suited to capture long-term value than if you have no line at all and willingly scrape all data just to have it (ie, Facebook/Google).

So, Apple having aggregate data is interesting, because it's certainly a monetization, but if they're truly honest and statistically aggregate numbers, I think that might be a fantastic strategy.

[blackflame7000]

I think the line should be drawn at allowing 3rd parties to search user profiles. I’m content with my content being one of billions on their servers but i’m not ok with my content being indexible for any other reason than what is required for the service to work.

Basically: Select * from AppleDB where userID=Me should never be allowed and failure to prevent such access should result in heavy fines

[ATsch]

I don't think there needs to be a universal line, decided by the company, on what's creepy. I appreciate how GDPR recognizes this. I believe it is up to the users to decide for themselves what they are and are not comfortable with. Just like with some other topics, informed and free consent is really the thing that matters for an act to be okay.

[BillinghamJ]

Aside from accounting purposes, most of these cases are achieved through differential privacy - https://www.apple.com/privacy/docs/Differential_Privacy_Over...

[zmmmmm]

> They just don't share this data outside of Apple

Google doesn't either. It doesn't stop them getting heat for it.