[actuator]

I updated the link above.

I am not sure how much information Apple gets but if with an in app purchase of say a eBook, they get to know which eBook it was, it is creepy.

Apple really doesn't have to do any ad personalisation but still they are doing it as it is just more money for them. My fear is, eventually when they monetize more of their web properties, the data collection will increase.

While they might not allow others to sniff your data, they are in too much of a dominant position to not use it for themselves like the purchases data.

For me, this fight will always be, who will watch the watchmen? Regulatory hammer seems to be the only long term solution I can think of. As Apple's integration of hardware + software + software gateway + services, is just too scary and eventually will give them too much power.

[spacedcowboy]

If you've chosen to buy something from Apple, it's hard for Apple not to know that you've bought it.

I don't think that's an issue.

What is an issue is the cross-correlation of any given company's data on you with lots of other "big data" companies, building a profile, not just of what you've bought from X, but from Y, Z, hell throw in the whole alphabet, why not ?

Then there's the machine learning that says when X,Y,Z are all bought within a small time window, that means alpha is likely, and decisions can be made on that basis.

It's the spread of the network that is the problem, IMHO, not the knowledge per se. My butcher knows what cuts of meat I like, there's no need for my cobbler to be aware...

[actuator]

As far as I read the support doc, it seems like if say I purchase an ebook from a third party App, should Apple have this data because they mandated the forced use of their payment system. (I don't like user profiles based on purchase data from their store itself as well)

In this example, Apple is not just the store but also your payment processor(a forced one at that). So, they know about which cuts of meat you like and will use that info to target ads when your cobbler pays for some advertisement.

It is not like FB is selling your data, why would they when they earn the most by keeping it to themselves. Quite sure, Apple will do the same thing like they have already started.

[naresh_xai]

But apple does not allow for that. So in that sense, they do not allow businesses for targeted advertisement. Please correct me if I am wrong.

Their processes and org structure is not built for that either with siloed teams. So much that quite often some teams will not know what kind of data is being collected by other teams even.

[swiley]

Apple doesn't allow the third party store to do that but they can do whatever they want, it's their system (and arguably their phone as well.)