[decasteve]

That definition of Spyware Engine has existed for a while. Every browser checks sites and downloads using Google's Safe Browsing [1]. Firefox constantly phones home to googleusercontent and AWS. Apple sends hashes of every application you run on MacOS to its Akamai hosted service -- try blocking Akamai on your firewall while still connected to the internet and the OS becomes unresponsive. The OS features to scan and report home have been around for a long time.

I think Apple checking photos before they uploaded to its own servers is their way around the Fourth Amendment while using relatively similar methods that they already use for malware.

Devil's advocacy aside, I buy the slippery slope argument and I find these methods reprehensible and open to abuse. I agree with all of it. I think this new addition is a step on the downward slope. I don't use MacOS, nor Windows, nor any cloud services personally. I keep an iPhone 7 around to chat with "iMessage" friends -- and this is the straw that stops me from using for that. I have never used iCloud for photos even when I was using an iPhone regularly.

I used to have an Android phone, which I also never sync'd with Google's cloud/drive. Then after an update, the sync-to-cloud option was automagically turned on again and my photos started to upload. I deleted them from the cloud and swore off ever using an Android phone again.

[1]: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-does-phishing-and-m...

Addendum: That Mozilla support link is also interesting in terms of privacy. It's flagged as a privileged page for me so it loads Google Analytics that would otherwise be blocked by browser extensions.

[donatj]

It seems like the fourth amendment would be more applicable in Apples case, as it's doing the searching within your own home, where searches are explicitly forbidden.