[dirtyaura]

What are you talking about? Of 12-14 services he listed, 4 were from Apple (iOS, Mobile Safari, Apple Maps for directions, and iCloud for Calendar sync).

And quite likely, he is not paranoidily avoiding Google, but partly experimenting as he is running one of the very few companies that are directly trying to compete with Google in search.

[nickonline]

Just going from your examples above:

- Safari/iOS will let Apple know you're in a market for a house - Safari will let Apple know you like Ethiopain coffee - Also it will probably allow them to track your searches - Along with Calendar sync and maps Apple knows both where you are currently and where you'll be next

While not all of his eggs are in one basket, there's an awful lot of them providing an awful lot of "tracking" information to one entity.

Sure, if he's experimenting with replacing Google's services that's a valid reason.

[harry8]

Hang on, safari/ios report back to apple your entire search and browse history? Really? I'm genuinely asking here.

[deepGem]

You gotta be kidding me here. You don't explicitly have to login to any Apple service when you are using Safari. However, when you are using Chrome - somehow if you login to Gmail you are logged in to the browser. You login to gmail on Safari, you are logged in only to gmail. There's a difference. Sorry I don't mean to be offensive but this aspect shouldn't be overlooked.

[riquito]

> somehow if you login to Gmail you are logged in to the browser

What do you mean? Can you be more explicit?

[deepGem]

Lets say you login to gmail in chrome. You open another tab and there are you are signed in again. This is the google+ crap I guess. The only option is to use an incognito window.

[marrone12]

The only difference is that Apple is not an advertising company. Google explicitly uses your information to advertise against you. Apple is not yet in that vertical.

[jessedhillon]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IAd

iAd is a mobile advertising platform developed by Apple Inc. for its iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad line of mobile devices allowing third-party developers to directly embed advertisements into their applications. Announced on April 8, 2010, iAd is part of Apple's iOS 4, originally slated for release on June 21, 2010, the actual date was changed to July 1, 2010.

[theshrike79]

Safari has 3rd party cookies turned off by default. And how many iAds have you seen?

Also iAds have quite strict requirements as to what kind of identifying information they receive from the device.

Google/Android doesn't have any qualms about giving every bit of information they can get to the advertisers, that's the main source of income for Google. Also, 3rd party cookies will not be turned off by default in any Google product ever.

[rtpg]

since when is advertising strictly an adversarial arrangement?

Websites such as real estate websites are basically just ads, yet it still offers a service (namely discovery). trailers for movies are also ads but I still like watching them.

There's a lot of disgusting/misleading behaviour in advertising, but it's not strictly an Us vs. Them proposition.

[tobylane]

Real estate websites feature the product obviously, the real estate. With Google's website, your eyeballs on adverts is the product, and it's in Google's interest to know what you like to give you relevant adverts.

When you are a visitor to a website, it's whether you are a customer vs product proposition.