[headShrinker]

I don't think the problem is so much collecting data, more what agreement the company collecting the data has with third party corporations and governments. Also, the fact that Apple includes full disk encryption for OS X, and encrypts all communications on iOS storage and in transit with personal keys, is a pretty good sign Apple is taking personal privacy seriously.

Facebook and Google haven't made such steps.

[fpgeek]

All the encryption in the world doesn't make any difference if it's easy to steal your account.

Unlike Facebook or Google, Apple practically had to be shamed into fixing an easily-gamed account reset process and adding two-factor authentication support (and then took their own sweet time rolling it out across their services) and had to be shamed again into adding rate-limiting on logins. Not to mention their spotty track record on other security issues (e.g."goto fail").

That doesn't mean that Apple hasn't done some things that are good for personal privacy. But their broader track record makes it clear that Apple only takes the appearance of personal privacy seriously. The reality, on the other hand, easily takes a back seat to things like UI simplicity unless that missing reality starts creating appearance problems.