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Apple slides from 2013 skewer Android as “a massive tracking device”

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November 3, 202319

“Here is [sic] the latest slides we have on privacy,” Senior Vice President of Services Eddy Cue wrote to CEO Tim Cook and then-SVP of Marketing Phil Schiller in January 2013. “Still a lot more work to do but good start.”

Those slides, newly made public as an exhibit in the Department of Justice’s ongoing antitrust trial against Google, on “The State of Privacy,” cast a dim light on Apple’s competitors, particularly Google. They quote former CEO Eric Schmidt’s notorious remarks on Google’s policy to “get right up to the creepy line but not cross it.” They unfavorably compare Apple and Google’s approaches to account data combination, voice search privacy, maps, and search. And most notably, they give over an entire slide to a summary: “Android is a massive tracking device.”

The exhibit is, as noted, redacted for public filing and abridged, so slides not pertaining to Google’s search dominance and other issues at trial are missing. Still, Apple’s presentation offers a rare glimpse into the company’s perception of Google, particularly Android, and how its own devices and services might stand apart.

The slide starts with an abridged “Privacy Timeline,” with certain years cut off by accident or strange redaction. The slide notes items like Facebook’s 2007 “Introduction of Beacon, which tracks users even if they opt out,” and Microsoft’s launch of “IE8 with privacy settings off by default.” There’s a curious and blunt, tiny-text note underneath this slide: “Automatic privacy to consumers would make it tougher for Microsoft to profit from selling online ads. Microsoft built its browser so that users must deliberately turn on privacy settings every time they start up the software.” Internet Explorer 8 was a fraught product for Microsoft, with internal debates about advertising privacy.

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19 Comments

  19. obs188
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