The claim that Apple was somehow deliberately analyzing conversations to sell to advertisers for targeting purposes is asserted without evidence. It goes back entirely to a couple people who noted coincidences and decided that they must not be coincidences, which is not how such a program would work – if it really and truly were the case that mass harvesting and analysis of conversations for ad targeting were occurring, it would not be based on a couple sketchy coincidental “well, one time I saw an ad not long after talking to someone about that product” anecdotes. It would be glaringly obvious and everyone would be having daily or multiple-times-daily direct experiences of it happening.
The fact that multiple media outlets chose to reframe the story around those anecdotes and essentially grant them unearned credibility through the choice of how to report is frankly shameful.
They don’t have to transmit raw audio to their partners, just encrypted embedding vectors that are highly effective as probabilistic search keys.
Google e.g. acts as a marketplace of ad slots, so they can control how often which ads are served. Being the sole broker of certain user data features (voice queries), their interest is in keeping the system accurate but not blatantly obvious so they could be passing on only aggregate features to third parties.
All of this is entirely within the realm of possibility, but doesn’t make it proof. I guess this makes us all a bunch of crazies on an internet forum yelling Not Proof! at each other.
this particular form of “eavesdropping” is entirely the point and entirely technically possible.
Lots of things are “technically possible”. But jumping from that to “eavesdropping” being “the point” is unsupported by any available evidence. Apple says they’ve spent all these resources and all this effort on doing safe transmission of user data (such that even they can’t actually get at it in the raw form) specifically so you can trust them to do computationally expensive tasks off-device. I see no reason not to take them at their word on that; if they wanted to just be a Google-style vacuum of personal data for ad targeting they could very easily and much more cheaply just openly be that.
And before you immediately reply with some further conspiracy theory about how they’d gain from the perception of privacy while actually willfully violating it left and right, let me refer you to the way the tech world reacts any time Mozilla actually does do what you’re accusing Apple of doing (i.e., trying to figure out advertising without invasive personal data/tracking). There simply is nothing for Apple as a business to gain from doing the “hahahaha we claimed to be about privacy but actually are just like Google in every way” thing you and so many others desperately seem to need them to be doing.
So maybe it’s time to knock it off with the “ah well but it’s POSSIBLE…” or “ah well but you can see how someone WOULD believe…” stuff.
I see no reason not to take them at their word on that; if they wanted to just be a Google-style vacuum of personal data for ad targeting they could very easily and much more cheaply just openly be that.
And yet you see reason not to take the plaintiffs at their word that recorded conversations were shared with advertisers? Presumably some conspiracy theory about the plaintiffs colluding with the press to take Apple down?
And before you immediately reply with some further conspiracy theory about how they’d gain from the perception of privacy while actually willfully violating it left and right, let me refer you to the way the tech world reacts any time Mozilla actually does do what you’re accusing Apple of doing (i.e., trying to figure out advertising without invasive personal data/tracking). There simply is nothing for Apple as a business to gain from doing the “hahahaha we claimed to be about privacy but actually are just like Google in every way” thing you and so many others desperately seem to need them to be doing.
And yet there is evidence for a reasonable version of the claim you are strawmanning:
I’m inclined to agree that they probably weren’t intentionally doing this, but let me put it another way: if Apple hasn’t done anything wrong here I don’t think they should settle this suit.
Companies that haven’t done anything wrong settle lawsuits pretty regularly, because fighting a lawsuit like this out to the bitter end is expensive, will not recoup its expenses from the defendants (who don’t have the kind of resources to cover your legal costs), and will be an endless source of bad PR from headlines reminding people that you’re being sued.
And those settlements are generally for the benefit of the companies and to the detriment of the availability of information that is of great public concern.
and to the detriment of the availability of information that is of great public concern.
This. Discovery is like tracer fire: it works both ways and sometimes not how you expect. Even if Apple was 100% in the right and this was all fabricated, to settle for such a relatively small amount makes it a smart business decision on their end. And on the part of the plaintiffs, to be offered this sum WITHOUT a multi-year fight against a very litigious company with an army of lawyers… it is a no brainer to take the offered settlement.
Do you think the result is favorable to the plaintiffs as well? It seems like a lot of filling out forms and waiting just to get “up to” $20, and to have no confirmation as to what happened and whether it will keep happening. If I were a plaintiff I would probably rather see it go to trial.
A jaded answer: are the plaitiffs in this case honestly filing it to set right some massive injustice? Or is it an opportunity to make some quick cash.
I might be wrong, but my general feeling for class action lawsuits is it is a good payday for the lawyers involved and then everyone else is going to end up in the $5-$100 range. The VAST majority of those won’t have any idea what’s happening until they get an email saying “Hey, there’s a class action lawsuit, go to suetheinjusticelawsuit.org to file your request and we’ll send you an amazon gift card.”
So, yes, I believe the vast majority of the plaintiffs (in this case I mean those who would benefit, maybe there’s a better legal term, forgive me IINAL) will be happier getting a free $20 gift card than waiting years to possibly get nothing. Also, the vast majority won’t care at all beyond “Oh, cool! A free latte!”
If it’s a few clicks and you get $20 that would be nice, but it could end up requiring an hour or more of tedium for a fraction of that depending on how they set it up. I do wonder why they expect only 3-5% of plaintiffs to file claims. And for the plaintiffs that actually initiated the case, do they get a greater share of the settlement for investing more time? If they only get $20 then I wouldn’t call it a success if their goal was to make some quick cash.
I’m not going to pretend to be an expert on class action lawsuits and my experience may easily not be representative of the majority cases. However, my general understanding is that, yes, the plaintiffs and the lawyers who initiated the case are going to get the most money (lawyers first, “The attorneys who filed the lawsuit may seek up to $29.6 million from the settlement fund to cover their fees and other expenses, according to court documents”, initiating plaintiffs next, up to $10,000 page 3, line 23).
The vast majority of those who get money will be in that $20 camp, for whom it will be essentially a little free money. I have probably been notified of half a dozen class actions in the past 5 years, some of which were better (they used company records to identify that I was a party to it, provided the proof to me, and gave me an easy one-click registration), others were worse (they spam everyone, say “you might be eligible”, and ask for documentation no one will likely have).
Ironically, in between my first response and now I received notice about a class action suit I was apparently a party to, I will receive $12. Why don’t more people claim this?
One reason is the paperwork that is required, I have been notified in the past of suits I am sure I would be party to, but it required a receipt for the purchase. I don’t keep receipts 6 years later for the lawsuit, so I ignored it. In the case of Apple, it will require the person to state they experienced an unintended Siri activation, which I suspect will be really hard to prove.
Another is because these all seem like a scam. The one I mention above had a URL to click where the actual URL did not match the target. Neither URL is on the domain being used for the lawsuit. The domain for the lawsuit makes no mention of either domain as being valid. They’re offering me money by going to a website and submitting a claim code in the URL. If it wasn’t for my finding the original traffic where I was notified matching up with the timeline on the website, I would have deleted this in the first 30 seconds.
Again, with my jaded answer, I believe class action lawsuits exist to benefit law firms, not consumers. That is why this $95 million makes sense for all parties involved (Apple shells out an absolutely minuscule amount of money in return for not going to court, lawyers get PAID, the four individuals who brought suit will get $10,000, and plaintiffs get enough money to justify clicking a link).
Sorry, I’m probably getting a bit off-topic here. Have a great day!
Apple isn’t acknowledging any wrongdoing in the settlement…
That said, I don’t think I’ve seen a settlement where either party has admitted wrongdoing. Generally because those settlements could be used as evidence in future cases if they did.
That’s awful. It’s so little money and if it’s true it should be proven in court and they should get a lot more than a slap on the wrist
What do you think should be “proven in court”?
The claim that Apple was somehow deliberately analyzing conversations to sell to advertisers for targeting purposes is asserted without evidence. It goes back entirely to a couple people who noted coincidences and decided that they must not be coincidences, which is not how such a program would work – if it really and truly were the case that mass harvesting and analysis of conversations for ad targeting were occurring, it would not be based on a couple sketchy coincidental “well, one time I saw an ad not long after talking to someone about that product” anecdotes. It would be glaringly obvious and everyone would be having daily or multiple-times-daily direct experiences of it happening.
The fact that multiple media outlets chose to reframe the story around those anecdotes and essentially grant them unearned credibility through the choice of how to report is frankly shameful.
Anecdotes are not proof, but for a company that brags about deploying homomorphic encryption to do ML on user data , this particular form of “eavesdropping” is entirely the point and entirely technically possible.
They don’t have to transmit raw audio to their partners, just encrypted embedding vectors that are highly effective as probabilistic search keys.
Google e.g. acts as a marketplace of ad slots, so they can control how often which ads are served. Being the sole broker of certain user data features (voice queries), their interest is in keeping the system accurate but not blatantly obvious so they could be passing on only aggregate features to third parties.
All of this is entirely within the realm of possibility, but doesn’t make it proof. I guess this makes us all a bunch of crazies on an internet forum yelling Not Proof! at each other.
Lots of things are “technically possible”. But jumping from that to “eavesdropping” being “the point” is unsupported by any available evidence. Apple says they’ve spent all these resources and all this effort on doing safe transmission of user data (such that even they can’t actually get at it in the raw form) specifically so you can trust them to do computationally expensive tasks off-device. I see no reason not to take them at their word on that; if they wanted to just be a Google-style vacuum of personal data for ad targeting they could very easily and much more cheaply just openly be that.
And before you immediately reply with some further conspiracy theory about how they’d gain from the perception of privacy while actually willfully violating it left and right, let me refer you to the way the tech world reacts any time Mozilla actually does do what you’re accusing Apple of doing (i.e., trying to figure out advertising without invasive personal data/tracking). There simply is nothing for Apple as a business to gain from doing the “hahahaha we claimed to be about privacy but actually are just like Google in every way” thing you and so many others desperately seem to need them to be doing.
So maybe it’s time to knock it off with the “ah well but it’s POSSIBLE…” or “ah well but you can see how someone WOULD believe…” stuff.
And yet you see reason not to take the plaintiffs at their word that recorded conversations were shared with advertisers? Presumably some conspiracy theory about the plaintiffs colluding with the press to take Apple down?
And yet there is evidence for a reasonable version of the claim you are strawmanning:
https://sneak.berlin/20201112/your-computer-isnt-yours/
I don’t know why that requires a conspiracy, but it’s happening.
Why would a company breaking a taboo make it glaringly obvious?
BTW do you have any links to the court documents? I couldn’t find them.
I’m inclined to agree that they probably weren’t intentionally doing this, but let me put it another way: if Apple hasn’t done anything wrong here I don’t think they should settle this suit.
Companies that haven’t done anything wrong settle lawsuits pretty regularly, because fighting a lawsuit like this out to the bitter end is expensive, will not recoup its expenses from the defendants (who don’t have the kind of resources to cover your legal costs), and will be an endless source of bad PR from headlines reminding people that you’re being sued.
And those settlements are generally for the benefit of the companies and to the detriment of the availability of information that is of great public concern.
This. Discovery is like tracer fire: it works both ways and sometimes not how you expect. Even if Apple was 100% in the right and this was all fabricated, to settle for such a relatively small amount makes it a smart business decision on their end. And on the part of the plaintiffs, to be offered this sum WITHOUT a multi-year fight against a very litigious company with an army of lawyers… it is a no brainer to take the offered settlement.
Do you think the result is favorable to the plaintiffs as well? It seems like a lot of filling out forms and waiting just to get “up to” $20, and to have no confirmation as to what happened and whether it will keep happening. If I were a plaintiff I would probably rather see it go to trial.
A jaded answer: are the plaitiffs in this case honestly filing it to set right some massive injustice? Or is it an opportunity to make some quick cash.
I might be wrong, but my general feeling for class action lawsuits is it is a good payday for the lawyers involved and then everyone else is going to end up in the $5-$100 range. The VAST majority of those won’t have any idea what’s happening until they get an email saying “Hey, there’s a class action lawsuit, go to suetheinjusticelawsuit.org to file your request and we’ll send you an amazon gift card.”
So, yes, I believe the vast majority of the plaintiffs (in this case I mean those who would benefit, maybe there’s a better legal term, forgive me IINAL) will be happier getting a free $20 gift card than waiting years to possibly get nothing. Also, the vast majority won’t care at all beyond “Oh, cool! A free latte!”
If it’s a few clicks and you get $20 that would be nice, but it could end up requiring an hour or more of tedium for a fraction of that depending on how they set it up. I do wonder why they expect only 3-5% of plaintiffs to file claims. And for the plaintiffs that actually initiated the case, do they get a greater share of the settlement for investing more time? If they only get $20 then I wouldn’t call it a success if their goal was to make some quick cash.
I’m not going to pretend to be an expert on class action lawsuits and my experience may easily not be representative of the majority cases. However, my general understanding is that, yes, the plaintiffs and the lawyers who initiated the case are going to get the most money (lawyers first, “The attorneys who filed the lawsuit may seek up to $29.6 million from the settlement fund to cover their fees and other expenses, according to court documents”, initiating plaintiffs next, up to $10,000 page 3, line 23).
The vast majority of those who get money will be in that $20 camp, for whom it will be essentially a little free money. I have probably been notified of half a dozen class actions in the past 5 years, some of which were better (they used company records to identify that I was a party to it, provided the proof to me, and gave me an easy one-click registration), others were worse (they spam everyone, say “you might be eligible”, and ask for documentation no one will likely have).
Ironically, in between my first response and now I received notice about a class action suit I was apparently a party to, I will receive $12. Why don’t more people claim this?
Again, with my jaded answer, I believe class action lawsuits exist to benefit law firms, not consumers. That is why this $95 million makes sense for all parties involved (Apple shells out an absolutely minuscule amount of money in return for not going to court, lawyers get PAID, the four individuals who brought suit will get $10,000, and plaintiffs get enough money to justify clicking a link).
Sorry, I’m probably getting a bit off-topic here. Have a great day!
Thanks, nice to learn something about how class action lawsuits work.
62 comment thread about that here: https://lobste.rs/s/zkboyo/i_still_don_t_think_companies_serve_you_ads
Does this prove guilt though?
That said, I don’t think I’ve seen a settlement where either party has admitted wrongdoing. Generally because those settlements could be used as evidence in future cases if they did.
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