Is it necessary to use Apple Products and Why?
Apple is known for having a user base that's very loyal and enthusiastic about their products
But there is an equally enthusiastic hatred toward Apple from other people in the tech community who have trouble understanding why anyone would choose Apple devices over their competitors
Number One reason why you should be using Apple products over anything else and it's a reason I think should be discussed a lot more often
So what is the number one reason to use Apple products could it be they're beautiful industrial design, They're approachable user interface, They're optimized operating systems or perhaps, They're seamless user experience in my opinion those are all legitimate advantages of using Apple products
But there's one huge reason that's rarely mentioned by news outlets or users themselves and that is Privacy
Apple has maintained such an uncompromising stance on privacy that it actually led to a lawsuit from the US Justice Department now we'll talk more about that later because I want to begin by acknowledging a question
Most of you are probably thinking which is quite is privacy even matter after all it appears the importance of privacy is declining these days with social media sites like Facebook Twitter and Instagram people are comfortable sharing more of their data to the public than ever before
In fact Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg had this to say on the subject people have really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information in different kinds but more openly and with more people that social norm is just something that has evolved over time and while I think that's true
I don't think it suggests privacy is an important individuals can choose to make as much about themselves public as they want it's how their data is used that becomes deceptive
If I share my email address work location and personal interests with Facebook it's because I want my friends on the platform to have access to that information not because I want Facebook to sell it to companies in exchange for targeted ads
But it isn't just Facebook who engages in this practice the Cambridge analytic a scandal revealed Amazon and Google also collect huge amounts of data on their users to sell to advertisers and it's easy to understand why the business of selling user data is very lucrative
It's why Facebook has grown into a one hundred thirty eight billion dollar company without selling any hardware or premium services and as you've probably heard before if you're not paying for a product you likely are the product
But despite these privacy violations we continue to use services from Facebook Amazon and Google likely because the vast majority of us don't even know these privacy violations are happening typically companies do disclose this information but it's often buried in their terms and conditions which very few people actually read
In fact your right to privacy is violated by simply browsing the web since your internet service provider and government agencies can see what websites you visit and are likely logging that information in their systems and that's why many people myself included use a VPN when browsing the Internet
VPNs act as a kind of virtual invisibility cloak that mask Internet behavior from ISPs by encrypting data and shielding your location from websites and this leads me to a question I hear a lot when arguing in support of digital privacy and that is why should I care about privacy if I have nothing to hide and the answer is privacy isn't about hiding something
Because you've broken the law privacy is about having the right to withhold information in certain circumstances to prevent misuse and misappropriation
For example most people prefer to keep personally identifiable information like their social security number address and bank information private not because they're doing something bad but because something harmful like identity theft could be done to them if that information were public
And more extreme circumstances data has been used against citizens by totalitarian governments from 1950 to 1990 East Germany had a so called security agency that consisted of 90,000 spies and about 200,000 informants
The agency kept detailed records on hundreds of thousands of their citizens and used this information to psychologically harass blackmail and discredit people who opposed the despotic regime keep in mind this was all before the internet existed that's why today this system of mass surveillance happening in countries
Like the u.s. is extremely dangerous no one can predict how this information will be used by future administration's or by foreign governments who successfully steal data from the US which has happened by the way
And if you think your data is safe with corporations since they operate outside the government you would be mistaken here's a list of 21 of the biggest corporate data breaches most of which occurred in the past ten years and affected billions of people
So chances are some of your personal data is already being used by hackers to access certain accounts but this goes further than data being leaked it's how data is used by corporations to infer things about you
That haven't been shared for example target can accurately predict when one of their shoppers are pregnant based on the items they buy this led to the company accidentally exposing a teenage shoppers pregnancy to her father by mailing coupons for baby clothes and cribs to their house
Now I give all these examples just to prove the ways unwanted data collection can negatively affect everyday law abiding people like you and me it's why privacy is so important and should be taken seriously and Apple has proven to be the only major tech company in the world
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