Apple blast competitors with Las Vegas ‘privacy’ billboard
Tech titan Apple has taken a massive swipe at its competitors on the eve of the world’s biggest electronics show in Las Vegas.
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Apple took a massive swipe at its competitors’ privacy policies, on the eve of the world’s biggest electronics show in Las Vegas.
The tech titan, despite not actually attending the Consumer Electronics Show this week, unveiled a giant billboard trumpeting the iPhone’s privacy provisions.
It stated: “what happens on your iPhone, stays on your iPhone” — a pithy takeoff of the old mantra “what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas” and a direct swipe at Google and Facebook.
The huge billboard, plastered down 13 stories of the SpringHill Suites by Marriott hotel, overlooks the Las Vegas Convention Centre where thousands of tech enthusiasts will this week show off their latest products, wacky inventions and provide a sneak peek into how technology will change everyday life in the coming year.
Chairman of the Australian Privacy Foundation David Vaile said Apple’s message — that it won’t use your data to sell you products, like others — is one that its rivals Amazon, Google and Facebook should listen to.
“I think they should take a lot of notice of this, Facebook in particular,” he told News Corp Australia.
“Nobody can promise you they can stop a motivated intruder from a getting your data. That is something that no one wants to say and users want to ignore, however Apple is very good on privacy on your device and generally good on the iCloud.”
In 2018, Google was hit with multibillion-dollar fines by the EU for its anti-competitive practices and breaches around privacy.
Many believe that Facebook, whose chief executive Mark Zuckerberg last year apologised to US politicians for data scraping, and Amazon will be next.
Apple had a horror week last week, in which it revealed it would not make quarterly revenue forecasts, the first time since 2002, amid a cooling off from the sale of smartphones, wiping tens of billions of dollars off the value of the company.
Mr Vaile said Apple deserved credit for the measures it has taken on privacy and for focusing on making money through hardware and software, rather than selling personal data.
“Apple has been noisy about privacy and I think to some extent there is some marketing in that but in this case it is fair enough because they have actually consistently been supportive of privacy laws and not whined like children with their lollies taken away about regulations, Mr Vaile said.
He predicted that those companies who don’t move to protect users’ data will end up on the scrapheap in years to come as younger users turn off websites such as Facebook which exploit their information.
“There is the saying that data is the new oil,” Mr Vaile said. “But if you can’t protect it, it is not the new gold or oil, it is a toxic asset.”
Apple was asked to comment, but did not respond by time of publication.
This journalist travelled to the CES courtesy of Samsung
Originally published as Apple blast competitors with Las Vegas ‘privacy’ billboard
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