Would you modify your buying decisions based on vendor's external conduct?

[ZigZagZeke]

Hahaha! Apple Fan Bois are everywhere! So I missed Apple news from 2-1/2 weeks ago. *shrug* And I'm glad they are making those efforts. They've made a few good choices like fighting warrantless data intrusions by the government. But that's not what you asked for:



Absolutely! But I'm not sure how you've missed this Apple news from the last 6+ years. I'm 90% sure you're just trollin' me.

Apple v. Does - In 2006 Apple subpoenas journalists to name their sources of those who allegedly leaked information.

Apple's v. Right to Ownership - 2010 courts ruled in favour, for 3 years at least, on the right to ownership. Imagine your car or AR built by Apple; if you took them apart or installed non-factory items on them you would be in violation of the law.

Apple v. Open Source Community - Weird world we live in now. MSFT donates to open source projects and Apple attacks them.

Apple has police raid Gizmodo editor's home. That's not even a little spooky to you?

But most of all

*drum roll please*

Apple's horrible privacy violations.

Fanboi? I've been an Apple stockholder for 10 years now, having bought most of my stock at about $7.50 (Today $544.30). Over the years I've followed Apple news daily and know the company inside and out, as you would if you had a high 6 figure investment in any company.

Your Police Raid article stems from the theft and sale of an Apple iPhone 4 prototype to Gizmodo, whose editors had it torn apart so they could publish details of its construction while its existence was still a closely held trade secret. The phone was misplaced in a pub, and instead of turning it in to the establishment the finder sold it to Gizmodo for $5000. That's a felony in California, so is receiving stolen goods. The Gizmodo editors and reporters involved were not innocent journalists. They were participants in a felony. They knew what the phone was and who it belonged to. They even contacted Apple to try to extort favored treatment for its return. So Apple had a secret prototype under field testing stolen, and Gizmodo bought the stolen property and refused to return it. News of the impending new iPhone killed Apple sales of the then current iPhone 3GS for the next 180 days, costing hundreds of millions of dollars in lost sales. And Apple is somehow the Bad Guy? Gizmodo is now universally reviled within the tech community.

In Apple vs. Does, once again a journalist published trade secrets that only an Apple employee could have disclosed. All Apple employees sign non-disclosure agreements as a condition of employment. Apple sued to find out which of their employees had violated that agreement. Wouldn't you?


In Apple vs the open source community, the issue was hacking Apple's iTunes software in order to allow other companies to use it to sell music and videos to iPod and iPhone users. Music and video from any source can be loaded onto iPods and iPhones. People are not locked into using only iTunes. However hacking iTunes and using parts of the copyrighted code to allow iPods and iPhones to connect directly to other services is illegal. As for the Palm Pre issue, Palm was making their music player pose as an iPod so it could connect to iTunes. What would you think if I stole your ID and password and logged into your bank account?

Privacy violations? Apple has used specific user IDs combined with location services in order to implement "find my friends" type functions on iPhones. These have always been opt-in options for users. Apple also uses location information in order to select the best cell tower routing, and at first this information was inadvertently stored in a communications log on the phone for up to a year. When they were notified of this logging Apple turned it off to prevent others from abusing it. It had never been used for anything by Apple.

Privacy? I'll trust my privacy to Apple any day over Google or Microsoft. Microsoft is just cluelessly inept at any kind of security. Witness the 100,000 or so viruses on Windows. As for Google, they are just plain evil. They make their money by selling your personal information to advertisers. Their Android products log everything you do and report it back to Google. You don't opt in to that function, and you can't even turn it off. If you are reading this web page with an unprotected browser, like Google's Chrome or Windows IE you just had advertising cookies installed by Google (Google Adsense and Google Analytics) which will allow them to sell your identifying web information to their paying customers as someone who has an interest in firearms, and to track wherever else you go on the web and sell that information too. They are also well known for providing personal information to the government. So happy browsing.

Don't Be Evil?

On the other hand, you might want to check out Apple's Safari browser, which has settings (default on) and extensions that block third party cookies and identify them for you. My browser tells me that in addition of Google's cookies, I'm avoiding two cookies from Facebook, and one each from Quantcast and Viglink. Here's the info on Quantcast:

About Quantcast:
Quantcast operates: Quantcast, Quantcast Notice

Quantcast provides real-time detailed audience profiles for advertisers to buy, sell, connect and learn more about what consumers are doing online.

Website: Home | Quantcast

Again, happy browsing.

 

[ZigZagZeke]

Yes, I do.

Racist statement, no money.

I'd mention it to my people, and he wouldn't get any money from them, either.

I was at the Clackamas County Fair and was talking to a tractor implement dealer who, in a "wink-wink, nudge-nudge" fashion, lapsed into jokes about illegal immigrants and hispanic people. I didn't tell him that my son-in-law, and therefor my granddaughter were hispanic. He didn't get any of my money and he never will.

 

[WhyteCheddar]

I bypassed several roofing contractors because they would not guarantee that they would not use illegals on the job.
In frustration I ended up doing the roof myself.
In the end you are the one who has to sleep at night with your choices/decisions.

 

[Jammer Six]

Huh. I've used several subs because I knew they used immigrants.

Your roofers can't give that guarantee. Speaking as an employer, anyone who guarantees that they don't use illegal immigrants is either lying or they work alone.

You know what all illegal immigrants have in common? Papers.

A full set of papers, entitling you to work in Washington state and the United States, is available less than a mile from where I'm sitting, for less than an hour's pay for a journeyman carpenter. If they present those papers, and you question them, you open yourself up to other problems. Any illegal immigrant here in Seattle has, I promise you, a more complete, up-to-date set of working documents than you do. List A and List B. (If you've held your job for a few years, you've probably forgotten those, and your docs are probably spread all over That Drawer.)

Not to mention the obvious-- we're businessmen, not cops. If we were cops, we'd have a shiny blue suit, a company car and at least one gun we didn't have to buy.

So if an employer tells you he can guarantee that he doesn't hire illegal immigrants, and he hires anyone, he's a fool or a liar.

Since you brought illegal immigrants up, (a political topic, by the way, in a non-political thread is bad manners) I will say this: people are a nation's most valuable resource, above all else.

When we gain people, we gain strength, and wherever they came from loses strength.

"Problem" immigrants pose no more of a problem than the bloods and the crips, our own, native, home-grown problems. The curve is the same, as are the percentages.

Leaving ones home, country, family and language behind is as bold a move now as it was in the old west.

When an immigrant crosses the border, legal or illegal, we get stronger.

They shouldn't be illegal. The idea of "I'm in, shut the door" is for fools. There is no us and them. We need them, they need us.

I welcome them, that's the way I vote, that's the way I act.

Carry on.

 

[Steve06]

I think current laws should be enforced or changed. No more selective enforcement.

 

[Jammer Six]

I think current laws should be enforced or changed. No more selective enforcement.

You have my vote!

I've been voting and donating to change (hopefully by eliminating, but we'll take what we can get) immigration laws for ten years. One of the main problems facing me, personally, is that a politician liberal enough to be pro-immigrant is almost always too liberal to be pro-gun.

So, as with everything, I have to choose my battles.