> From that communication, I read that Tim Cook is against some business models, not machine learning or data collection.
Which sounds exactly like posturing to me. Contrast this with what he says about back doors - if it's there a key under the mat for cops, the bad guys will get it. The same applies to data collection - the motives behind the collection don't matter. If data is collected, sooner or later some of it will fall into the hands of a 3rd party the user didn't expect - possibly bad guys (through legal discovery, a hack, bankruptcy sale, or some NSA ALL-CAPS program).
The right thing for privacy is to not collect the data, but Apple is unwilling to take that business decision (imagine how bad Siri would be if voice data wasn't sent to a backend).
Which sounds exactly like posturing to me. Contrast this with what he says about back doors - if it's there a key under the mat for cops, the bad guys will get it. The same applies to data collection - the motives behind the collection don't matter. If data is collected, sooner or later some of it will fall into the hands of a 3rd party the user didn't expect - possibly bad guys (through legal discovery, a hack, bankruptcy sale, or some NSA ALL-CAPS program).
The right thing for privacy is to not collect the data, but Apple is unwilling to take that business decision (imagine how bad Siri would be if voice data wasn't sent to a backend).