Apple once again throws us under the bus

Have you heard about what Apple’s been up to recently?  Apparently, if I understand it right, they’ve been wrestling with the CIA, the Bavarian Illuminati, and the Gnomes of Zürich for top seat in the eye of the pyramid.

If you didn’t catch the initial go-round of what they’re up to, they updated their privacy policy a while back to include this gem – nestled deep in the dark underbelly of the text nobody reads:

We may collect, use, transfer, and disclose non-personal information for any purpose. The following are some examples of non-personal information that we collect and how we may use it:

We may collect information such as occupation, language, zip code, area code, unique device identifier, location, and the time zone where an Apple product is used…

Of course, anybody with half an ounce of sense will probably realize two things about this: 1) that associating a unique device identifier with a device like an iPhone allows it to be uniquely tracked going forward and 2) association with location makes it pretty damn un-private.  For example, how hard would it be for someone to deduce your residence and place of work if they could track your location all day long?

Anyway, historical context aside, recently Microsoft chief identity dude Kim Cameron went on the record pointing out the incredibly obvious point (this isn’t a slam, he acknowledges that it is an obvious point) that de-anonymizing this data would be child’s play.  There are some irate folks, but on the whole there was a lot less static than I would have expected.  As an interesting side-note, how do you suppose folks would have reacted if this were Microsoft collecting the very same data and reselling it to whomever “for any purpose”?

Is there a double-standard?  Is it the case that Apple can spit on the privacy rights of customers and walk away without a scratch on their “teflon” public image.  We’ve seen them do this with security: do less than the competition, but market harder about doing more.  Now it’s privacy too, apparently.