With pleasure. There is
this and
this.
Yes, a blogspot report based on speculation and opinion is highly evident that Apple is indeed selling your personal data and Google completely innocent. If you bothered to go to the source of the 2nd links article you will notice that Google is also mentioned alongside Apple for data collection. Plus take note go
Apple's terms and conditions paragraph 4. Data collection shouldn't be a big surprise to you then. And again
Google's privacy policy which as of this year governs all Google products, including Android, says the exact same thing. Both companies collect data and use it to improve their services. The data they have is non-identifying and if it weren't they would have to answer quite a few questions with concern to privacy laws.
Without data collection developers wouldn't be able to analyze trends and optimize services since they would essentially be in the dark. We live in an information age. Without information things would stagnate and we'd be sitting ducks picking our noses and wouldn't have decently performing apps and services that won't be able to use a database that keeps track of your most frequently used information like frequently visited locations search suggestions, frequently used commands on Siri and Google Voice. Now you may say, "Why not just store the data locally?". Well if your phone gets stolen, destroyed or is otherwise rendered useless the data is lost and you will need to start from scratch every time and be frustrated endlessly over and over again. "Well why not store it on a personal cloud service?", again, they would not have access without your consent. There are laws that govern the companies. On occasion someone finds a gap and then points it out placing companies under fire. Google with it's streetview service is one of the best most recent examples in terms of privacy since it has fought rigorous battles over the service in the last few years in multiple countries because it is stepping into a lot of gray areas which legislation is taking an active duty to keep up to date as cases enter the court.
In the end, wide sweeping statements without support doesn't really help anyone.
Oh yes almost forgot
Apple's initiative is either going push them to new heights or going to cost them dearly. Personally, I would still be way more comfortable with Google, especially with regards to their mapping programmes.
I agree with that. But knowing Apple's design philosophy it will be something quite interesting albeit not world changing. Simplistic, elegant and functional. What functionality will be available will probably be unveiled sometime this week during their Developers Conference.
