I get that you are trying to sow doubt, but consider:
>The memo, authored by a Google engineer who was asked to work on the project, disclosed that the search system, codenamed Dragonfly, would require users to log in to perform searches, track their location — and share the resulting history with a Chinese partner who would have “unilateral access” to the data.
We haven't discovered memos like this from Microsoft either, but we know Microsoft works with governments. AT&T installed backdoors for governments, and no memo was leaked.
Google is a much more leaky organization, with vocal employees, and not very good at internal compartmentalization, and that's why you know about these things. We used to consider a bug if an employee can't 'see everything' everyone else is working on.
Is lack of whistle blowers elsewhere a sign that there's no whistles to blow, or a sign that oppressive security and compartmentalized security at other firms makes it hard for the public to find out?
My point is, transparency is good, and that more secrecy doesn't buy you trust. That's why people value open source and used to pretty much rail against closed source HW on HN. Now we seem to be an in era where closed source and locked down DRM app stores that block side loading are accepted.
These are not Apple’s ethical lapses - they are the failure of an entire industry. An industry, it’s worth noting, that Apple has been extremely transparent about, and has worked to fix. Also worth noting that Apple’s suppliers have improved dramatically in recent years - something that can’t be said about most other manufacturers.
Imagine the outrage if Google stored user data in a datacenter run by a company controlled by the Chinese government.
Apple pulled an amazing PR coup in convincing us that they somehow respect privacy more than Google.
Not to mention the iCloud celebrity photo leak caused by not using 2FA to protect user data; only to prevent fraudulent credit card transactions. Maybe this is more a question of not being as skilled at cloud services than something deliberate, but it makes no difference to users whose data leaks.
>The memo, authored by a Google engineer who was asked to work on the project, disclosed that the search system, codenamed Dragonfly, would require users to log in to perform searches, track their location — and share the resulting history with a Chinese partner who would have “unilateral access” to the data.
https://theintercept.com/2018/09/21/google-suppresses-memo-r...
When you discover a memo like that for Apple, feel free to share it with us.