Unless they feel their public stance on privacy is responsible for a non-trivial portion of their current revenue.
They've never seriously compromised their privacy stance that I've seen, with the arguable exception of their unfortunate position in China. This would be a big step off an uncertain cliff, and their CEO has a personal history that lends credence to his argument that privacy matters.
That's their PR position, but I don't see them taking privacy particularly seriously in reality. They tolerated predatory behavior from darling apps like Facebook for ages.
they take privacy extremely seriously, by trying to reduce the amount of data they even have that can get subpoenaed (no logs, no accounts, accept payment by cash) and appear to have not yet fucked up.
Whether it's because of their business model is an important question though, because it may tell us if we this has a good chance of being genuine and whether we can expect this to last. If it's in their financial interest to protect users' privacy, then I'm much more inclined to believe that they are actually trying to do that.
If they right now appear to care about privacy, but it's for some other reason, I'd expect financial motives to eventually overrule that.
That sounds speculative. Why will they lose revenue eventually? Do you think 40 years from now they will be in a worse position than today? After all, they are today in a better position than 40 years ago. Perhaps a privacy-focused company will actually perform better in a society obsessed with privacy, and eventually, their competitors who don't share these perspectives will be the ones that lose revenue.
Given how they have been always marketing on the privacy aspect, and this exception they made for themselves has been found out and shown to be bad for privacy, I'm not surprised.
They aren't exactly clear on that, though they seem to imply they are looking for other revenue streams:
> As a heads up, in the future we may partner with like-minded companies, but any sponsorships will not involve the sharing of your data.
It is easy to be cynical about statements regarding the protection privacy these days since many of claims are so distorted that they should be treated as outright lies. On the other hand, there are people behind every business and it is possible those people have become uncomfortable with what they are doing. They may be willing to make some compromises until they find a solution which fits their values. Alas, the problem lays in figuring out whether the latter is true.
Going purely by target markets, I don't see how being privacy-focused would benefit them. The vocal minority that actually really cares about this is pretty small so it's not like that would net them any kind of real income.
Violating privacy is their business model. As long as it is legal it would be stupid for them to change it.
As a former French banker (now standup comedian) once said: "Hoping to regulate companies by asking nicely is like going to the prostitutes with a flower bouquet"
So they'd defend the privacy as long as it doesn't require any serious effort from them - like denouncing Zuckerberg - but the moment the interests of their business and their users contradict, they'd throw the users under the bus. Understandable position, probably, but not exactly the one that should be a source of pride.
It can be both true that they have potential privacy problems with a product, and that they have given up dozens of billions in potential revenue due to privacy concerns.
Do you really think they give a damn about privacy? If they care so much about privacy, wouldn’t they also be proclaiming how their website doesn’t track you and gobble identifying data? Or is it they are just hiding behind that argument because it sounds noble and their real concern is a business one?
Also, how secure do you think the state systems are that provide those ID’s?
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