Google Ads, Apple Ads, while Purism Adds
Todd Weaver
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Latest posts by Todd Weaver (see all)
- Hardware Encrypted COMSEC Bundle by Purism - April 29, 2024
- Purism Differentiator Series, Part 14: Surveillance Capitalism - April 23, 2024
- Purism Differentiator Series, Part 13: Modularity & Right to Repair - April 23, 2024
Google has long abused digital rights through its tracking, privacy invasion, and ads business. Apple—while inaccurately claiming they care about privacy—has seen significant growth in its own ads business. Most recently this was highlighted how Apple utilizes anti-competitive language to promote their own ads business over third parties.
Apple uses a loophole in the ATT (App Tracking Transparency) guidelines to exempt itself from behavioral tracking rules, because it gets the data from itself instead of third parties:
Apple uses the behavioral data gleaned from users within apps published to the App Store to target the ads served by its ad platform. The vast majority of the apps published to the App Store are not developed by Apple. But the in-app purchase and subscription events that are emitted from those apps are considered first-party to Apple, ostensibly, because Apple operates iTunes, which processes payments for apps (a user makes a purchase in an app but must finalize the purchase using iTunes). Apple is able to exempt itself from ATT because Apple controls the payments processor that emits the data used to target its ads, and therefore none of that data is considered third-party to Apple. — Eric Benjamin Seufert (mobiledevmemo)
Apple is pushing out competition—in the name of privacy—so they can extract more cash from their customers by invading privacy. It is no coincidence that when Apple started enforcing ATT, its own ad business grew. As reported in The Verge:
ATT gives users the option of disabling the tracking tools advertisers use to display targeted ads. It may have contributed to the overall growth of Apple’s advertising sector, as it has left businesses scrambling to reconsider their advertising strategies. According to data that Insider obtained from research firm Omdia, Apple’s advertising business grew 238 percent to $3.7 billion in 2021.
What customers desire is not met by the products from Apple nor Google. What customers desire is something Purism—as a Social Purpose Corporation—reinvests in with every sale and every subscription. Purism also enumerates this in our Digital Bill of Rights. The right to change providers, the right to protect personal data, the right to verify, the right not to be tracked, and the right to access; are all critical rights to having a freer digital life.
Purism does not have an ads business, and we believe in ethical advertising and ethical marketing. Purism overall desires to iterate its products to make them more convenient while having its users and customers remain in full control of their digital life.
Purism adds more features that advance this future into all our products. From the Librem 14 laptop running PureOS to the Librem 5 USA phone running that same PureOS. We also have a prepaid cellular service, Librem AweSIM that protects your personal device data to protect you from targeted tracking. We do not sell or expose your data to third parties.
We are reinvesting millions in creating products, software, and services that respect people.
Purism Products and Availability Chart
| Model | Status | Lead Time | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Librem Key (Made in USA) | In Stock ($59+) | 10 business days | |
 | Librem 5 | In Stock ($699+) 3GB/32GB | 10 business days | |
| Librem 5 COMSEC Bundle | In Stock ($1299+) Qty 2; 3GB/32GB | 10 business days | |
| Liberty Phone (Made in USA Electronics) | Backorder ($1,999+) 4GB/128GB | Estimated fulfillment February | |
| Librem 5 + SIMple (3 GB Data) | In Stock ($99/mo) | 10 business days | |
| Librem 5 + SIMple Plus (5 GB Data) | In Stock ($129/mo) | 10 business days | |
| Librem 5 + AweSIM (Unlimited Data) | In Stock ($169/mo) | 10 business days | |
 | Librem 11 | In Stock ($999+) 8GB/1TB | 10 business days | |
 | Librem 14 | Backorder ($1,370+) | Estimated fulfillment December | |
 | Librem Mini | Backorder ($799+) | 10 business days | |
 | Librem Server | In Stock ($2,999+) | 45 business days |
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