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Steve Jobs on Privacy (2010)

Kenneth Friedman · 8.4K views · 2020-12-18 · 0:34

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Overview

A one-minute clip of Steve Jobs in 2010 saying companies should ask users before tracking them, and that people's personal data is like their diary.

On Hacker News

HN commenters cite it to contrast Apple's stated privacy stance with its later practices or to show Jobs's view on user control of data.

Discussed on HN; no positive recommendation is recorded in this export · HN mentions 2022–2025

Topics

Privacy, surveillance & cybercrimeTech pioneers & interviews
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steve jobsprivacyappletrackinguser data

What people said

neom · 2025-03 · Reference

I think Steve truly believed at his core, very simply: your laptop is your diary, and they have a responsibility to that. I don't think Tim would be CEO if he didn't believe what Steve did. It's so weird, but I really miss Steve. [VIDEO]

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al_borland · 2024-06 · Reference

Thank you for mentioning this. I thought I was going crazy, because I heard this too, but kept seeing comment after comment on other sites asking if a person could choose not to use OpenAI, or that it was happening magically in the background. The way I heard it, the user was in control. I think this goes back to what Steve said in 2010. [VIDEO] And yes, while the data might not be linked to the user and striped of sensitive data, I could see people not wanting something very personal things to go to OpenAI, even if there should be no link. For example, I wouldn’t want any of my pictures going to OpenAI unless I specifically say it is OK for a given image.

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nojito · 2022-08 · Reference

I’m surprised that people still call Apples stance a “story” All they are saying is that tracking is ok as long as you just ask the end user first. Here’s Steve Jobs in 2010 [VIDEO] Are they perfect? No. But at least they haven’t changed their stance in 12 years unlike Google et al.

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Sources

Video by Kenneth Friedman, played through YouTube.

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