Apple has released a new iPhone commercial that resembles a mini-horror movie. The company targeted it at Android users to draw their attention to privacy issues.
The video, titled «Privacy on iPhone, Flock» («Privacy on iPhone, Flock»), shows people using Android-like smartphones against the backdrop of Björn Jason Lindh’s «Billathi Askara». They are monitored by cameras that turn into mechanical birds and fly around.
The atmosphere of the video resembles a horror movie. Mechanical birds-cameras are watching the owners of Android devices browsing the web. Even in the office, users are not safe from these annoying creatures — one of them crashes into a window.
These creatures occupy places where real birds usually sit: power lines, rooftops. Some of them look like bats and hang upside down with glowing red eyes. They represent third-party trackers that track Android users’ actions on websites and apps, collecting data for personalized advertising.
Apple emphasizes that the App Tracking Transparency feature on the iPhone allows users to choose whether to allow tracking on a per-app basis. If the iPhone owner refuses to be tracked, trackers cannot access certain identifiers necessary for this task.
At the climax of the video, a woman with an iPhone appears. When she presses the Safari icon, the mechanical camera birds explode. The same thing happens when other iPhone users open the browser. Apple’s message is clear: if you don’t want to be monitored while browsing the web, switch to an iPhone.
The commercial ends with the slogan: «Safari. The browser that is truly private».
Not only Apple cares about user privacy. Engineers at the University of Michigan developed a unique camera PrivacyLens, which prevents the collection and sharing of private photos and videos from smart home devices and robotic vacuum cleaners. PrivacyLens combines a regular video camera with a thermal imager to detect people by body temperature.
In the United States, a woman is suing Microsoft and two major sex toy retailers in the United States. She claims that their websites track users without their consent, despite promises not to do so.
Source: Phonearena
Spelling error report
The following text will be sent to our editors: