Apple and Google Are at War Over Privacy (Premium)

Apple and Google are both terrible in their own ways. But while one has the upper hand when it comes to marketing privacy, that won't help it win this war.

As you may recall, Google CEO Sundar Pichai made a big push for privacy and trust during his Google I/O keynote address earlier this month. But on the eve of that address, Pichai also wrote an op-ed for The New York Times in a bid to reach a wider audience. It’s worth reading, and it hits on a topic I’ve raised repeatedly: While people probably believe that the notion of “trusting Google” is inherently ludicrous, most people, in fact, do trust Google. They don’t just use Google apps and services like Maps, Gmail, Photos, and Search. They rely on them.

But there’s a dark side to Google, of course, and we’ve all experienced it. You and your spouse, or a friend, or whomever, are discussing some random topic out loud, in private or in public, and that thing you’re discussing magically begins appearing in ads you view online or on your phone. Most people, having observed this phenomenon, remark on the creepiness of it. And then go right back to using the same Google apps and services they’ve always used without even once considering investigating what they can do to stem the invisible tracking in which Google engages to make this happen.

There’s a psychology to this behavior, a reason why we collectively do nothing to help ourselves when it comes to privacy. But that can wait for a later day: For now, let’s examine the interesting and passive-aggressive ways in which Google and Apple are engaging in a war of words. Without really addressing the other company while they argue.

(Microsoft used to do with Apple back when Steve Jobs had returned to the company and was turning that business around; the theory was that you never named the enemy because doing so would only give it the attention it wanted.)

The title of Pichai’s op-ed piece provides our first hint that Google’s new marketing of trust and privacy is really about Apple, and about stealing away Apple’s moral superiority: “Privacy Should Not Be a Luxury Good.”

“Privacy cannot be a luxury good offered only to people who can afford to buy premium products and services,” he writes. “Privacy must be equally available to everyone in the world.”

Those comments clearly allude to Apple. Less obviously, they vaguely address the different business models employed by the two companies.

That is, Apple is essentially marketing the fact that your purchase of expensive devices will provide you with Apple’s privacy protections. It’s like Mercedes or Volvo marketing the advanced safety features in their vehicles, features which are not yet available to the sweaty masses driving Fords, Toyotas, and Hyundais.

Google, meanwhile, understands that not everyone can afford an iPhone or the tsunami of services that Apple for which is now charging its audience. So, it offers a different model where its customers implicitly give up a bit...