We develop software for Windows and Macs. On the Mac the address book files are certainly available to read, and also available through an API. We don't read these files, we don't upload them, and we don't analyze them. We don't touch them at all. We also don't touch anything else on our customer's system that they wouldn't normally be expecting, and we don't send any information back to our server without the user explicitly saying it's OK when it happens.
Here's one reason why we don't scan people's system for interesting private files and secretly upload it for our economic benefit:
1. It violates the user's trust, expectations and privacy.
Here's a second reason:
2. It is a criminal act to do so.
I don't buy these discussions about how it is Apple's fault. It's not. It's illegal to steal private data like this. The companies doing this should be raided and shut down by the FBI immediately. All of them. Whether or not they issued a tearful apology.
Here's one reason why we don't scan people's system for interesting private files and secretly upload it for our economic benefit:
1. It violates the user's trust, expectations and privacy.
Here's a second reason:
2. It is a criminal act to do so.
I don't buy these discussions about how it is Apple's fault. It's not. It's illegal to steal private data like this. The companies doing this should be raided and shut down by the FBI immediately. All of them. Whether or not they issued a tearful apology.