alt Hacker NewsI live in the UK and was having this exact discussion with someone recently - I'd actually prefer Apple to be the owners of my digital identity over the UK government who would happily throw you in jail for expressing support for Palestine Action.
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> throw you in jail for expressing support for Palestine Action.
For those unfamiliar, you are, of course, allowed to peacefully protest in support of Palestine in the UK.
Palestine Action is a specific group that was controversially labelled as a terrorist group after they broke onto a runway and spray painted military planes.
I understand the sentiment, but your government you can actually fix by voting.
If Apple (or another large international company) suffers from decreasing margins, gets a new CEO and decides to turn the data it sits on into money there is absolutely nothing you can do, and you might in fact still stay a "forced" customer because of network effects (=> just consider whatsapp being an important communication channel in many places worldwide).
I think this attitude in general is often harmful; if your government sucks, fix the government instead of making yourself dependent on some quasi-monopolist private company.
Your digital identity would then be under the jurisdiction of the US government, who (despite talking a big game) are arguably worse for that same sort of behaviour.
If anyone has to have this type of control, better it be a local national government that you can in at least some small way influence.
When I opened my first bank account the smart money would have been for AOL to own online identity.
The .name thread that is on the front page right now mentions specifically registering a domain that wasn’t managed by Verisign because they aren’t trustworthy. But now Verisign does own it and Verisign is doing Verisign things.
You trust Apple today. Will you trust them tomorrow? Will you trust whoever buys them, or at least their identity verification business?
I think this is a bit of a non sequitur. The government will still be able to throw you in prison in either scenario. They will also be able to compel disclosure of your records in either scenario. So the difference is really just that in the scenario where apple verifies your identity there's an additional actor in the mix over who you have zero influence. It seems strictly worse.