Steve Jobs Is Right Again

Frame it.

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If 'security' was the buzzword of the first ten years of the New Millennium, then 'privacy' is most assuredly the buzzword of the next ten years.

And after watching clumsy Google trip over their own feet time and again, and after watching wily Facebook playing 'bait and switch' with their four hundred million, it's refreshing to see someone come out and define exactly what privacy is all about.

And that someone is Steve Jobs who nailed it on the head.



Here's the direct quote.

Privacy means people know what they're signing up for in plain English and repeatedly. That's what it means. I'm an optimist: I believe people are smart, and some people want to share more data than other people do. Ask 'em. Ask 'em every time. Make 'em tell you to stop asking them if they get tired of your asking them. Let them know precisely what you're going to do with their data.
 - Steven Paul Jobs

Take the quote, format it nicely, then frame it and hang it on your wall. That's the credo of privacy for the next ten years. That's what cloud computing and trusting cloud companies is all about. That is how you can and should judge the companies who want you to trust them with your data.

Ryan Tate and Gawker are trying to make a big thing out of that quote (taken from the All Things Digital conference a week ago) but that's a bit of a stretch. Apple are not going to be (nor should they be) blamed for the machinations of a dimwit AT&T webmeister.

Steve Jobs says he and his associates at Apple are a bit 'old fashioned' compared to their colleagues in Silicon Valley in their insistence on privacy. Let them be: it's what people want.