The online activist organization Care2 is hosting a petition on its website asking Apple to remove spyware from the new Yosemite operating system. The petition is one of many on the Care2 site, which dubs itself as “a community of 25 million standing together for good. People are making world-changing impact with Care2, starting petitions and supporting each other’s campaigns to help individuals, animals and the environment.”
The petition states:
Apple's latest operating system, Mac OS X Yosemite (10.10) contains default spyware settings that send all search terms and location information to Apple, Microsoft and other third parties each time a user starts typing in Spotlight to open an application or search for a file.
Users can disable these spyware settings through changing them in System Preferences, but many users, particularly the elderly and less tech-savvy, don't know to do that.
Older operating systems respected user privacy by default. Tracking all search terms and location information is creepy and unnecessary considering Apple's successful track record. Please sign the petition to urge Apple to be kind to customers and remove default spyware settings from their new OS.
To view the petition visit the Care2
website.