Where Is Apple VPN?

An open letter to Tim Cook

For the past few years now, like clockwork, I’ve sent the following letter to Tim Cook at Apple, Inc.

Dear Mr. Cook,

As you’re no doubt aware, ISPs can legally sell any information they want from our online activity and mobile app usage — financial information, medical information, our children’s information, social security numbers — even the contents of our emails.

They can even sell our geolocation data, tracking where we’ve been and when, and, by implication, who we’ve seen and what we’ve done.

It’s time for this to stop.

Apple has long stood for protecting personal privacy, and I’d now like to ask you to stand up and do it again.

ISP’s can track unencrypted personal information sent over HTTP, however they can’t track information sent using secure protocols like HTTPS.

That said, and despite our best efforts, not every website currently supports HTTPS, and ISP’s can still track connections to specific domains like plannedparenthood.org, webmd.com, off.org, political organizations, and other sites.

Does big business need to know if you’re pregnant? Depressed? Have cancer? A member of a specific religious or political organization? According to ISPs and…