Comment by jmb99
25 days ago
Settings -> Spotlight -> Turn off everything you don't want. The first few times you open it it even tells you this.
Admittedly I haven't confirmed that this results in no API calls in the latest few macOS releases but it definitely used to stop them, at least a few years ago.
Opt-out privacy isn't a policy an organization serious about Privacy - the sort Apple pretends to be - would adopt.
Doesn’t it come up with a notice underneath the box that you have to click ‘Continue’ on to see online results?
Does the notice make it any less of an opt-out?
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you realize this is very laborious. every time you install a new app - or sometimes when you update an app - you have to do it again.
also, search for "improve" in settings. I'll bet you didn't find "Help Apple Improve Search" in the results. Ironic on many levels.
More laborious than installing piholes and managing DNS?
It's intentionally more laborous, by design, to dark-pattern most users into allowing telemetry.
In my opinion (to answer your question): "yes."
Yes. DNS can be configured once and it's done, whereas having a setting that gets reset whenever an app gets (auto-)updated is treacherous.
There are a bunch of settings for each app, they default to on, and you h ave to navigate to all of them one by one to turn them off.
And of course, I'll bet all your data was mined before you turned things off.
does this seem user-friendly? seems deliberately hostile to me (though par for the course nowadays)
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