They can insist that if they are in the phone rental business and the ownership of the phone on their balance sheet, not if they're in the phone sales business. If you sell a product, it's pretty much illegal to control what people can and can't do with it. They can still control usage of iCloud which is a service they're renting out.
Of course they don't care about CASM to switch their business model to do this legally... And their valuation will crash if their balance sheet expands so much and management would be fired.
Of course you can have terms of use for things you sell, I don't know why you would think otherwise.
In this case it IS linked to iCloud though, as you probably know. Images are only scanned on their way to iCloud, and they won't be scanned if you don't use iCloud.
I don't think anyone who is arguing against this capability, myself included, actually believes that it will only ever be used on photos destined for iCloud, especially if state authorities start pressuring Apple to start scanning everything.
That's because people don't understand how technology works.
They think this is some kind of new system that gives Apple new access to things. It's not. They access they have here is nothing compared to what they have always had.
They can and do scan all your messages and photos already, locally, for features such as photo classification and making reminders from emails.
Apple could spy on anything they want, without this system. And this system is an incredibly impractical way to spy on people.
It's also pretty obvious that they wouldn't tell us if they were planning to spy on us, they would just do it.
In short: I have no idea if Apple spies on us, but I can say for certain that they will not use this system for it.
Terms of use are totally different - they allow you to sue a person if they use it againt the terms, and your ability to sue based on them is going to be very limited. Putting in the TOE of a car: " you are not allowed to drive kids in it" will not be enforceable.
In this case the company retains direct control over your property, and changed what it does after you bought it and paid for it.
I am not american, and I dont understand this obsession of American companies making of retaining control of items they already don't down, because they sold them.
I think having these for-profit busybodies butting in how you can live your life is a great threat to invidividual liberty.
You know how posting nudes gets you banned from social media, or gets your google account banned and you loose access to all your files on Drive?
The same will happen with physical devices that you bought - a car, an electric bike, a smart coffee machine. Imagine a car detecting you are smoking dope, or taking an issue with your trip to the abortion clinic.
You think it's not gonna happen, its too absurd? I just had to sign a 42 page lisence agreement to ride a bike.
Nothing in the new Apple scanner relates to what you are talking about. There is a absolutely no limitation on storing and transmitting porn and other types of nude material, as long as it’s legal.
You can even store copyrighted porn, they won’t try and stop you.
If a car could detect if the driver was smoking dope that would be excellent. I don’t think you have the right to drive around blunted.
Of course they don't care about CASM to switch their business model to do this legally... And their valuation will crash if their balance sheet expands so much and management would be fired.