Apple updates Apple Card's privacy policy to share more anonymized data with Goldman Sachs, to help some users secure or expand credit, allows opt out via email
and recommended — the Apple Card largely for its privacy practices, Apple changing its data policy now feels like a bait and switch. “Aggregate and anonymized” still mean my life is feeding Goldman Sachs. https://techcrunch.com/... Chris Brogan / @chrisbrogan : Apple users are the product - https://techcrunch.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
When Goldman Sachs revealed the Apple Card customer agreement in August 2019, the card was pitched as a privacy-first product — no selling data to third parties — even as sources said Goldman was approving applicants with low credit scores because Apple wanted maximum approval rates. This policy update is the underwriting side of that bargain catching up with the marketing: anonymized transaction data now flows to Goldman specifically so it can secure or expand some users' credit lines.
First-order effects
- Goldman Sachs gains a richer behavioral dataset for setting credit limits and approving expansions, directly serving the approve-as-many-users-as-possible mandate reported at launch.
- Cardholders are enrolled in the expanded data sharing by default; staying out requires an affirmative opt-out sent by email, not a settings toggle.
Second-order effects
- The move hands critics a concrete example against Apple's privacy differentiation from ad-driven rivals — reactions like Chris Brogan's 'users are the product' framing show the reputational cost lands on Apple, while Goldman absorbs the data itself.
- Every follow-on product built on the card's trust halo, from Apple Card Family to the savings account, inherits a harder trust question at signup.
Third-order effects
- Opt-out-by-default data sharing between consumer brands and their banking partners is becoming the quiet standard of tech-finance deals, shifting the real permission boundary from marketing copy to buried policy pages.
- If the partnership frictions later reported by former employees deepen, accumulated data-sharing arrangements become part of the negotiating leverage and unwind complexity between Apple and Goldman.
The trend: Consumer tech-finance partnerships are quietly trading privacy-first positioning for underwriting performance, with opt-out defaults replacing opt-in consent.