Why wouldn’t they? They can analyze it as much as they want even if it’s encrypted (by them), while not doing so would just open them up to to the legal ramifications of data leaks.
> not doing so would just open them up to to the legal ramifications of data leaks.
They can already protect themselves by using pseudonymous IDs, and by not storing SSN and full names on the same system/network as your browsing history.
I'm struggling to come up with a general example where an adversary would be prevented from accessing the data if they had already compromized the network, so to me, it's just obfuscation with extra steps. Maybe if an adversary, by some miracle, had a non-root shell in database server, but somehow did not have read-permission on the crypto store ???
Physical theft of drives is a valid argument, but even that is a weak one. The data center facilities are very secure.
End-to-end encryption doesn't secure anything if you don't control the keys. I'd believe they encrypt the data at rest, but I wouldn't ever dupe myself into believing that makes it safe. So... we're back around to square one. Apple will steamroll over your privacy (along with 10s of thousands of other freedom-loving Americans) without a second thought.
It could be worse, though. If you're a Chinese iCloud user, your data just gets uploaded right into state-owned servers: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208351
I want both, privacy and convenience of a Mac OS. I shouldn’t have to compromise.