Tell HN: Installing Cursor on iOS irreversibly changes your privacy settings
188 pointsby zkldi4 hours ago13 comments
  • soared4 hours ago
    That support quote is from an LLM. If you have any escalation paths (twitter, or this thread lol) there may still be a way to change it back.
    • nikanj2 hours ago
      Hacker News front page remains the one true support channel for all larger tech companies. The official channels stonewall you, but HN reaches people who can actually help
  • jmuguy3 hours ago
    The mobile app is kind of pointless anyway, imo. It cannot start an agent session on your computer, it can only be "handed off" an existing session from your computer. I don't use Cloud Agents, because for some reason they can't connect to our Linear instance. So I was only interested in using the mobile app as a proxy for my home system.
    • LatticeAnimal3 hours ago
      It is surprising that they went this route instead of the Claude-code route. The cloud agents are significantly more limiting.
  • conartist64 hours ago
    That's about the level of respect the tech industry has for users
  • sbmsr3 hours ago
    Wow - same happened to me earlier today and was bummed. Glad to see a public place to flag this.
  • matheusmoreiraan hour ago
    > I honestly don't understand how it's legal

    The legality is irrelevant since as consumers we don't have the time or the money to sue them for it. And even if one of us somehow do have both, we probably agreed to binding arbitration with the firm they pay anyway.

  • boudra2 hours ago
    For folks are looking for an open source alternative that respects your privacy, see Paseo (disclaimer: I am the maintainer)
  • jklm4 hours ago
    Happened to me too, incredibly dark pattern
  • HeyMeco4 hours ago
    Yeah fell into the same trap. Super annoying
  • cmdrmac4 hours ago
    This bait-and-switch with privacy is what annoys me. I get that if the software was completely free, you are the product. But if I'm paying, why can I not have a privacy policy that actually benefits me - the user?
    • matheusmoreiraan hour ago
      Your payment is just a signal that you've got disposable income. You're paying to make yourself an even more valuable product for them to sell.
    • klibertp3 hours ago
      You're probably not paying nearly enough? IDK, but pricing in tech is stretched on both ends (either way too cheap, or incredibly expensive) so much that it's hard to say anything for sure just because one is a "paying customer".
      • throw12345678913 hours ago
        > You're probably not paying nearly enough?

        What are the real prices then? What is the “privacy price”?

      • sunaookamian hour ago
        Did LLM companies pay everyone for the code and text they stole?
        • matheusmoreiraan hour ago
          No, they just reached some absurd token settlements that made a mockery of all other copyright enforcement victims.

          One would think dozens of SWAT officers would rappel down helicopters and storm the mansions of these big tech CEOs in order to bring them out in cuffs and serve zillion dollar fines on behalf of the so called rights holders. Kim Dotcom got destroyed while AI companies got a slap on the wrist.

      • cmdrmac2 hours ago
        Fair point. I'd add on that the company should explicitly spell out strong privacy as a feature then and charge more. Saying that "we won't use your data for training", but then not really meaning it is a bit disingenuous. How I interpret that statement may not necessarily align with the company (i.e., what kind of training?).
  • LoganDark4 hours ago
    Similarly, the Claude app for iOS tries to force you through a mandatory onboarding where you're required to set your account name among other things. I've never needed this to use the CLI or the web app so I have no idea why they think they need it on iOS. There's seemingly no way to bypass this, so on iOS I've had to use Claude in Safari. Ridiculous.
  • sleepybrett4 hours ago
    surprise! the ai companies that stole every conceivable copywritten work to train their models doesn't want you to be able to have any privacy either.
    • doublescoop2 hours ago
      But they sure seem awfully worried about other companies distilling their models. The irony is rich.
    • dbalatero3 hours ago
      I suspect that while they prefer you to give up all your data, what's even more likely is they are moving fast and breaking things at a rate unseen before, and not enough conversation is happening in design phases where someone can flag that "Hey if you add this new prompt it might break an important user contract you forgot about."

      In either case annoying still.

      • sleepybrett3 hours ago
        just another line in the context. 'Make sure the customers have at least the same level of privacy protection that they currently have.'
  • Mona1an hour ago
    [dead]
  • rekttrader3 hours ago
    Elon’s invisible hand strikes again.
    • MetaWhirledPeas2 hours ago
      The company was acquired days ago. You think this was implemented since then?