They do collect it, and use it for their own marketing platform

Right

but they don’t sell/trade it

Then what are they collecting it for? To line their servers? It’s being used to train services, and those services that have ads have those ads targeted using the data collected in the first sentence I quoted.

In fact they DO anonymise the data they collect

So does google. Again, to the broader thread audience replying to my original comment, what is the difference?

None of the major players literally sell your true name and address. All mask the data, and then do stuff with it like create trends to know which ads to display to “users that search for tiktok on the app store/play store”

Nope, Apple sells your data just as much as Google does: https://www.insiderintelligence.com/content/apple-ad-revenues-skyrocket-amid-its-privacy-changes https://www.vox.com/recode/2022/12/22/23513061/apple-iphone-app-store-ads-privacy-antitrust#luMMel

While people noticed their new policies against 3rd party apps, that masked the fact that those policies carved out an exception for first party apps, meaning they collect (anonymous) data on you through Health, Journal, Music, etc. just like every other company. “Trusting them more” is simply a result of you and everyone else getting hit with their privacy ads recently.

Edit: “just like every other company” meant Google and Microsoft, i.e. the other big equivalent tech companies, my fault for not being specific.