Tim Cook condemns Facebook’s business model, saying valuing engagement over privacy leads to ‘polarization’ and ‘violence’



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Speaking today at the European CPDP Data Protection Conference, Tim Cook delivered the keynote address with his keynote address entitled “A Path to Empowering User Choice and Building User Confidence in advertising ”. Cook has covered Apple’s concerns about privacy and security in the tech industry, the hope it sees change coming, what it is doing to protect privacy, its deep concerns and its consequences with the Facebook business model, and much more.

Tim Cook spoke of a variety of worrying issues Apple sees when it comes to privacy and security in the tech industry. He reiterated the fact that in many cases people are no longer customers but rather the product that companies sell to advertisers.

“As I said before, if we accept as normal and inevitable that everything in our lives can be aggregated and sold, we lose so much more than data, we lose the freedom to be human. And yet it is a hopeful new season, a time of reflection and reform. “

Cook hailed the GDPR for being the most concrete advancement in consumer privacy and security and said it was time for the United States and the rest of the world to pass similar legislation.

Together, we must send a universal and humanistic response to those who claim users’ right to private information about what should not and will not be tolerated.

Cook argued that advertising has thrived for decades without invading privacy. And in-depth recent Apple privacy features like privacy nutrition labels and the upcoming iOS 14 ad tracking transparency feature.

While Cook didn’t call Facebook by name, he condemned its business model that all engagement is good engagement and capturing as much user data as possible.

If a business is built on deceptive users, on data mining, on choices that aren’t choices at all, it doesn’t deserve our praise, it deserves reform.

Going further, he said:

Too many people still ask the question, “How much can we get by?” when they should ask themselves “what are the consequences?”

Cook believes that the end result of this approach to technology is the polarization of society, loss of trust, and violence.

The tension between Apple and Facebook has grown steadily in recent months, and even more since yesterday. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said during the company’s earnings call: “Apple has a lot of incentive to use its dominant position on the platform to interfere with the operation of our apps and other apps, this which they do regularly to prefer theirs. This is impacting the growth of millions of businesses around the world, including with the upcoming changes to iOS14, many small businesses will no longer be able to reach their customers with targeted ads. “

He also said that Facebook increasingly sees “Apple as one of our biggest competitors”. And this morning we learned that Facebook may be preparing an antitrust lawsuit against Apple over the new ad tracking transparency in iOS 14. However, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and many others have already sided with Apple. Apple on this.

Working to contrast the approach of Facebook and others, Cook explained what Apple considers ethical technology:

At Apple, we made our choice a long time ago. We believe that ethical technology is technology that works for you. It’s the technology that helps you sleep, not keep you awake. It tells you when you’ve had enough, it gives you room to create, draw, write or learn, not refresh once more. It’s a technology that can slip into the background when you’re hiking or going for a swim, but it’s there to alert you when your heart rate increases or help you when you’ve had a bad fall. And with all of that, always is privacy and security above all else, because no one needs to give up their users’ rights to deliver a great product.

Check out Cook’s full speech below (-41: 00 minute marker):

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