Apple's Tim Cook's Heads to Brussels to talk about privacy – POLITICO

When Tim Cook shows up in Brussels on Wednesday, the internship will be set to return to Europe two years after the Apple CEO clashed with Margrethe Vestager, the EU's antitrust czar, in the Belgian capital.

Back then, the iPhone maker was the latest tech bad boy after allegedly failing to pay € 13.1 trillion in taxes due to unfair treatment by the Irish government. Now, it's Google and Facebook that are squarely in Europe's regulatory sights – while Cook can all Apple's long-standing concern for privacy as it's badge of honor that it sets apart its company, and in some ways above, other Silicon Valley giants.

As cook gives a keynote speech to many of the world's data protection regulators gathered in Brussels – a town in the forefront of the world's regulation of technology. to prepared remarks seen by POLITICO.

"Cook will tell the Brussels Wednesday hearing." "We are optimistic about technology's awesome potential for good. But we know it will not happen on its own. "

EU-tax overdrive

And yet, there's a problem in the background of Cook's privacy message, which is aligned with Apple's focus on selling hardware and not on harvesting people's digital information. The company's tax woes in Europe have not gone away.

Both Apple and Dublin are appealing the 2016 multibillion-euro tax ruling, and the company refutes allegations that it shirks its obligations, claiming it's the world's largest corporate taxpayer. Still, the European Union is not slowing down, with many of Silicon Valley's biggest names coming out of a bigger slice of their revenue generated inside the 28-member bloc.

Such digital policymaking – seen by its proponents as necessary to rein in tech's perceived excesses, or a protectionist grab by its opponents to support Europe's legacy industries – has made Brussels, more than Washington, the center of the battle over who gets it rules of the road for the global digital economy.

With its stance towards privacy and tax, Apple finds itself at the center of this tussle, one that has pitted many of the Silicon Valley's tech giants, let alone national lawmakers, promoting competition across the digital world.

Focus on privacy

Cook's strategy to focus on privacy is a practical one. Unlike Facebook and Google, which have recently been hit by scandals over how they've handled people's lives, Apple has gone down a lot with the recent so-called techlash.

The iPhone maker is one of the most popular manufacturers of smartphones and laptops, and has not fallen into the same privacy-related traps that have engulfed others. Facebook: http://www.youtube.com/watch

European Commissioner for Competition Margrethe Vestager | Emmanuel Dunand / AFP via Getty Images

For Apple, whose high-priced gadgets made the Cupertino, California-based company the world's most valuable firm, a strong stance on data protection selling point.

"Said Giovanni Buttarelli," the European Data Protection Supervisor, who first puts Cook last year in Milan and invites him to speak in Brussels this week. "He will surprise others in the debate around digital ethics."

Play down tax

Cook is likely to take a lapse of honor among global data protection officials who have gathered in Brussels this week.

But the uncomfortable question about how much tax Apple is going to be around – especially in the United States.

In the name of the state-aid tax charge against Apple's activities in Ireland, Vestager, Europe's competition czar, accused the company of paying less than a 1 percent corporate tax rate on its European profits in 2014, allegations that Apple vehemently denies. (The company claims its effective global tax rate over the last 10 years is 26 percent).

"A digital tax is coming, like it or not. Fighting it is like trying to keep back the tide " – James Stewart, Adjunct Associate Professor of Finance at Trinity College, Dublin

One of Europe's highest courts will now decide who's right. Hearings are expected to begin sometime next year.

After Washington revamped the U.S. tax code earlier this year, Apple has repatriated nearly $ 300 billion in cash held overseas to the United States, which has paid $ 38 billion. Apple says that it's all about the value of its products in the US, so it should pay tax, and not in other countries.

Such thinking has not gone so far as to make it easier for the local government to operate more efficiently and more easily than in the past.

Now, European policymakers are finishing up new digital tax proposals that would charge tech companies to levy of 3 percent on digital revenues generated within the 28-member block.

Apple has largely escaped the "techlash" that other Silicon Valley heavyweights have suffered | Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

The plans, which still need to be unanimously approved by the United States, will probably be criticized by U.S. officials, who claims it would be harmless transatlantic trade just as tensions between Washington and Brussels.

Yet with EU officials hoping to reach agreement on the end of the year, the specter of tax hangs heavy on Brussels – just as Cook arrives to champion Apple's privacy record.

"A digital tax is coming, like it or not," said James Stewart, an adjunct associate professor of finance at Trinity College, Dublin. "Fighting it is like trying to keep back the tide."

Mark Scott is chief technology correspondent at POLITICO.