Tim Cook emphasized Apple’s long-standing commitment to privacy in remarks given during EPIC’s Champions of Freedom event, TechCrunch reports. The Apple CEO took other companies — presumably Google and Facebook — to task for heavily relying on collecting user data for the success of their lucrative advertising model.
“I’m speaking to you from Silicon Valley, where some of the most prominent and successful companies have built their businesses by lulling their customers into complacency about their personal information,” Cook said. “They’re gobbling up everything they can learn about you and trying to monetize it.
We think that’s wrong. And it’s not the kind of company that Apple wants to be.”
Now that Apple is storing even more sensitive data relating to users’ health, homes and finances, Cook said he believes the user should be in full control of their information, not allowing it to be sold as a commodity in exchange for a free service.
