Tim Cook condemns Facebook’s business model at the Data Protection Conference

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Teknofilo Image 007 1 Scaled.jpg
Teknofilo Image 007 1 Scaled.jpg

At the EU Data Protection Conference, Tim Cook delivered a speech under the title “A way to empower user choice and boost their confidence in advertising.” Tim Cook outlined a number of troubling issues that Apple sees when it comes to privacy and security in the tech industry. He reiterated that, in many cases, people are no longer the users but the product that companies sell to advertisers. As I have said before, if we accept as normal and inevitable that everything in our lives can be added and sold, we lose much more than data, we lose the freedom to be human. And yet this is a hopeful new season, a time of reflection and reform. Cook praised European privacy law, GDPR, as the most concrete advance in consumer privacy and safety, and said it is time for the United States and the rest of the world to pass similar legislation. Cook noted that advertising thrived for decades without invading personal privacy. And he detailed Apple’s recent privacy features such as privacy labels and the upcoming iOS 14 ad tracking transparency feature. Cook didn’t specifically name Facebook, but condemned its business model according to which any user interaction it’s a good interaction and you should capture as much user data as possible. If a business is based on deceiving users, on data exploitation, on options that are not options at all, it does not deserve our praise, it deserves a reform. Speaking further on this point, he said: Too many keep asking themselves “how much can we get?” when they should ask themselves “what are the consequences?” Cook believes that the end result of this approach to technology is polarization in society, loss of trust, and violence. Cook also shared what Apple considers ethical technology: At Apple, we made our decision a long time ago. We believe that ethical technology is technology that works for you. It is a technology that helps you sleep, it does not keep you awake. It tells you when you’ve had enough, it gives you space to create, or draw, or write or learn, not to refresh once more. It’s a technology that can take a backseat when you’re hiking or swimming, but it’s there to alert you when your heart rate shoots up or to help you when you’ve had a bad fall. And with all this, privacy and security always come first, because no one has to give up the rights of their users to offer a great product.

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Following Cook’s intervention, Jane Horvath, the company’s vice president of global privacy, also participated in a panel discussion. Horvath explained during the discussion that “we are really at a tipping point” when it comes to user privacy. He questioned that users should “follow the current rule, which implies a commitment to privacy, providing unlimited personal data to enjoy free services.” Apple considers this to be a “false dichotomy.” Horvath went on to explain Apple’s app tracking transparency functionality, saying the sole purpose is to give users the option of “whether or not they want to be tracked.” All we’re doing with our Application Tracking Transparency, or ATT, framework is giving users a choice; ask individuals if they want to be tracked or not. Think about it like this: Isn’t it strange that some people don’t want users to be able to choose whether or not to be tracked with clear and precise language? This is very important. Developers should not attempt to take steps to ignore user space if the user asked not to be tracked. Horvath also explained that the new app tracking transparency policy, which goes into effect this spring, applies equally to all developers, including Apple. “Apple doesn’t know which ads were served to each individual user,” Horvath explained. Lastly, Horvath was asked why Apple doesn’t make DuckDuckGo the default search engine on iOS, rather than Google. He explained that although Google is the default, users can switch to DuckDuckGo or other solutions: Right now, Google is the most popular search engine. We support Google, but we also have built-in support for DuckDuckGo, and we recently released support for Ecosia as well.

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