Apple would never get into a mess like Facebook’s, CEO Tim Cook says.
Apple CEO says its customers are not commodities
Apple prides itself on its firm stance on privacy. It also doesn’t mind taking a few jabs at its fellow Silicon Valley giants.
In a televised interview with MSNBC and Recode on Wednesday morning, Apple CEO Tim Cook was asked how we would have responded if he was in the shoes of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who is reeling from the Cambridge Analytica fallout.
“I wouldn’t be in this situation,” said Cook.
Cook emphasized Apple’s position on privacy as a “human right” and “a civil liberty”.
“The truth is, we could make a ton of money if we monetized our customer — if our customer was our product,” said Cook. “We’ve elected not to do that.”
Cook also pushed back on the notion of regulating tech companies such as Facebook to better preserve customer data from improper collection and manipulation, believing the “best regulation is no regulation, is self-regulation.”
But he conceded that selfregulation may be a thing of the past after Facebook’s imbroglio with Cambridge Analytica, which improperly collected the data of 50 million Americans and used it for political campaigning during the 2016 presidential election.
“I think we’re beyond that here,” said Cook. “I do think it’s time that a set of people think deeply about what can be done.”
Cook was in Chicago on Wednesday following Apple’s special education-focused presentation at Lane Tech High School a day prior. At the event, Apple announced a new Apple Pencil-supported iPad at $299 for schools — the lowest price point for a newly introduced iPad and a slew of new and updated education apps to help students learn coding, music, photography and other disciplines.
Even at the event, Apple beat the privacy drum, saying the company cannot access internal data for its software app called Schoolwork, which allows teachers to assign students assignments and track their progress.
“It’s really important to us that you understand this data stays private,” said Apple’s vice president of marketing
Susan Prescott. “Privacy is integral to everything we do at Apple.”
Cook also expanded into other areas during the interview with MSNBC’s Chris Hayes and Recode’s Kara Swisher, which included thinly veiled remarks about Amazon’s
current hunt for a second new U.S. headquarters. Apple, too, is looking for another headquarters, but Cook said they were doing it without the city vs. city competition of Amazon’s search.
“We’re not doing a beauty contest kind of thing,” said Cook. “From our point of view, we did not want to create this contest because I think what comes out of that is you
wind up putting people through a ton of work. That is a case where you have a winner and a lot of losers, unfortunately. I don’t like that.”
Cook also delved into political issues, such as his personal support for reform to protect Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipients and his thoughts on creating jobs in the United States. Cook pushed back on the notion
that Apple products solely are created in China, adding iPhone screens, for example, are manufactured in Kentucky.
“We know that Apple could only have been created in the United States,” said Cook. “We love this country. We’re patriots. So we want to create as many jobs as we can in the US.”