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Apple Boss Takes a Swipe at Facebook, Google

Jun 3, 2015  •  Post A Comment

In comments that are being called his strongest attack yet on Facebook and Google, Apple CEO Tim Cook told an audience in Washington, D.C., that Internet users should not have to “make tradeoffs between privacy and security,” BBC News reports.

“While not naming Facebook and Google explicitly, he attacked companies that ‘built their businesses by lulling their customers into complacency,'” the story reports.

Cook is quoted saying: “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.

“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.”

Cook was addressing the audience at the EPIC Champions of Freedom awards dinner, where he received a corporate leadership award from the research group the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

Among his comments, he reportedly said Apple “doesn’t want your data.”

But a rep for the rights group Privacy International indicated that he remained skeptical.

Said Dr. Richard Tynan, technologist for the group: “It is encouraging to see Apple making the claim that they collect less information on us than their competitors. However, we have yet to see verifiable evidence of the implementation of these claims with regard to their hardware, firmware, software or online services.”

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