privacy is human rights and Apple does not want your data
If you saw the keynote at Apple’s WWDC developer conference yesterday, you know that Apple is working to aggressively counter the collection of user data online . Cookies, fingerprinting, it all has to be over. It is the big difference between Apple and competitors like Google, Facebook and Amazon: they do not have your data. They do not want your data, says Cook both against NPR and CNN .
Apple’s business model revolves around selling devices. You could say that this is the reason that Apple stuff is so mercilessly expensive compared to the competition, but now it is becoming increasingly clear that it also has a bright side: the costs for your device are not printed because money is earned from your data after purchase. The last couple of years you see that aspect of Apple’s model also increasingly come forward. “You are not the product” has become almost an Apple slogan and Cook seems to be behind it for a large part.
He once called privacy a fundamental human right and also speaks out against the model of Facebook and Google . He is for self-regulation of companies, but immediately says that this does not work for online privacy. How should you regulate that? He does not have an answer to that either, but he may well take steps from it.
No Facebook data at all
The interview does not surprisingly show that Apple did not use the data they received from Facebook as a hardware maker . It was never asked for and nothing was done with it, says Cook. The integration with Facebook was meant to make it easier for users to share things, nothing more. So if some sort of misuse of these data will come up (doubtful) then Apple will not be mentioned.
According to Cook, the whole online privacy situation has got completely out of hand, and he is especially concerned about the people who do not get it all that way. “I think most people have no idea who follows them, how often that happens and how a lot of detailed data is stored about them.” It’s not that an Apple product can protect you against that, but as long as the company from Cupertino is working hard for your privacy online and in their own system you will at least get less price than on other platforms.