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Tim Cook: Silicon Valley’s most successful companies are selling you out

Apple CEO Tim Cook has made no secret of his disdain for online services that ask you to trade highly personal data for convenience — a trade that describes most big advertising-supported technology companies. But last night, in some of his strongest comments to date, Cook said the erosion of privacy represents a threat to the American way of life. Cook spoke at a dinner in Washington, DC, hosted by the Electronic Privacy Information Center, which honored him as a “champion of freedom” for his leadership at Apple.

“Our privacy is being attacked on multiple fronts,” Cook said in a speech that he delivered remotely, according to EPIC. “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.”

Apple boss Tim Cook hits out at Facebook and Google

Apple chief Tim Cook has made a thinly veiled attack on Facebook and Google for “gobbling up” users’ personal data.

In a speech, he said people should not have to “make trade-offs between privacy and security”.

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

Rights activists Privacy International told the BBC it had some scepticism about Mr Cook’s comments.

“It is encouraging to see Apple making the claim that they collect less information on us than their competitors,” Privacy International’s technologist Dr Richard Tynan said.

“However, we have yet to see verifiable evidence of the implementation of these claims with regard to their hardware, firmware, software or online services.

“It is crucial that our devices do not betray us.”

Sharing Data, but Not Happily

Should consumers be able to control how companies collect and use their personal data?

At a dinner honoring privacy advocates this week in Washington, Timothy D. Cook, the chief executive of Apple, gave a speech in which he endorsed this simple idea. Yet his argument leveled a direct challenge to the premise behind much of the Internet industry — the proposition that people blithely cede their digital bread crumbs to companies in exchange for free or reduced-priced services subsidized by advertising.

“You might like these so-called free services,” Mr. Cook said during the event held by EPIC, a nonprofit research center. “But we don’t think they’re worth having your email or your search history or now even your family photos data-mined and sold off for God knows what advertising purpose.”

Apple And Google Just Attended A Confidential Spy Summit In A Remote English Mansion

At an 18th-century mansion in England’s countryside last week, current and former spy chiefs from seven countries faced off with representatives from tech giants Apple and Google to discuss government surveillance in the aftermath of Edward Snowden’s leaks.

The three-day conference, which took place behind closed doors and under strict rules about confidentiality, was aimed at debating the line between privacy and security.

The cookie is dead. Here’s how Facebook, Google, and Apple are tracking you now

The lifespan of the tracking cookie is about to expire. With the rapid emergence of mobile devices, the big three — Facebook, Google, and Apple — have turned to new and more potent methods for advertisers to keep track of you across multiple devices.

Despite Apple’s Privacy Pledge, Cops Can Still Pull Data Off a Locked iPhone

A reminder to iPhone owners cheering Apple’s latest privacy win: Just because Apple will no longer help police to turn your smartphone inside out doesn’t mean it can prevent the cops from vivisecting the device on their own. On Wednesday evening Apple made news with a strongly-worded statement about how it protects users’ data from…

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