Tim Cook speaks out on Cambridge Analytica debacle, calls for stricter consumer privacy sa...
At the China Development Forum this weekend, Apple CEO Tim Cook spoke about Facebook's misuse of customer data, and sounded the call for stricter rules across the board on what companies are allowed to do with harvested information.
First reported by Bloomberg on early Saturday morning, Cook was asked at a discussion about the Cambridge Analytica debacle, and if the use of consumer data should be dialed back as a result.
"I think that this certain situation is so dire and has become so large that probably some well-crafted regulation is necessary," said Cook. "The ability of anyone to know what you've been browsing about for years, who your contacts are, who their contacts are, things you like and dislike and every intimate detail of your life -- from my own point of view it shouldn't exist."
Cook noted that Apple had been aware of the possibility of misuse of consumer data for a long time.
"We've worried for a number of years that people in many countries were giving up data probably without knowing fully what they were doing and that these detailed profiles that were being built of them," added Cook. "That one day, something would occur and people would be incredibly offended by what had been done without them being aware of it. Unfortunately that prediction has come true more than once."
Cook has notably in the past obliquely referred to companies' use of consumer data, noting that if a product was free, then the consumer -- and all associated data -- was the product paying for the service.
The FTC is probing Facebook following the revelation that the UK-based Cambridge Analytica acquired the data of as many as 50 million Facebook users, reports Bloomberg, which may have been misused to influence a number of political events world-wide.
In a post on March 21, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg explained that Aleksandr Kogan, the researcher at the center of the scandal, had accessed data of 300,000 Facebook users with permission when he created a personality quiz back in 2013. In doing so, the users who took the poll gave up information on millions of connections without their permission with an academic account, and not a commercial one.
Kogan shared that harvested data with Cambridge Analytica, with some debate over whether or not Cambridge Analytica deleted the data even after promising Facebook that it had done so.
In the wake of the revelations, Facebook suspended Cambridge Analytica and parent company Strategic Communications Laboratories for violating the site's Terms of Service, specifically rules about the collection and retention of data.
Cook also spoke out in the wake of a series of hacks in 2014, and detailed Apple's stance on user data and privacy.
"Our business model is very straightforward: We sell great products. We don't build a profile based on your email content or web browsing habits to sell to advertisers. We don't 'monetize' the information you store on your iPhone or in iCloud. And we don't read your email or your messages to get information to market to you," Cook wrote in an open letter to customers. "Our software and services are designed to make our devices better. Plain and simple."
First reported by Bloomberg on early Saturday morning, Cook was asked at a discussion about the Cambridge Analytica debacle, and if the use of consumer data should be dialed back as a result.
"I think that this certain situation is so dire and has become so large that probably some well-crafted regulation is necessary," said Cook. "The ability of anyone to know what you've been browsing about for years, who your contacts are, who their contacts are, things you like and dislike and every intimate detail of your life -- from my own point of view it shouldn't exist."
Cook noted that Apple had been aware of the possibility of misuse of consumer data for a long time.
"We've worried for a number of years that people in many countries were giving up data probably without knowing fully what they were doing and that these detailed profiles that were being built of them," added Cook. "That one day, something would occur and people would be incredibly offended by what had been done without them being aware of it. Unfortunately that prediction has come true more than once."
Cook has notably in the past obliquely referred to companies' use of consumer data, noting that if a product was free, then the consumer -- and all associated data -- was the product paying for the service.
The FTC is probing Facebook following the revelation that the UK-based Cambridge Analytica acquired the data of as many as 50 million Facebook users, reports Bloomberg, which may have been misused to influence a number of political events world-wide.
In a post on March 21, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg explained that Aleksandr Kogan, the researcher at the center of the scandal, had accessed data of 300,000 Facebook users with permission when he created a personality quiz back in 2013. In doing so, the users who took the poll gave up information on millions of connections without their permission with an academic account, and not a commercial one.
Kogan shared that harvested data with Cambridge Analytica, with some debate over whether or not Cambridge Analytica deleted the data even after promising Facebook that it had done so.
In the wake of the revelations, Facebook suspended Cambridge Analytica and parent company Strategic Communications Laboratories for violating the site's Terms of Service, specifically rules about the collection and retention of data.
Cook also spoke out in the wake of a series of hacks in 2014, and detailed Apple's stance on user data and privacy.
"Our business model is very straightforward: We sell great products. We don't build a profile based on your email content or web browsing habits to sell to advertisers. We don't 'monetize' the information you store on your iPhone or in iCloud. And we don't read your email or your messages to get information to market to you," Cook wrote in an open letter to customers. "Our software and services are designed to make our devices better. Plain and simple."
Comments
So, as a reminder, we didn't make this political, and neither will you. Read the commenting guidelines if you need clarification on it. If you want to know why we have the rules and enforce them, please feel free to shoot me a civil message, and we can talk.
This is about Facebook, Cambridge Analytica's misuse of the data, and Cook's response.
Everyone wants too blame Facebook since it is easier to blame someone else, but most need to look no further than their own mirror. I never bought in to the Facebook thing and always felt it would be bad. I also valued my privacy over getting free things.
I learned a few things from the pod cast, basically anyone who is pissed off your own information may have been used against you, you have to remember you got something free and you gave facebook the right to use your information the way they like. They never had to ask you if it was okay to allow third parts to use your information, you gave up that right by creating that account.
If you want to protect your information. Then stop using free stuff, and pay for your services.
Between retailers sharing your purchases, banks/credit card providers sharing your financial history, your cellular provider sharing your use data, the government sharing your driving, ownership, and legal history, pharmacy's sharing your prescription history, schools sharing your education history, and recent sharing issues even within Apple (China and likely Russia too, data sharing with publishers within Apple News and targeted ads within the App Store, and the new Apple supported Cloud Act that eases and simplifies the sharing of personal data with "friendlies") this whole conversation about "privacy" is little more than marketing fluff IMHO.
All those paid services don't "protect your privacy" if the provider sees value in sharing it, economically or politically, more so than in keeping it to themselves. Words are easy. Actions are just a tad more difficult.
Please. The sum total of everything you listed pales in comparison to what Google or Facebook know about you. Also funny how you slip Apple into your list to imply they are somehow on the same level. They aren't.
This is going to come back to bite Google and Facebook in the ass. Hard. It was only a matter of time before something happened that would bring privacy issues and data collection out into the public eye. Apple is going to come out of this smelling like a rose while Google and Facebook will smell like the piles of horseshit they are.
Instead it looks to me like you prefer the lazy (or is it disingenuous) route to FUD-rush, that an evil Google with evil intent factually knows more about your personal life than Experion, or Acxiom, or TransUnion, or a hundred other data aggregators who mine, partner, and outright pay for access to everything from your sexual and religious bent, to your psychological and medical conditions, to the layout of your home and your neighbors homes, to the demographics of your entire extended family and more? They aren't in it to place an ad based on anonymised baskets of web visitors like Google is. They're in it to sell pure data, your TV and on-line viewing habits, your banking and employment and income, where you go, what you do, what you eat... Just selling your personal data for any purpose the buyer wishes to use it for.
Facebook? I'm not sure what they know or the extent of it, that's one I need to pull my data profile from before claiming anything based on any actual knowledge of it. I would suspect they know far more personal verified information in general than Google considering how they collect it but I could be wrong.
So before posting things that may or may not be true but you want to present as fact, why not do the forum a favor and look and when it's simply your opinion make it more clear? IMHO we all have far more to fear from the Acxiom's and Equifax's of the world than an online ad purveyor. Your minimizing the privacy danger isn't particularly helpful to a common consumers understanding, nor is inferring that Apple has entirely clean hands and if you just faithfully trust them then your world is safe from intrusions on your personal life. There is no privacy safe house anymore, particularly so in a digital world.
It gives me chills to think how willingly people are sticking their heads in potential nooses. Yes, there needs to be a debate about whether we can trust even Apple in this regard. But at least Apple has a track record of going to the wall to protect our privacy. I’d trust Amazon or Google on this no farther than I could throw President Trump.
😂
What’s more, this political data fake news social network debacle was inevitable. It’s the first of many of this kind of major data blow up. Unless some clever and serious regulation is drawn up. Regulation + heavy legal and criminal penalty is the only solution at this juncture in human history. Perhaps in some decades our species can evolve out of such short sighted ways.
You either work at Google in PR or have totally swallowed the kool-aid and truly think they are 100% altruistic with no hidden profit motives (drug sales anyone?). Google absolutely knows more about you than Experion, or Acxiom, or TransUnion with no doubt. You made an errant assumption about the "evil Google" putting words into people's writing that simply did not exist.
Companies offering things for "free" have to make money somewhere and Google is no different. Personally, I prefer a business relationship where I pay money (something of value) and get something of value in return. Data collection companies line Experion, or Acxiom, or Facebook, or TransUnion, or Google, or Twitter I don't trust nearly as much. They don't serve my interests but the interests of a third party that may be adversarial to my interests.
This FB/CA issue shows just how clearly these companies need to be tightly regulated on what data they collect, how you get access to it, how it gets destroyed if needed, and who gets access.
So before posting things that may or may not be true but you want to present as fact, why not do the forum a favor and look and when it's simply your opinion make it more clear?