While speaking at The Wall Street Journal’s WSJD Live 2014 global technology conference Monday night, Apple CEO Tim Cook warned it would take a “major event” to open people’s eyes to privacy violations by technology companies, and that it will happen soon.
Cook made the comment during an interview with the Journal’s Gerard Baker according to Business Insider, which reported that Cook “was implicitly referring to Google.”
The Apple CEO has repeatedly called out Silicon Valley contemporaries like Google and Facebook for basing their business models on invading the privacy of users since announcing new privacy standards last month, including automatic user data encryption Apple itself can’t bypass. (RELATED: Apple Will No Longer Unlock iPhones For Law Enforcement, With Or Without A Warrant)
“Our business is not based on having information about you,” Cook said during a PBS interview last month. “You’re not our product. Our product are these, and this watch, and Macs, and so forth. And so we run a very different company. I think everyone has to ask, how do companies make their money? Follow the money. And if they’re making money mainly by collecting gobs of personal data, I think you have a right to be worried. And you should really understand what’s happening to that data, and the companies — I think — should be very transparent.” (RELATED: Tim Cook Won’t Let Apple Be A ‘Treasure Trove’ Of User Data For NSA)