- caption
- source
- Axios on HBO/YouTube
-
Apple CEO Tim Cook has defended taking billions of
dollars from Google to make it the default search engine on the
iPhone. -
Axios asked Cook whether the deal compromised Apple’s
no-nonsense approach to privacy. -
Google has been blighted by privacy concerns in recent
months, including a Google Plus data breach. -
Cook launched a blistering attack last month on firms
that he said hoarded “industrial” amounts of personal
data.
Tim Cook has defended taking billions of dollars from Google amid
concerns that the partnership undermines Apple’s no-nonsense
approach to privacy.
Google pays Apple more than $9 billion a year to be the default
search engine on the iPhone, according to a Goldman Sachs estimate seen by
Business Insider.
But Google has been blighted by privacy concerns in recent
months. The company shut down its Google Plus social
network for consumers in October after 500,000 accounts were
breached, while the Associated Press found in
August that Google services on the iPhone stored location
data even when users told them not to.
Despite the recent furors, Apple’s CEO stood by the company’s
deal with Google when asked whether it compromised Apple’s
privacy believes. Cook told “Axios on HBO” on
Sunday:
“I think their search engine is the best. Look at what we’ve done
with the controls we’ve built in. We have private web browsing.
We have an intelligent tracker prevention. What we’ve tried to do
is come up with ways to help our users through their course of
the day. It’s not a perfect thing. I’d be the very first person
to say that. But it goes a long way to helping.”
Cook has long espoused Apple’s approach to privacy as a
“fundamental human right.” He has been vocal about the company’s
record as rivals, including Facebook and Google, have been
dragged into scandals this year.
Cook launched a blistering attack last month on firms that he
said had hoarded “industrial” amounts of personal data. Speaking at a privacy conference
in Brussels, he said the stockpiling of personal data
amounted to surveillance and should make consumers “very
uncomfortable.”
“Our own information, from the everyday to the deeply personal,
is being weaponized against us with military efficiency,” he
said, calling for “comprehensive federal privacy law” in the US.
Cook did not mention Facebook or Google by name, but they were an
obvious target given their access to giant pools of personal
information that allow them to target their advertising.