Apple CEO Tim Cook: Technology needs government regulation

“Apple CEO Tim Cook has called for more government regulation on the technology industry in order to protect privacy in an interview at the TIME 100 Summit in New York,” Alejandro De La Garza reports for TIME Magazine. “”

“‘We all have to be intellectually honest, and we have to admit that what we’re doing isn’t working,’ said Cook, in an interview with former TIME Editor in Chief Nancy Gibbs,” De La Garza reports. “‘Technology needs to be regulated. There are now too many examples where the no rails have resulted in a great damage to society,’ [Cook said].”

“Cook suggested that U.S. regulators could look to Europe’s passage of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in 2018. ‘GDPR isn’t ideal,’ said Cook. ‘But GDPR is a step in the right direction,'” De La Garza reports. “Cook’s view is that the tech industry has no other responsible option but to accept more government oversight, a position he outlined in a recent TIME Ideas piece. ‘I’m hopeful,’ Cook said at the Summit. ‘We are advocating strongly for regulation — I do not see another path.'”

Read more in the full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: Quotes from Apple CEO Tim Cook:

I see privacy as one of the most important issues of the twenty-first century. We’re at a stage now where more information about you is online and on your phone than there is in your house… We [at Apple] take that very seriously. I’m not a pro-regulation kind of person. I believe in the free market. Deeply… [but] I think some level of government regulation is important to come out of that.

You are not our product.

The narrative that some companies will try to get you to believe is, “I’ve got to take all of your data to make my service better.” Well, don’t believe them. Whoever’s telling you that, it’s a bunch of bunk.

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The 18 things you may not realize Facebook knows about you: Firm reveals the extent of its spying in a 454-page document to U.S. Congress – June 12, 2018
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Apple’s macOS Mojave removes integration with third-party internet accounts like Facebook – June 6, 2018
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18 Comments

    1. You’re probably right, but American history is full of examples of industries that brought the government down on them because they failed to regulate themselves: see, for example, the Railway Trust, Standard Oil, and the old AT&T. So, too, the tech firms who are failing to self-regulate on issues like privacy violations and falsehoods that pose an imminent danger of grievous harm.

  1. Not going to happen. Despite multiple data breaches Facebook stock is soaring and is considered too valuable a company to tamper with. Facebook users and big investors love that company. Zuckerberg is untouchable thanks to his wealth and power. Tim Cook is always whining about regulating companies but it’s more than likely Apple will be regulated before Facebook or Google is regulated.

    1. Sheeesh… yeah, like the DARPAnet-based internet on which you are griping. The government does what private enterprise cannot and will not do. Get used to the idea, it’s a very popular concept among the educated.

  2. Tim Cook is another asshole we don’t need government regulation we need corporate America to stand up and be honest and do the right things.American companies have turned into such garbage

    1. So, do we also need serial killers to stand up and do the right things without government intervention? As people here frequently point out with reference to the gun laws, people who are inclined to do the wrong thing tend not to be stopped by social pressure. Sometimes it takes force to stop the use of force against our liberties.

  3. Might want to check that link MDN it leads to another post at MDN, possibly the same article?

    At any rate Tim Cook has made an interesting inference about one government (Europe) making a step in the right direction. I guess we’ll just have to wait to see if other governments follow but if they do they will have to have a moral sense that personal privacy is important as opposed to technology being an opportunity to spy on people. I’m sure some governments lean towards the later situation.

      1. Since you brought it up, I think that country’s government would lean towards technology as an opportunity to spy on people. Their stealth technology is superb, no one can hide a weapons of mass destruction program quite like Iraq.

  4. Make it a little easier to sue the companies for HIPPA violations and they will either straighten up or be sued out of business. And I’m certainly not one to love lawyers.

  5. Tim looking to the Gov to even out the competitive landscape. One of Apple’s prime advantages is the privacy baked into their ecology. It’s also the key barrier to broader AI/ML capabilities. I think he sees too much evidence that bulk of humanity are ready to trade privacy for capability. Apple is trying to develop communication devices with one arm tied behind their back. Tim wants the Gov to force Apple’s competitors to now tie their arms back too. Apple chose the road they are on. For better or for worse. No one forced them choose privacy as their key selling point. This plea from Tim sounds like an admission that he taken Apple down the wrong road.

  6. Translation: “I am pro-pollution, pro-reduction of worker rights, anti-worker union but pro-corporate unions, and pro-predatory monopolies, pro-corporate Socialism but anti-individual Socialism, and extremely radical Capitalism.” I understand your MO.

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