In an interview with the Axios news site, Apple CEO Tim Cook commented quite surprisingly on the possibility that large American technology companies – just like Apple – will soon be subject to stricter and stricter laws, saying he is essentially in favor.
“I really believe in the free market, but we have to admit when it doesn't work. And here it's not working “.
Such a statement may sound strange, said by the head of a company that has made a lot of money thanks to the free market: for example, thanks to the very low taxes it pays in Europe thanks to an agreement with the Irish government. But Cook was referring above all to the possibility that the US Congress could force technology companies to manage their users' data more transparently, a possibility that emerged especially following the Cambridge Analytica case – the consulting firm that used the data in 2016. of millions of Facebook users, unbeknownst to them, for political marketing purposes – and the recent New York Times investigation into Facebook's belated reaction to several similar cases that have emerged in recent months.
It's not the first time that Cook has criticized Apple's competitors – like Google and Facebook – for practicing a different business model, focusing on advertisements and managing user data. In March, he criticized Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, accusing him of making money by “monetizing” his users instead of protecting them. On another occasion, Cook praised the privacy laws in force in Europe, which are notoriously much stricter than those in America.
During the interview with Axios, Cook was pointed out that Apple has received about $ 9 billion from Google over the past year, which in return is guaranteed to remain the go-to search engine of its Safari browser. Cook defended himself by simply claiming that Google is the best search engine out there, and that it is awarded by Safari for this.
