Apple CEO Tim Cook Defends Huge Google Contract Despite Privacy Criticisms

Apple CEO Tim Cook recently defended his company’s decision to sign a multibillion-dollar deal with Google despite his consistent criticism of the company’s privacy policies.

The Verge reports that during an interview on Axios on HBO, Apple CEO Tim Cook was asked about his company’s decision to sign a multibillion-dollar deal with Google which would see the company’s search engine made the default one used across Apple’s many products including the Safari browser, Siri web search, and the rest of Apple’s online ecosystem.

Cook was asked if Apple’s decision to enter into a deal with Google pointed out the hypocrisy in Cook’s statements about Google, which criticized the company’s user data privacy practices. Cook replied that the security and privacy measures that Apple builds into their Safari browser will still protect its users’ privacy. “I think their [Google’s] search engine is the best. Look at what we’ve done with the controls we’ve built in. We have private web browsing,” Cook said. “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 previously criticized the data collection practices of companies like Google and Facebook. While giving the keynote speech at the 40th International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners (ICDPPC) at the European Parliament’s Hemicycle in Brussels, Belgium, Cook criticized what he referred to as the “data industrial complex,” that he believes digital data trading has evolved into. Cook did not specifically name Facebook and Google for their data collection and trading practices, but it was clear who his targets were during the speech.

Cook stated: “Our own information — from the everyday to the deeply personal — is being weaponized against us with military efficiency. These scraps of data, each one harmless enough on its own, are carefully assembled, synthesized, traded and sold.” Cook continued to state: “Taken to the extreme this process creates an enduring digital profile and lets companies know you better than you may know yourself. Your profile is a bunch of algorithms that serve up increasingly extreme content, pounding our harmless preferences into harm.”

In other Apple news, a lower than expected demand for the company’s new iPhone models has resulted in the production orders of all three new models, the XR, XS and XS Max, being cut. The Wall Street Journal reports that Apple has cut its iPhone production plan down to a third of nearly 70 million units previously ordered from suppliers between September and February. This poor sales forecast ahead of the coming Christmas months does not bode well for the tech firm.