Tim Cook delivers a controversial speech on Apple technology and privacy matters
As the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference unfolds in San Francisco, representatives from the tech giant take their chances to debate hot topics that pose serious questions about the future of humanity. The technological development has opened new ways of making business, monetizing personal data over access to unlimited information. CEO Tim Cook recently gave a speech related to the Apple technology and privacy matters, criticizing the way in which digital giants claim access to our most private information, granting technology that has become indispensable in our day to day lives.
This doesn’t sound like a fair trade, if we come to think that privacy is a question of human rights, not a variable that can be monetized and sold for enormous amounts of money on the free markets.
Google and Facebook are the Big Brothers who are used to manipulating, selling and trading our personal information over access to a giant database of free information, social interaction and technological facilities. Never ending debates over the way in which the two companies manage personal information appear on a regular basis over the news and inside our minds that start becoming increasingly uncomfortable in the era of personal exposure.
We are bombarded by advertising companies that make way into our e-mails, into our Facebook News feed, into the message inbox of our smart phones and so on. This is how Google and Facebook survive, by sharing great chunks of personal info with the advertising industries that can find more about user behaviors and target their selling strategies to “the right public”.
Apple now changes positions and tries to turn privacy into a competitive advantage against Google. During his speech, CEO Tim Cook repeated in several manners that Apple “doesn’t want your data”. What Tim Cook is actually trying to state is that Apple only delivers what you need without asking for your personal info back, while Google is the Big Brother who’s constantly watching you.
However, all the three tech masterminds of technology, namely Apple, Google and Facebook, are nevertheless working with giant amounts of personal data.
For instance, Apple is now trying to proactively predict what is it that its users want, thus it is “watching”, monitoring and acting upon its users behaviors. Apple will soon launch a “proactive and predictive” assistant for the iPhone, some kind of a Google Now clone. However, Apple doesn’t hold personal information to the extent of what Google owns, so the feature will most probably not be as efficient as the one Google has created for its users.
Although Apple is trying to wash its hands highlight their equitable approach on privacy, the tech giant does use personal information to a fabulous extent and holds access to our most private data. The only difference is that Apple indeed offers protection, while using it on the other hand to “build and market” its own products and its own advertising network.
Well, Apple’s hands are as dirty as the claws of Google and Facebook, with a slight difference of privacy firewalls translated in terms and conditions and a lot of PR manipulative speeches involved in their identity campaigns, as a differentiating tactic.
Talk is cheap, as they say, while all tech companies stuff all our personal details into their fat databases, to predict, build and sell their products based on what they think we would like to see. And we are used to doing nothing more but to accept and comply with the takeover of the Technological Giants, the new Gods of our modern times.
Image Source: macworld.com
