Post by cjm on May 29, 2019 9:10:19 GMT
Apple Fires Back at Google’s Jabs on Privacy
“I can tell you that privacy considerations are at the beginning of the process, not the end. When we talk about building the product, among the first questions that come out is: how are we going to manage this customer data?” says Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering. Federighi – sitting inside its spectacular new Apple Park campus – is talking to The Independent about his firm’s commitment to privacy, justifying its place at the core of the company’s values even when many customers regard it with indifference or even downright disdain.
Apple’s principles on privacy are simple: it doesn’t want to know anything about you that it doesn’t need to. It has, he says, no desire to gather data to generate an advertising profile about its users.
“We have no interest in learning all about you as a company, we don’t want to learn all about you, we think your device should personalise itself to you,” he says. “But that’s in your control that’s not about Apple learning about you, we have no incentive to do it.
“And morally, we have no desire to do it. And that’s fundamentally a different position than I think many, many other companies are in.”
Federighi also openly disagreed with Google CEO Sundar Pichai’s recent op-ed in the New York Times in which he claimed that the collection of user data helps to make technology more affordable. Pichai also made a dig seemingly aimed at Apple when he stated that: “Privacy cannot be a luxury good offered only to people who can afford to buy premium products and services.” Federighi commented on this stating:
“I don’t buy into the luxury good dig,” says Federighi, giving the impression he was genuinely surprised by the public attack.
“It’s on the one hand gratifying that other companies in space over the last few months, seemed to be making a lot of positive noises about caring about privacy. I think it’s a deeper issue than what a couple of months and a couple of press releases would make. I think you’ve got to look fundamentally at company cultures and values and business model. And those don’t change overnight.
“But we certainly seek to both set a great example for the world to show what’s possible, to raise people’s expectations about what they should expect of products, whether they get them from us or from other people. And of course, we love, ultimately, to sell Apple products to everyone we possibly could – certainly not just a luxury.
“We think a great product experience is something everyone should have. So we aspire to develop those.”
Apple’s principles on privacy are simple: it doesn’t want to know anything about you that it doesn’t need to. It has, he says, no desire to gather data to generate an advertising profile about its users.
“We have no interest in learning all about you as a company, we don’t want to learn all about you, we think your device should personalise itself to you,” he says. “But that’s in your control that’s not about Apple learning about you, we have no incentive to do it.
“And morally, we have no desire to do it. And that’s fundamentally a different position than I think many, many other companies are in.”
Federighi also openly disagreed with Google CEO Sundar Pichai’s recent op-ed in the New York Times in which he claimed that the collection of user data helps to make technology more affordable. Pichai also made a dig seemingly aimed at Apple when he stated that: “Privacy cannot be a luxury good offered only to people who can afford to buy premium products and services.” Federighi commented on this stating:
“I don’t buy into the luxury good dig,” says Federighi, giving the impression he was genuinely surprised by the public attack.
“It’s on the one hand gratifying that other companies in space over the last few months, seemed to be making a lot of positive noises about caring about privacy. I think it’s a deeper issue than what a couple of months and a couple of press releases would make. I think you’ve got to look fundamentally at company cultures and values and business model. And those don’t change overnight.
“But we certainly seek to both set a great example for the world to show what’s possible, to raise people’s expectations about what they should expect of products, whether they get them from us or from other people. And of course, we love, ultimately, to sell Apple products to everyone we possibly could – certainly not just a luxury.
“We think a great product experience is something everyone should have. So we aspire to develop those.”