Apple CEO Tim Cook sat down for an interview with Charlie Rose last week, the second half of which airs Monday night on PBS. In the interview, Rose pressed Cook on Apple’s privacy policies, which recently came under scrutiny during the iCloud hacking scandal. Cook deflected off of Apple and reminded viewers that their data is in the hands of other companies like Google and Facebook, whose business models depend on your personal information. (He didn’t mention those companies by name, but it’s clear who he was talking about.) “We take a very different view of this than a lot of other companies have,” Cook said. “Our view is, when we design a new service, we try not to collect data. So we’re not reading your email. We’re not reading your iMessage.” “You’re not our product,” he said. Cook suggested consumers “follow the money” to determine whether or not a company is actively protecting their data. “If [companies are] making money mainly by collecting gobs of personal data, I think you have a right to be worried,” he said. “And companies I think should be very transparent about it.” Apple’s CEO said he thought privacy would continue to be a “key topic.” “We’ll reach higher and higher levels of urgency as more and more incidents happen,” he said.
