Apple CEO Cook says companies are weaponizing our personal data, and he’s right

“On Wednesday, Apple’s CEO Tim Cook gave the keynote speech at the 40th International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners,” Jason Cross writes for Macworld. “In it he sounded the warning bell about how our personal data is being collected, processed, bought, and sold.”
Our own information — from the everyday to the deeply personal — is being weaponized against us with military efficiency… 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. We shouldn’t sugarcoat the consequences. This is surveillance. — Apple CEO Tim Cook
“In his speech, Cook called for U.S. regulations to protect its citizens’ privacy,” Cross writes. “Supporting such legislation in the U.S. would huge step to protecting all of our privacy. Even if you’re not in the U.S., you should hope the U.S. government passes such regulations; given the number of major tech companies headquartered in the U.S. and the strength of the U.S. market for tech consumers, policies made here will ripple out across the entire world.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: As we asked earlier this week:
Cook’s message is getting out far and wide. Will it even reach and finally penetrate the thick skulls of the ignorant suckers toting around Apple IP-infringing, privacy-trampling, user-tracking Android devices?
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