14 DAY TRIAL // Apple, in general, and CEO Tim Cook, in particular, turned into one of the biggest privacy advocates these days, publicly criticizing others for the way they handle user data and highlighting its own means of protecting customers.
Cook has recently talked with Axios for an HBO interview and unsurprisingly, the CEO also discussed the problem of user privacy “as a fundamental human right,” as he described it on several occasions.
But while Tim Cook blasted other companies, including Facebook, for making money out of data collected from their users, the CEO failed to actually give a good reason why Google continues to be the default search engine on iPhone.
Google is reportedly paying billions to be the default search engine on iPhone, and despite privacy concerns, Apple seems to have no intention to give up on the deal anytime soon.
Simply the best
Cook explained in the interview that sticking with Google is the decision based on the simple fact that this is the best search engine right now. However, the CEO sidestepped the question when discussing the privacy implications of using Google as the default search engine on iPhones in the context of concerns over data collection and tracking.
“One: I think their [Google’s] search engine is the best and that’s very important. But two: Look at what we’ve done with the controls we’ve built in. We have private web browsing. 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 is not a perfect thing. I’d be the very first person to say that. But it goes a long way to helping,” Tim Cook said.
Apple itself has tried to improve privacy for iPhone customers, and Safari browser received several updates in this regard, including intelligent tracker protection. However, Google didn’t always play fair, and the company was caught bypassing the new Safari system to still allow advertisers to track conversation rules.