I think it’s inevitable that there will be some level of regulation, Tim Cook said
At a time when tech firms in the Silicon Valley, particularly the social media firms, are grappling the possibility of regulations by the government, Apple chief executive officer Tim Cook has predicted that regulations in the industry are inevitable.
In an interview with the Axios, the Apple CEO said that though he is not a ‘big fan’ of regulations, however, he believes that the free market policy hasn’t worked so far and so, the government is bound to enforce some form of regulations in the Silicon Valley.
“I’m a big believer in the free market. But we have to admit when the free market is not working. And it hasn’t worked here. I think it’s inevitable that there will be some level of regulation… I think the Congress and the administration at some point will pass something,” Cook said during his interview.
Besides cautioning about the possibility of regulations in the future, Cook also argued that tech companies should embrace these changes. “This is not a matter of privacy versus profits, or privacy versus technical innovation. That’s a false choice,” he added.
The Apple CEO has been a proponent of self-regulations in the tech industry for a long time. In an exclusive interview with Vice News Tonight last month, Cook had said that while he was not a pro-regulation kind of a person, but was willing to work with the lawmakers for the betterment of the society. “I think some level of government regulation is important to come out on that,” he said during the interview.
Then again, while addressing the audience in Brussels on the sidelines of the annual International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners, Cook called out to have a comprehensive federal law similar to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the European Union in the United States.
During his keynote at Brussels, the Apple CEO, besides talking about the need for regulations had also launched a scathing attack on the tech firms calling the companies that do not inform users about the data that they collect a ‘sham’. “Users should always know what data is being collected from them and what it’s being collected for. This is the only way to empower users to decide what collection is legitimate and what isn’t. Anything less is a sham,” he had said.
