Tim Cook: The Tech Industry Needs to Prep for Regulation

Apple CEO Tim Cook is warning the tech industry to prepare for privacy regulations in the US.

"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," he said in an interview with Axios that aired on Sunday.

"I think it's inevitable that there will be some level of regulation," he added. "I think the Congress and the administration at some point will pass something."

Cook's comments come almost a month after he called on the US to pass a digital privacy law. During a speech in Brussels, Cook blasted the tech industry's practice of mining people's personal data to run their products—an apparent allusion to Facebook and Google, which offer free internet services that generate revenue by serving you personalized ads.

Any privacy regulation could seriously hamper Facebook's and Google's ad business. Apple, on the other hand, has little to lose; the company makes most of its revenue from hardware sales.

In the same interview, Cook said privacy is a "core value" for Apple. However, he was forced to address his company's decision to make Google the default search engine on the iPhone. According to Bloomberg, Apple might be receiving $3 billion to $9 billion from Google by featuring the search engine on Apple devices.

"I think [Google's] search engine is the best," he said, before noting the company's attempts to protect people's privacy.

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"Look at what we've done with the controls we've built in. We have private web browsing. We have an intelligent tracker prevention," he said. "What we've tried to do is come up with ways to help our users through their course of the day. It's not a perfect thing. I'd be the very first person to say that. But it goes a long way to helping."

Lately, US lawmakers and newspaper editorial boards have also been calling on the government to investigate the tech industry—specifically Facebook. Last week, the New York Times dropped a bombshell story that claimed the internet giant may have been willing to spread misinformation to journalists in an effort to deflect criticism. (Facebook denies this.)

Cook himself is no fan of Facebook's approach to privacy. Earlier this year, he criticized the company over its failure to protect people's digital privacy following the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Reportedly, the criticism prompted Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to tell his team to stop using iPhones and switch over to Android handsets. In a blog post addressing the Times report, Facebook said it has "long encouraged our employees and executives to use Android because it is the most popular operating system in the world."

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