In the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Apple CEO Tim Cook have been taking small potshots at one another. A few weeks back, Cook got the ball rolling when he said that he’s never been a big proponent of any service that houses detailed profiles of its users. In a broad sense, Cook took swipes at any service where users are leveraged for advertising dollars.
“We can make a ton of money if customers were our product,” Cook said in an interview late last month. “We have elected not to do that.”
When specifically asked what he would do if he found himself in Zuckerberg’s position, Cook replied: “I wouldn’t be in this situation.”
Not too long after, Zuckerberg sat down for an interview with Ezra Klein where he took umbrage with Cook’s remarks.
“You know,” Zuckerberg added, “I find that argument that, if you’re not paying that somehow we can’t care about you to be extremely glib and not at all aligned with the truth.”
“The reality here,” Zuckerberg continued, “is that if you want to build a service that helps connect everyone in the world, then there are a lot of people who can’t afford to pay.”
With that as a backdrop, an eagle-eyed AP photographer observed that Zuckerberg’s notes during his appearance on Capitol Hill yesterday included a few blurbs on Apple’s own privacy practices. Presumably, Zuckerberg was prepared to lay into Apple should the need arise, though that never ended up happening.
Photo of Zuck's notes, by AP's @andyharnik pic.twitter.com/wF0WAkDdI4
— Stefan Becket (@becket) April 10, 2018
One portion in particular notes that there are “lots of stories about apps misusing Apple data, never seen Apple notify people.”
Another bullet point references the fact that logging in to an app with Facebook is, in many ways, no different than installing an app on an iPhone.
“On data,” the point reads, “when you install an app on your iPhone, you give it access to some information, just like when you login with FB.”
