iStand: Apple CEO Tim Cook, in an op-ed for the Time magazine, called for a law to control the shadow economy of data brokers. “Consumers shouldn’t have to tolerate another year of companies irresponsibly amassing huge user profiles, data breaches that seem out of control and the vanishing ability to control our own digital lives,” he wrote.
    More power: He cited the example of online retailers who would sell a customer’s data (profile, purchased item, search history and such) to third-party “data brokers”, who would then sell this to anyone willing to pay — typically, advertisers. He said this happens without consent and called for a law mandating data brokers to be registered — like a stock market agent would — and all the transactions be recorded so that it can be traced back.
    But what’s cooking? Why is Apple, a technology company, calling for greater regulation of the technology industry? It would be easy to relate this with Apple’s recent slowdown in sales of its iPhones and view this as an attempt to stand apart from Google, whose Android phones are less stringent on app makers mining data. And it is that, in some ways.
    Yet... if there’s a major tech company that can demand this and sound less hypocrite, it is Apple. The iPhones, in general, are better secured than most Android phones. That difference is due to the business model. Apple is a product company, earning by selling phones, iPads and such, whereas firms like Google provide tools for “free”, in return of your data. But who is to say Apple won’t mine and use (or even sell) data, without consent, when it becomes less a ‘product company’ and more a ‘services company’ — think Apple Music, CarPlay and the like — especially when sales of iPhones slow down further?

That’s why we need a law.

Source: gadgetsnow.com