Apple’s Tim Cook publishes open letter on privacy

The letter on the technology giant’s site starts with the statement “At Apple, your trust means everything to us. That’s why we respect your privacy and protect it with strong encryption, plus strict policies that govern how all data is handled.” It comes as a response to the recent publicity surrounding the apparent hacking of celebrities’ nude photos.

“We believe in telling you up front exactly what’s going to happen to your personal information and asking for your permission before you share it with us. And if you change your mind later, we make it easy to stop sharing with us,” he added.

Cook then addressed a number of issues in the letter, from how Apple’s business model differs to other tech companies such as Facebook, to concerns about corporations involvement in NSA activities in light of Edward Snowden’s revelations.

“Our business model is very straightforward: we sell great products. We don’t build a profile based on your email content or web browsing habits to sell to advertisers. We don’t ‘monetise’ the information you store on your iPhone or in iCloud. And we don’t read your email or your messages to get information to market to you.”

“I want to be absolutely clear that we have never worked with any government agency from any country to create a backdoor in any of our products or services. We have also never allowed access to our servers. And we never will,” he wrote.

Cook pointed out that one part of Apple’s business serves advertisers — its iAd. “We built an advertising network because some app developers depend on that business model, and we want to support them as well as a free iTunes Radio service. iAd sticks to the same privacy policy that applies to every other Apple product,” he wrote.