Apple CEO Tim Cook is calling out fellow tech industry titans for violating users' privacy rights and expressing concern about he much time iPhone customers and their children are spending using Apple products.
Cook also mentioned Facebook and Google after criticizing sites that sell people's data, saying such sites can obtain more information in secret than a 'peeping Tom.'
His highly-critical comments were made during an exclusive ABC News interview with Diane Sawyer that aired on Friday.
The 58-year-old leader of the world's most profitable tech company was discussing the issue of online privacy and ways to help Americans spend less time looking at smartphone screens during a conversation about how technology is damaging people's lives.
'When I was growing up, one of the worst things other than something like hurting somebody or something, was the peeping Tom, you know, somebody looking in the window,' Cook told Sawyer.
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Apple CEO Tim Cook recently gave ABC News an exclusive interview that aired Friday
Cook told Diane Sawyer that some companies know a lot more about you than a 'peeping Tom,' which he described as 'one of the worst things'
'The fact is that the people who track on the internet know a lot more about you than if somebody's looking in your window, a lot more. Because you tend to put your thoughts online, what you think about something.'
Facebook, for one, has been embroiled in major privacy-related scandals over the last year or so.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was forced to testify before Congress in April 2018 after the Cambridge Analytica scandal revealed the political data firm provided the 2016 Trump campaign with data from more than 50 million Facebook users, including information about their identities, who their friends are and what they've 'liked' on the website.
Facebook's stock price plummeted in the aftermath of the scandal before tumbling once again in December after a New York Times investigation revealed the social network had shared users' personal data with other tech industry giants like Microsoft, Netflix and Spotify.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified before Congress in April 2018 after the Cambridge Analytica scandal
Facebook's stock price plummeted in the aftermath of the scandal before tumbling once again in December after a New York Times investigation revealed the social network had shared users' personal data with other tech industry giants like Microsoft, Netflix and Spotify
Facebook vowed to improve its privacy features while announcing a new version of its site at the company's F8 Developer Conference on Tuesday
The world's largest social media company has vowed to change the way it manages users' private data.
During its F8 Developer Conference on Tuesday, Zuckerberg told a crowd of revelers Facebook's 'future is private,' as the company announced a redesign of its main app and website and plans to one day unify the site with the company's other platforms, including Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp.
