Apple CEO: New regulations ‘inevitable’

Apple CEO Tim Cook said in an interview airing Sunday that new regulations are inevitably going to be imposed on the tech industry.

“Generally speaking, I am not a big fan of regulation,” Cook told Axios on HBO. “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.”

“I think it’s inevitable that there will be some level of regulation,” Cook said. “I think the Congress and the administration at some point will pass something.”

{mosads}Cook said that tech companies should embrace the regulations.

“This is not a matter of privacy versus profits, or privacy versus technical innovation,” he told Axios. “That’s a false choice.”

Cook has previously voiced his support for stricter laws protecting internet privacy. In October he called for a “comprehensive federal privacy law.” 

The issue has brought many tech companies, such as Facebook and Google, under greater scrutiny.

Apple last month began allowing customers to download copies of all the data it holds on them. 

In July, Google rolled out a similar Google Account feature that allows users to see what data is saved from their activity.