Apple's CEO: tech regulation is "inevitable"

Apple CEO Tim Cook has stated that the free market "is not working" and as a result, regulation of the tech sector is "inevitable."

Cook made it clear that he was referring to the welcome and long-overdue noises that Congress is making about surveillance capitalism and the nonconsensual harvesting of compromising personal information from technology users.

He was notably silent on all the other areas where tech may come under regulation, such as: right to repair and the use of technical countermeasures to thwart independent repair and drive customers to high priced, deceptive repair services; the misuse of US Customs to control the market for refurbished parts, and attempts to monopolize the refurb market for whole systems, the use of dubious profit-shifting and stock buybacks to starve the taxman and enrich shareholders, environmenally catastrophic "recycling" practices, and an overall shift from selling things to seeking rents.

"This is not a matter of privacy versus profits, or privacy versus technical innovation. That's a false choice," he said.

Cook told Axios that while he believes technology is not inherently good or bad, companies must be aware that their products can be misused.

He also said that while Silicon Valley has embraced diversity in general, it "has missed it" when it comes to closing the gender gap.

Apple's Tim Cook says tech regulation 'inevitable' because free market isn't working [Mike Murphy/Marketwatch]