Apple Has A New Critic, Mark Zuckerberg

Mark Zuckerberg has slammed Tim Cook and Apple's stance on ads and called it 'ridiculous.' In an interview, Zuckerberg apparently disagreed with Apple CEO claim that free services supported by ads turn people into products.

"A frustration I have is that a lot of people increasingly seem to equate an advertising business model with somehow being out of alignment with your customers," Zuckerberg said in an interview with Time recently. "It's the most ridiculous concept. What, you think because you're paying Apple that you're somehow in alignment with them? If you were in alignment with them, then they'd make their products a lot cheaper!"

Earlier in September, Cook went after ad-supported services by posting an open letter on Apple's Privacy page.

"If [companies are] making money mainly by collecting gobs of personal data, I think you have a right to be worried," Cook had said. "And companies I think should be very transparent about it."

The argument between companies and privacy advocates is not new. Companies such as Facebook, Goggle and Yahoo have to rely on advertising to offer their services for free. The caveat is sometimes users privacy is compromised - such as age, sex, location, likes etc - in order to serve them best suited ads, ultimately benefitting the advertisers and services itself.

"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," Cook added in the letter. "We don't 'monetize' 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."

In the interview, Zuckerberg added that Apple's high prices exclude people who can't afford them, while Facebook's mission "connect every person in the world."