IBM CEO Joins Apple In Blasting Data use By Silicon Valley Firms (bloomberg.com) 63
IBM CEO Ginni Rometty joined a growing chorus of tech executives lambasting web platforms, like Google and Facebook, over their collection of user data and urged governments to target regulation at those companies. Bloomberg reports: Without naming company names, Rometty pointed to the "irresponsible handling of personal data by a few dominant consumer-facing platform companies" as the cause of a "trust crisis" between users and tech companies, according to an advanced copy of her remarks. Rometty's comments, given at a Brussels event with top EU officials Monday, echoed recent statements by Apple CEO Tim Cook, who in October slammed Silicon Valley rivals over their use of data, equating their services to "surveillance."
IBM meanwhile has seen revenue decline since Rometty took the CEO role in 2012, largely due to falling sales in existing hardware, software and services offerings. She has since been trying to steer IBM toward more modern businesses, such as the cloud, artificial intelligence, and security software. Seeking to separate IBM -- which operates primarily at a business-to-business level -- from the troubled tech companies, Rometty said governments should target regulation at consumer-facing web platforms, like social media firms and search engines. In particular, Rometty pushed for more measures around the transparency of artificial intelligence as well as controversial rules around platform liability.
IBM meanwhile has seen revenue decline since Rometty took the CEO role in 2012, largely due to falling sales in existing hardware, software and services offerings. She has since been trying to steer IBM toward more modern businesses, such as the cloud, artificial intelligence, and security software. Seeking to separate IBM -- which operates primarily at a business-to-business level -- from the troubled tech companies, Rometty said governments should target regulation at consumer-facing web platforms, like social media firms and search engines. In particular, Rometty pushed for more measures around the transparency of artificial intelligence as well as controversial rules around platform liability.
Just wait a bit. (Score:3)
IBM is just trying to get the same payoff that Apple got. [slashdot.org] I'm certain they would be equally willing to do a 180 on this issue too.
Re: (Score:1)
Except Apple got that payoff the old fashioned way: by threatening to switch the default to Bing. They in fact did switch to Bing for Siri searches. (And maybe Spotlight searches? The random ways iOS (and macOS for that matter) hit web services for various interactions make it hard to be clear what is doing what.) Then Google gave them a few billion dollars and now everything to back to using Google.
Ad brands (Score:2)
Microphone, camera collection, encryption thats ad ready.
I'm sorry, Facebook/Google? (Score:5, Interesting)
What about Equifax, and Wells Fargo, etc etc etc, and the damn NSA???
Crying about Facebook is a bullshit distraction.
Re: (Score:1)
They affected us all personally by mandating that Microsoft address their already crippling Windows security issues by ignoring them and making even more security issues to boot - a process that continues to this very day despite global awareness that it is possible to do better.
Re: (Score:1)
Unless you have additional information you're not sharing, I maintain that my analysis of the situation is correct and you're just blowing smoke.
Also, yes, I do lump all of us in as victims of Microsoft's and the NSA's crimes, whether we use Microsoft software or merely breathe the same air as someone who does.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: Google are the worst (Score:3)
Big Brother Google is always watching.
Re: (Score:2)
Equifax, Wells Fargo and the NSA are not IBM's competitors, In fact I wouldn't be surprised if they were major IBM customers.
Amazon, Google and Microsoft are competitors, Facebook is most likely indifferent so there is no harm (for IBM) to include them.
When companies like Apple and IBM criticize Google and others on privacy grounds, they don't do it because they care about you. They do it because they know that these companies have no other choice since it is their business model. Apple and IBM make money i
Pot meets Kettle. (Score:2, Insightful)
Hey Rometty, how many patents did your company lock up in the last decade? How much innovation has IBM directly stifled due to an unending desire to grow a patent war chest?
I'm certainly not here defending the likes of Google or Facebook, but I sure as hell don't need IBM to dictate how corporations should act.
Shut the fuck up. You can speak when you're not drowning in your own hypocrisy.
Re: (Score:3)
"How much innovation has IBM directly stifled due to an unending desire to grow a patent war chest?" To be double-back-fair, is that really IBM's fault though? Or is it the paradigm that results from the current patent system by default?
Sorry, but it's rather easy to dismiss this inherently greedy mentality when you're a company the size of IBM that hardly needs to thrive and survive solely on their ability to warehouse patents and stifle innovation.
Because of this fact, they cannot hide or dismiss their involvement in this. Bad behavior is bad. I'm not about to reward IBM for acting like every other capitalist. No doubt the patent system needs change, but sadly it is because of unethical abuse like this.
Re: (Score:2)
Kind of ironic of IBM to talk about irresponsible handling of personal data given their Nazi history
IBM missed their opportunity (Score:2)
Slammed and Blasted (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyone notice how much the worded "Blasted" and "Slammed" are used by modern journalism?
Does everything have to read like professional wrestling commentators?
Re: (Score:3)
It's not professional wrestling. You're starting to see a generation of journalists who have had access to internet porn for most of their lives. In the near future, it will be possible to determine a journalists pornographic predilections just by feeding all their headlines into an algorithm.
Re: (Score:2)
Don't make us slam and blast you! :P
Cynicism (Score:2)
I hear people tell me that we can't move faster, because we don't want to leave part of the herd behind. Being cynical about everything is not productive.
It doesn't matter how people try to slice it, this type of data mining on this scale has ever been seen before. I hear people argue everything from "People can believe what they want", to "It's clear what fake news is", to "they are a business and they should be able to exploit the population however they want. Only the idiots would fall for it anyway
IBM & Apple are in the hardware Biz not the Ad (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Data use, you say? (Score:1)
All I can see looking at that headline is "CEO of corporation which built machines used by the Nazis to track data in concentration camps lacks sense of irony"
Re: (Score:2)
Ouch. Burn.
Ah, is this the same CEO (Score:1)
That one, yeah. The company that supported Nazi Germany and wants to support White Nationalist America.