When Apple Play announced in June that it would begin asking permission for apps before tracking users, it was applauded by privacy advocates. The idea was that if you want to collect and monetize the personal information of people using your apps, you can, you should be transparent about it, and ask first.
The apps that provide detailed information about the data they collect and share are taken together with the latest requirement, if you care to protect privacy, the next iOS 14 feature is a positive step. Sure, for digital advertising platforms like Facebook it will make it harder for users to target ads based on their online activity, but it’s hard to argue that transparency is a bad thing.
That doesn’t mean Facebook didn’t try. Apple has published two full-page print ads in three major newspapers, accusing them of being anti-small business and a threat to the “free Internet.” I’ve written about ads and the overall response to them, so I won’t go any further here.
Between the battle between Facebook and Apple Pal over privacy, I think it would be easy to miss what I think is the more important part of the story. I think Apple Cook’s CEO, Tim Cook’s response is the most interesting aspect and it’s an example for every leader. In fact, I think his response is probably the best example of emotional intelligence I’ve ever seen.
Emotional intelligence is the ability to recognize your emotional response to something, it will evaluate emotions and you should make deliberate choices about how you will react. People with less emotional intelligence ignore that middle step and instead respond to their feelings, often to the detriment of themselves and those who depend on them.
The same goes for CEO as it does for anyone else. In fact, it can be difficult to display emotional intelligence when your company is being attacked in a very public way. No matter if you run a huge company that directly affects the lives of billions of people, it will be easy to get annoyed and frustrated when a competitor makes such an effort to misrepresent your position and your actions.
In this case, the response did not appear in the corporate PR statement. It was not tweeted from a normal, faceless, company account. This was from the CEO of Paul, the most valuable company on earth, who responded directly to the attack of another multi-billion dollar corporation, Facebook, whose founder and CEO is the fifth richest person in the world.
We’ve seen the CEO respond on Twitter before. It doesn’t always go well. Sometimes it makes the situation worse.
Cook, on the other hand, is known as a highly reserved and stored communicator. He is not going to get involved in the public uprising.
No offense to Cook, but his public statements are usually quite normal. His Twitter account, in particular, is a series of posts about Apple’s products, commitments to various causes, or announcements from other companies. When Cook says, “Facebook can continue to track users on apps and websites,” it will have to “ask your permission first,” burning as much as you get.
He got involved in responding to Facebook telling us how important privacy really is for the privacy moment. That’s enough for the CEO to set the record straight.
More importantly, however, is a complete model of how to react when you are attacked. Here’s why:
Facebook used about 1000 words between the two ads, and spent a lot of money to get people forward. It created a doomsday scene where small businesses – and the Internet as we know it – would collapse under the weight of Apple’s transformation into iOS 14. He painted a picture of a large average company that would force users to change. It will be bad for everyone.
Cook, on the other hand, used only 47 words to answer. He did it on a free social media platform, as of this writing, he had “liked” it more than 110,000 times.
In a short response, he was angry, or not arguing. He has not insulted anyone, and he has not overdried anything. Instead, he responded personally, saying what Apple Play believes, why it matters to users, and clarifying what will really change. That’s exactly what every leader should respond to when an attack occurs.
