In September 2014, in the wake of a series of hacks that stole private photos from the iCloud accounts of multiple celebrities, Tim Cook wrote an open letter to customers that was published at apple.com/privacy. Apple seemingly no longer hosts a copy of the letter. (That tends to happen to memorable open letters from Apple CEOs.) The Wall Street Journal’s fast-loading website still hosts a copy of the letter, as does the Internet Archive’s essential but slow-loading site.
Cook’s letter is cogent and clear, and well worth reading in full today. But when you do, you can see why Apple no longer hosts a copy:
A few years ago, users of Internet services began to realize that
when an online service is free, you’re not the customer. You’re
the product. But at Apple, we believe a great customer experience
