Google chief Eric Schmidt responded to Apple CEO Tim Cook's statements regarding the search engine using the personal information of users for advertising purposes, CNBC reported.
Recently, Cook posted an open letter on Apple's privacy page to assure users that they are not being targeted for ads.
"We don't build a profile based on your email content or Web browsing habits to sell to advertisers," he wrote. "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."
When asked about Cook's letter, Schmidt admitted the Google has been using targeted ads for more than a decade. However, this is only confined to its Gmail service.
In addition, Schmidt maintained that the information collected by the company from users are taken with their consent. The Google boss then said that Cook may be clueless as to how the company really operates.
"I thought, 'Is he really familiar with how Google works?'" Schmidt answered when asked regarding his thoughts on Cook's statements. "We do targeted ads against Gmail, which we've done for a decade, but we don't otherwise use that information."
"What we are doing is we're using information with your permission to make life better," he added. "And you can turn all of that off in one click."
In a separate interview, Schmidt addressed the growing competition between Apple and Google's products.
Recent market reports indicated that the company's Android mobile platform failed to match the revenues generated by Apple's iPhones.
According to Schmidt, Google is not dependent on revenues but is more focused on the impact of its innovative products and services on the market, Bloomberg reported.
"The fact of the matter is you can make a small market share with a lot of profits or you can make the same amount of money with a much larger market share with lesser profits," he explained. "We go for volume in our strategies."
It seems this strategy is working for Google since according to the research firm International Data Corp., Google's Android platform has already taken over 84.7 percent of the global market share. Apple's share, on the other hand, is only at 11.7 percent, according to Tech Times.
