Apple Mocks Google With A Huge Billboard Ad At CES 2019

Although Apple does not attend the huge tech show CES 2019 in Las Vegas officially, the company is still letting everyone feel its presence. The show starts on Tuesday and Apple has decided to put on display a gigantic outdoor ad up on the side of Las Vegas’ Marriott hotel. On the ad, there is an iPhone’s outline together with the slogan “What happens on your iPhone stays on your iPhone. An URL directing to the privacy policies of Apple is included at the bottom of the ad.

This is Apple raising its middle finger at its rival, Android because the ad implicates the leaking of personal information, either to hackers or governments, on devices running Google’s operating system.

Meanwhile, Apple has always advertised itself as a phone manufacturer that always pays respect to the privacy of its customers. For instance, Apple had stood against the FBT when the company was asked by the agency to unlock an iPhone that belonged to a gunman in the 2015 San Bernardino attack.

And when Facebook was making headlines for the data scandal Cambridge Analytica the previous year, the CEO of Apple, Tim Cook is reported to anger Mark Zuckerberg by adding fuel to the fire with his statement. Cood said; “We're not going to traffic in your personal life. Privacy to us is a human right. It's a civil liberty."He also demanded digital privacy laws to be issued in the US.

It’s not a coincidence that the ad is put next to the monorail system of Las Vegas whose shuttles are filled with Google ads. Here’s an image which shows an advertisement for the virtual assistant of Google, with words that read “Hey Google” alongside the Apple ad.

What’s more ironic about this ad is that it’s put on the side of the hotel Marriot which was affected severely by a significant data leak. Back in January, the hotel chain delivered an announcement that its system had been hacked into. And on Friday, the hotel said that 5.25 million customers’ passport numbers were stolen.

Apple does not become an exhibitor at CES, which means that the company does not deliver any announcement and does not show up on the stage. However, its employees, are still there for observation purposes.

This would not be Apple’s first time mocking its rivals. In April, an ad which directly aimed at Android users described the Apple’s App store as a much safer option than other stores such as Google Play.