Pop star Will.i.am slams Facebook and Google, says their business models are 'scary'
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Hip-hop musician-turned-technologist Will.i.am blasted Facebook and Google during an interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos this week.
“The business models of these companies today are what bring up the concerns,” he said in an interview with Yahoo Finance. “The business model is what’s scary.”
Most known for his role in the Black Eyed Peas, the musician also founded an artificial intelligence startup. Will.i.am told the financial news site that consumers have few alternatives to the major tech players.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}ZUCKERBERG'S MENTOR: FACEBOOK IS A 'PUBLIC HEALTH' HAZARD, SHOULD BE REGULATED OR BROKEN UP
“The problem that we have in society is not the Facebooks of the world and the Googles of the world,” he said. “It’s that there is no alternative. There is no other system for me to use where I could retain my data in a way that’s simple for me to understand what’s going on.”
Facebook has in the past pointed to services and products like Snapchat, Vimeo, iMessage, Telegram and Skype as being competitors that provide consumers with a range of choices.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}During an interview on Monday with The Economist, the musician said personal data is a "human right."
A Facebook spokesperson pointed Fox News to a previous statement:
“Facebook operates in a fiercely competitive environment where people use our apps at the same time they use free services offered by many others. For every service offered on Facebook and our family of apps, there are three or four competing services with hundreds of millions, if not billions, of users. Importantly, under one roof, we’ve been able to better fight spam and abuse and build new features much faster, providing people with more useful products and services.”
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
Mark Zuckerberg's company, which also owns WhatsApp and Instagram, has been dealing with a number of data-related problems over the last two years, including Cambridge Analytica scandal and the revelation that Facebook has had special data-sharing agreements with a range of other tech firms.
Meanwhile, Google has had its own issues with data privacy, the company's internal culture and questions about how its ubiquitous search engine operates.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Fox News reached out to Facebook and Google for comment on this story.