Apple is the most valuable tech company in the world. So when its CEO lambastes other tech companies for “weaponizing [user data] against us with military efficiency,” people are going to take him seriously. After all, Tim Cook is the de facto leader of the tech world. While he didn’t name names, his vilification was clearly aimed at his corporate peers (which ordinarily would be good clean fun), except as presented, his accusations sounded like self-serving corporate posturing. Of course, there is another possibility … Tim may have just been speaking metaphorically.

During a recent keynote, Tim said:

Every day, billions of dollars change hands and countless decisions are made on the basis of our likes and dislikes, our friends and families, our relationships and conversations, our wishes and fears, our hopes and dreams. These scraps of data, each one harmless enough on its own, are carefully assembled, synthesized, traded and sold.

I will be the first to admit that his assertions about how data is “assembled, synthesized, traded and sold” are irrefutable. But using available data to put the right content in front of the right person, in the right place, at the right time is (and always has been) every content creator’s goal. If you offer a product or service, job #1 is to segment your audience into clearly defined targets and provide them with content with which they will engage. As you know, Apple has done some of the best, most effective advertising ever created. So where is Tim going with this?

During his keynote, Tim described how he believes companies “weaponize” what we share online and use it to serve us extreme content to change the way we view the world, saying: “If green is your favorite color, you may find yourself reading a lot of articles — or watching a lot of videos — about the insidious threat from people who like orange.”

What he failed to mention is why this is different from Apple using the data Apple has about us to send us relevant messages about a new product or service from Apple. Apple’s goal is to change our world view from buying a competing product to buying an Apple product. “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”