Apple CEO Tim Cook said that more than one-million payment cards were activated within Apple Pay within 72 hours of its launch a week ago. Cook also dismissed the CVS and Rite Aid decision to back down to MCX and stop accepting Apple Pay as "a skirmish."

"You are only relevant as a retailer or merchant if your customers love you," Cook said, according to a story in The Wall Street Journal. "It’s the first and only mobile payment system that’s easy, private and secure." He added that Apple Pay will thrive in the long run.

Cook also took the opportunity to swat at two of his favorite privacy targets: government subpoenas and Google snooping.

Apple has announced that it will encrypt all data within iPhones and that it will not retain the ability to decrypt that data, making government requests to Apple for help accessing customer data irrelevant. Government officials have objected, saying the move helps terrorists and other criminals.

"I look at that and say if law enforcement wants something, they should go to the user and get it. It’s not for me to do it," Cook said, according to the Journal. "He added that it was better that the company didn’t design its products 'with the keys under the mat' because hackers could exploit the same opening."

As for Google, the Apple CEO said that his company wasn’t checking what its users are searching, reading its users’ E-mail or tracking the temperature in their homes or what they are buying, the story said. "We’re not Big Brother," Cook said. "We’ll leave that to others."

Looks like someone's not getting an invite to the Google holiday party.