Apple and Facebook have had a very public ghost over the past few months when Apple calls up its pro-privacy position. The two companies have had tensions for a long time, but recently Facebook is taking on a sequential iOS and iPadOS feature that requires apps and data businesses like Facebook to ask users’ permission before following it on other sites and sites.
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While the word fight mostly remained professional between the tech titans, Mark Zuckerberg and Tim Cook also shared an avalanche of attacks on each other. During an interview in 2018 amid the infamous Cambridge Analytica scandal on Facebook, Cook was asked how he would lead Apple if it were to experience a similar crisis. Cook responded by outlining the hypothetical situation out of the question, saying Apple would not be in the situation that Facebook finds itself in, thanks to differing views on privacy and user data. Zuckerberg fired back, calling Cook’s comments on TV ‘extremely slippery’ and ‘not at all in line with the truth’.
Zuckerberg, outraged by Cook’s comments and public influence on Facebook’s reputation, allegedly told internal assistants and team members that Facebook should “administer” Apple, according to sources anonymous with The Wall Street Journal. Last month, during the company’s revenue, Zuckerberg called Apple an increasingly bigger threat to Facebook, accusing the Cupertino technology giant of using its platforms to interfere with how Facebook manages its own apps.
The day after the public’s comments, Cook reacted indirectly during a speech at the conference on computers, privacy and data protection, where he condemned Facebook and implied that his business model to lead maximum involvement to division and violence. During the same speech, Cook renounced the potential role of Facebook in the January 6 Capitol riot and blamed social media algorithms on social media for spreading conspiracy theories.
In December, Facebook launched full-page ads attacking Apple’s emerging requirement ATT or App Tracking Transparency, which will force apps to ask user permission before following them across apps and on the Internet. Facebook attacks Apple with the view that ATT will harm small businesses that rely on personalized ads obtained through effective tracking. In response, Cook weighed directly on Twitter, saying that Apple simply wants to give users a choice whether they want to be tracked down or not.
Despite the personal clutter and attacks, in a statement to The Wall Street Journal, Facebook spokesperson, Dani Lever, refuted the idea that the tension between the two is personal, and rather suggested that it is ‘about the future of the free internet’. Facebook states that the choice between tracking users for personalized ads and protecting their privacy is a ‘false trade-off’, claiming it believes it can offer both. The spokesman reiterated by Facebook that Apple’s privacy features were not intended to preserve users’ privacy, but rather to increase profits, and that Facebook would join others in highlighting Apple’s “self-serving, competitive competition”. .
Apple declined to comment on the report.
Facebook is reportedly planning to take the disapproval of Apple to court for allegedly filing an antitrust lawsuit against the Cupertino-based tech company over its “unfair” approach to privacy with ATT and iMessage . As part of its lawsuit, Facebook is considering partnering with other companies such as Epic Games, which is already embroiled in a massive legal battle with Apple to pursue its antitrust case. However, Facebook may remove its plans to bring any legal action against Apple.
Utah Senator Mike Lee, who is leading the Republican effort in the Senate Antitrust Subcommittee, said The Wall Street Journal that the feud between Apple and Facebook is the “knot of privacy and antitrust”, and that he does not want to “impose regulations that ultimately protect the incumbents and entrench monopolies.”
Apple pledged to launch ATT with iOS and iPadOS 14.5 in the “early spring” and Facebook apparently acknowledged defeat in its failed attempt to stop the new requirement from taking effect. Applications have the freedom to customize the directions users receive to request that their permission be tracked on other apps and on the Internet, and screenshots of Facebook’s request for its iOS app prompt users to select for detection to ‘ a better advertising experience. ‘
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