It almost feels like you are a child and you are watching your two parents fight. On Thursday, Facebook took a swing at Apple in their latest update to their beef with one another.
Facebook ran its second full-page newspaper advertisement in as many days, attacking Apple’s plans to tell iPhone and iPad users when apps like sa gaming are tracking them online or not.
It’s the latest chapter in an ongoing feud between the two superstar companies. Billions of people want their social media apps to work on their phones and tablets.
However, nothing is going to happen until the two California tech giants start to get along. For now, newspapers, industry meetings, and federal court have all been thrown out on the table.
The Ad
The Facebook ad read “Apple plans to roll out a forced software update that will change the internet as we know it for the worse.” At the center of the battle is how the ad-dependent section of the Internet is going to work in the future. Apple let their patrons know that apps will notify its users when they are being tracked. You could be checking your guide for Zimpler and receive a notification right out of the blue.
Over the next few weeks, Apple plans to reveal a new set of features on its devices that will alert people when an app, such as Facebook, is trying to track your activity. People will have options that ask if it is okay to be allowed for Apple to track or not.
The Argument
In their statement, Apple said that users should be notified when their data is being collected and shared across other apps and websites. They believe that the user should have the choice to allow the tracking or not. However, their App Tracking Transparence in iOS 14 does not require other websites to chance their approach to tracking users. In Apple’s case, the user does not have to push the “allow” button.
That could pose a problem for Facebook that many people will stop allowing tracking, which threatens one of their data streams that advertisements use to get their page out there. Facebook uses data, such as browning history, to show ads that may appeal to their interest. Especially during Christmas time, you could see an ad for a gift that could be related to something in your search history.
Facebook believes that Apple’s move has nothing to do with privacy and everything to do with profit. Facebook argues that Apple gains more of the Internet with this “subscription-based” idea because Apple collects commissions from its app store.
Last year, Apple frustrated Facebook employees at headquarters by shutting off Facebook employees access to internal corporate apps that run on iPhones. With their headquarters just 15 minutes apart, can the two sides get along in the future? It looks like the two CEOs won’t be sending Christmas cards anytime soon.
