[ad_1]
Apple and Facebook will need each other in the long run, because billions of people want their social media apps to work well on their phones and tablets. But first, the two California tech giants must resolve a fight that is unfolding in newspaper ads, industry meetings, and potentially in federal court.
Facebook ran its second full-page newspaper ad on Thursday in as many days, attacking Apple’s plans to inform iPhone and iPad users when apps are tracking them online.
“Apple plans to release a forced software update that will change the Internet as we know it, for the worse,” Facebook said in the announcement.
It’s an unusually personal and high-stakes fight between two companies that have far-reaching influence. At the heart of the battle is how the advertising-dependent part of the Internet will perform in the years to come.
In the coming weeks, Apple plans to roll out a new feature on its devices that will alert people when an app like Facebook is trying to “track your activity on other companies’ apps and websites.” People will have options like “Ask the app not to track” or “Allow”.
“Users must know when their data is being collected and shared through other applications and websites, and they must have the option to allow that or not,” Apple said in a statement. “The application tracking transparency in iOS 14 does not require Facebook to change its approach to tracking users and creating targeted advertising, it simply requires that they give users a choice.”
For Facebook, the possibility of many people not allowing tracking threatens one of the data streams that makes its advertising business so lucrative. Facebook uses data such as browsing history to show people ads they are most likely to want to see and to show marketers that their ads are working.
“Apple’s move is not about privacy, it is about profit,” Facebook said in a statement. He argues that Apple can win if more of the Internet is subscription-based, because Apple charges fees from its app store.
The two companies, whose headquarters are a 15-minute drive apart, have been circling each other cautiously for years. Apple CEO Tim Cook has criticized Facebook for “collecting loads of personal data,” while Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has responded by calling iPhones an expensive product for the global elite, not for the masses. Facebook encourages its employees to use rival Android devices.
Last year, Apple caused a temporary mess at Facebook headquarters by shutting down Facebook employees’ access to internal Facebook corporate applications running on iPhones. Apple had determined that Facebook improperly paid teens and others for their smartphone data.
Companies have radically different business models. Last year, Facebook made $ 70 billion from advertising, almost its only source of income. Advertising sales are a small portion of Apple’s $ 275 billion annual revenue, which comes primarily from device sales and app store commissions.
Apple has said that new tracking notifications will start to appear in early 2021. Privacy groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation support them.
But Facebook is making a last-ditch effort to persuade Apple to back off or compromise with the industry standard makers. With offline ads in newspapers like The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal, the social media company is trying to join its side with the millions of small businesses who buy ads on Facebook and Instagram.
The latest announcement, on Thursday, argues that free online publishers will not be able to survive if Apple gets its way, unless publishers charge for subscriptions, which Apple can get thanks to its app store rules.
“Take your favorite cooking sites or sports blogs. Most are free because they show ads, ”Facebook said in its ad. “Apple’s change will limit its ability to serve personalized ads. To make ends meet, many will have to start charging you subscription fees or add more in-app purchases, making the internet very expensive and reducing free high-quality content. “
Facebook has raised the possibility of antitrust legal action. He said in a blog post that he vowed to provide information to a federal court in an ongoing lawsuit against Apple brought by Epic Games, which seeks to lower the fees you pay through Apple’s app store.
“We believe Apple is behaving anti-competitively by using its control of the App Store to benefit its bottom line at the expense of application developers and small businesses. We continue to explore ways to address this concern, ”Facebook said.
Facebook is fighting antitrust complaints from the states and the Federal Trade Commission, and both Zuckerberg and Cook have been compared to “emperors.”
Apple, for now, is sticking with its plans to track notifications and points to a long history of advocating for online privacy.
“We think it’s a simple matter of defending our users,” Apple said.
