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- In a letter sent Thursday to nonprofit organizations for privacy, Apple accused Facebook to gather “as much information as possible” at the time showing a “disregard for the privacy of the user.”
- Facebook responded by saying that Apple is abusing its domain to “prefer its own data collection.”
- Apple’s letter defended the delayed launch of a privacy feature that will require users to choose to be followed by in-app ad trackers.
- Facebook previously complained that this feature would destroy its ad revenue.
- Visit the Business Insider home page for more stories.
Apple and Facebook traded quips this week about which of them exploits their users the most.
Apple struck the first blow Thursday in a letter to nonprofits, including Human Rights Watch and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, saying it does not collect detailed user data to sell to third parties. Facebook takes a “very different approach,” Apple said.
“Not only do they allow the grouping of users into smaller segments, but they use detailed data on online browsing activity to guide ads,” Apple said in the letter, which was first reported by Bloomberg.
“Facebook executives have made clear that their intention is to collect as much data as possible from both their own and third-party products to develop and monetize detailed profiles of their users, and this disregard for user privacy continues to expand to include more. of their products. ”
Facebook responded forcefully in a statement sent to Business Insider, accusing Apple of abusing its domain to profit.
He also accused Apple of sending the letter as a “distraction” from privacy concerns that surfaced last week after a number of Mac computers had difficulty opening applications. Security researcher Jeffrey Paul blogged that this was because macOS has started collecting user data.
“The truth is that Apple has expanded its business into advertising and, through its upcoming changes to iOS 14, is trying to move the free Internet to paid applications and services that they benefit from,” Facebook said.
“As a result, they are using their dominant position in the market to prefer their own data collection while making it almost impossible for their competitors to use the same data. They claim it is about privacy, but it is about profit,” the statement read .
“This is all part of a transformation of Apple’s business from innovative hardware products to data-driven media and software.”
Apple’s letter to nonprofits defended its decision to delay the launch of an important new privacy feature that will mean that iPhone users will have to explicitly choose to opt out of ad trackers, rather than start following. silently to users by default when they download an app.
The feature was scheduled to roll out to iPhones running iOS 14 in September, but after several developers, including Facebook, complained that it would destroy their ad revenue, Apple delayed the rollout until early 2021 to give developers time to. adapt.
The nonprofit organizations criticized the postponed launch earlier this year, saying leaving users exposed to targeted political advertising during the US elections.
