There are many apps that feed off your data, knowingly or not, to serve you advertisements. That is their business model. They track you across apps and websites that you access on your smartphone, build a virtual profile based on what you are browsing for, what you are shopping for and what other ads you click on, to serve you personalized adverts. You might have often wondered why you see ads very similar to something that you browsed on a shopping website a couple of days ago, on your Facebook newsfeed. Apple wants to give users the control over this, on their iPhones. An iPhone user will now be able to choose whether they want to allow or deny an app from tracking their browsing and app usage trends. Speaking of apps that feed off your data, knowingly or not, Facebook isn’t pleased.
So, what is Apple doing? Basically, the entire argument and Facebook’s PR mission is to criticize an upcoming App Tracking Transparency feature that will bring to the forefront a control that would allow users to stop apps from tracking them across apps and websites on their iPhone or iPad. This will be an update for iOS 14 and iPadOS 14 and will release for iPhone and iPad users in early 2021. For instance, when you open an app on your iPhone, for the first time or after an update, you will be asked, “Allow XYZ to track your activity across other companies’ apps and websites?” The two options you will have at this stage would be “Ask App not to Track” or “Allow”. The App Tracking Transparency feature will be part of the Privacy menu in the Settings app. This is another addition to the privacy dialup that Apple has implemented with iOS 14.
Facebook has since been publishing newspaper ads, official statements and even launched a new website criticizing the move. Facebook says it is “speaking up for small businesses”. Apple has simply said that the new feature does not require Facebook to change its business model or approach to collecting user data to serve personalized ads, it just needs to seek permission and be transparent about the data being collected. This will be true for all Facebook apps, including Instagram.
“We believe users should have the choice over the data that is being collected about them and how it’s used. Facebook can continue to track users across apps and websites as before, App Tracking Transparency in iOS 14 will just require that they ask for your permission first,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a tweet.
Facebook’s attempts at trying to be seen championing the cause of small business globally, has been roundly mocked. A not-for-profit digital rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation, or EFF, says, “Facebook has recently launched a campaign touting itself as the protector of small businesses. This is a laughable attempt from Facebook to distract you from its poor track record of anticompetitive behavior and privacy issues as it tries to derail pro-privacy changes from Apple that are bad for Facebook’s business.” They go on to say that “Requiring trackers to request your consent before stalking you across the Internet should be an obvious baseline, and we applaud Apple for this change. But Facebook, having built a massive empire around the concept of tracking everything you do by letting applications sell and share your data across a shady set of third-party companies, would like users and policymakers to believe otherwise.”
Apple recently rolled out the privacy labels for the App Store which mandates all app developers to disclose what data is being collected from a user as well as what data is identifiable and what isn’t.
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