Drawing a line
It has been known for some time that tech giants Apple and Facebook do no get along. Indeed, for two companies that aren't even direct competitors, Apple and Facebook have had remarkably public feuds that have involved both CEOs making digs at each other. Tim Cook has repeatedly asserted that Facebook sees its customers as products to fully utilise and make money off. Mark Zuckerberg has claimed that Apple charges an unnecessarily high premium for its products and indulges in unfair monopolistic practices in regards to the App Store. Indeed, many news outlets have reported that while it is not official policy, Facebook strongly urges its employees to use Android phones only.
The bone of their contention is to do with their seemingly different stances on privacy. While Apple has constantly used Facebook as the prime target of its criticisms of tech companies exploiting customer data, their latest feud has made the relationship even tenser. Earlier in the year, Apple announced that it would launch a new feature with a future IOS update. This feature would necessitate app makers to now list 'nutrition label' type disclosures that inform the users as to what data the app was collecting from you and categorising it into separate categories. Additionally, when IOS 14 rolls out, Apple intends to have a feature that would require app makers to ask for explicit permission to track IOS devices through apps and webpages. With this, Apple has already begun to make good on its claims of increasing transparency around data collection on the IOS platform. While this may make customers who are increasingly concerned with data privacy happy, there have been dissenting voices as well.
Earlier in the year, when Apple first announced this series of features, Facebook came out on a series of blog posts about the potential chilling effects of this feature on Facebook's ad network. Facebook claimed that such changes would make targeted ad campaigns difficult for brands looking to advertise. The company also additionally claimed that it had carried out tests that had shown that without targeting and personalisation, mobile app install campaigns brought in 50 per cent less revenue from publishers. Facebook claimed that the number was tentative and that the actual impact of teh rollout of IOS 14 with such features could have a much more serious impact. Facebook's assertions saw a number of varied responses. Some agreed with Facebook's sentiments and warned that any changes that impact the working of Facebook's ad network would be likely to have a serious rippling impact on smaller publishers that use the platform. Others have discounted such assertions and claimed that rather than impacting publishers, Apple's changes would bring more choice to consumers. There were even suggestions that Facebook is using its advertising service as a way of deflecting from its broader data collection practices.
When Apple repeated its thinly veiled criticisms of Facebook's data usage recently in a letter to several non-profits, Facebook shot back. Facebook claimed that Apple's expansion into the advertising space is the reason why the company is bothering with such data privacy measures. The company claimed that Apple is to create a scenario where it can use its dominant market position to self-preference its data collection while making it nearly impossible for their competitors to do the same.
Overall, this is but one of many blows that have been traded and will continue to be traded between these tech giants. Data security is an emerging issue, both for lawmakers and customers who are slowly understanding the underlying issues and dilemmas. As it were, it was Facebook's connection with the Cambridge Analytica scandal that first brought the idea of data collection and security to the forefront of public debate. The scandal proved to be a watershed moment with companies willingly or unwillingly taking cognisance of the public need to be involved in deciding what happens with their data. While it is difficult at this point to unequivocally establish the 'right' and 'wrong' side of this big tech debate, there is little doubt that there is indeed a need to level the information playing field between customers and the companies that were able to previously collect their data without consent or identification.
