In a few months, iPhone users will be given a choice whether to allow Facebook to collect their data. If the user refuses, Apple will stop Facebook. When there are other apps that want to collect data to run ads, Apple will issue the same message to the user’s device.In an inspirational speech at a privacy conference in Brussels in October 2018, The CEO of Apple, Tim Cook, delivered a blasting at the corporate practices of major tech rivals.
He implies the number of billions of dollars which change owners, are sold or traded every day, even from every our interaction with friends and relatives like a private conversation or “icon-dropping” activities to ambiguous concepts like our desires and worries, hopes and aspirations. All of that benign data and information is related in discipline, extracted, and traded.
While no specific name was called, but it quite obvious that “you-know-who” ones included Mark Zuckerberg’s company. Unlike trade marketing, internet advertising makes businesses pay less cost, have higher coverage, especially suitable when starting a business. Recently, however, Facebook has shown the link between internet advertising and trade marketing. Specifically, every time you buy shoes online, you will see Facebook automatically runs shoe ads on different websites or in the Newsfeed. Even if you buy shoes out of the store, you’ll then see a relevant ad appear on the app. Companies can know exactly which ads to run through collected data about places you’ve visited or your health information.
With users’ data intentionally collected for ad system, Facebook, last year, the sales peaked at $20 billion, and almost 99 percent of it derives from ads. Over nearly a decade, that was just one in numerous taps from Cook and Zuckerberg for each other.
Take a share with Time in 2014, The Facebook founder disapprovingly indicates the faults of the rival Apple’s attitude on privacy. He mentioned his discomfort to the equation of people about the concept of an ad model with organization customers’ involvement in a pact or treaty.
To this topic, the two tech firms share different viewpoints about the operation manner of business within the internet environment.
In the early days of the iPhone, there was a debate about the form of the mobile Internet. Is it the same as on desktops, where people mostly use their mobile browsers to visit websites and everything is built on public standards? Or will users turn to “apps”, which give more control to companies that own mobile platforms?
Facebook considers the internet as the Wild West with free-offering new services, and your payment to these services is the critical track of your data, not money. On the other hand, Apple’s view indicates that both the internet and your devices are your personal property and customers totally have the right to any action on that information.
A war over a century
Last week, with Facebook’s two-day campaign towards Apple, the confrontation comes to a climax. The advertising called foul on the iPhone OS’s imminent update could warn users about the personal data records such as location and internet activities used by companies like Facebook for ads. Before using the app, the warning helps you decide to block or not. According to Facebook, Apple’s move aims at businesses depending on advertising for online customers. There is no clear evidence but that move tends to compel app developers to stop selling their users free and ad-supported applications. Instead, via digital downloads or other payments, customers will be charged.
Apple disclaimed that accusations, the company said the new design is just to inform you of the data tracking working style of an app, not block it altogether. There will be no charge involved and the tracking of your data stays the same as before, but deliberate permission from you is required. Apple added that that feature is just one in many others designed to products for privacy issues over the years.
To Apple, there was a big discussion about what the mobile network might be like. Like internet on a desktop PC where people often use a web browser to access websites, with all opened? Or will users move between a set of internet-connected apps, allowing the corporations of the smartphone networks more control?
Facebook preferred the former alternative and advocated for rich mobile applications that were written to evolving standards. Yet it lost mainly because of Apple, who promoted the app concept as the preferred way to execute tasks on the iPhone.
Facebook made effort to develop its made-by-Facebook smartphone as the future became apparent to get rid of Apple or Google so much power. It was even a double flop when the company again developed a software “coat” for Android devices with its own services. In 2021, another potential product in the Facebook family ones is digital glasses is planned to launch.
For now, the rival Apple still remains in combat.
No Certainty for Facebook’s “Game-over”
It’s ironic that last week, only days after the FTC and a coalition of state attorneys general sued Facebook, claiming antitrust abuses and urging a dissolution of the company Apple was accused of exploiting its market dominance by its rival Facebook.
In addition to that, Facebook’s statement showed its own grip on the market for digital advertising. If Facebook has a competitive rival to advertise via these firms, smaller companies wouldn’t have to focus too heavily on Facebook.
Apple suffered various regulatory oversight, but no formal antitrust cases have arisen. In October, an epic study on the “monopoly power” of the four largest tech companies was issued by the House Judiciary antitrust subcommittee, arguing that Apple is using its dominance of the App Store to squash future rivals.
Both firms have dismissed charges that their parties are violating antitrust laws. Yet Facebook has now sparked a wave in which two companies in the United States and globally that face antitrust pressure are exchanging barbs on which one is more responsible when it hits the market control misuse.
It’s still impossible to predict what Facebook’s final goal makes sense. To Apple’s plan, they are not going to backtrack on a crucial iPhone privacy feature, and by trying to pull its software off the App Store, Facebook is not going to sacrifice the loss of millions of users.
This week, Facebook’s director, who is in charge of privacy and public policy, Steve Satterfield, shared with CNBC that the company will also abide by the current laws of Apple, and there is no risk that Facebook will flagrantly breach them to spark a legal dispute such as the one in which Apple and “Fortnite” maker Epic Games are currently involved. (In its case against Apple, Facebook claimed last week it would help Epic.)
Satterfield mentioned that they had a simple goal and they wanted to start paying attention to Apple. With no substantive consultation, they scrapped this policy back in June. … Given the far-reaching impact, it’s crucial that organizations should account for it.
It is hard to be convinced by Facebook’s stated argument against the pop-up. The company has been arguing for years that there is a preference among its users for the effective and customized commercials that its information gathering allows, as opposed to random ads served without targeting a wide audience. In case it appears true, then when the pop-up by Apple is shown, users should find it no problem allowing the tracking.
In August, when it published data from a report suggesting enough individuals would eliminate monitoring to prompt a 50 percent decrease in sales through its third-party ad networks, Facebook weakened the claim. The company has issued a warning for investors this year that as Apple begins introducing the monitoring tool, its own sales will dive.
According to Apple, iPhone users want their devices to have more privacy controls built in. The organization has routinely introduced privacy enhancements following years of questioning Facebook’s corporate policies to tamp down on the violations it has observed on its smartphones.
In a 2018 interview with Axios, also about the topic of those built-in control features, Cook said when asked why, amid his disapproval of their operations, businesses like Google and Facebook are allowed to succeed on the iPhone. He said that they provided online surfing for private purposes. They had got an intelligent avoidance tracker.
Not only was Apple fighting back against the claims made by Facebook, but also small company advertisement groups and the same ones took over #SpeakUpForSmall hashtag on Twitter from Facebook and loaded it with concerns about the lack of coverage they receive relative to the bigger ad customers of Facebook the first day launching the campaign.
And earlier this week, Bloomberg released a study full of related marketers’ concerns about the company’s automatic ad-buying software. On Tuesday, BuzzFeed released a report quoting Facebook staff who were almost as confused as the small business marketers over the anti-Apple crusade.
Facebook spokesperson Ashley Zandy, for her part, told CNBC that the organization has learned from several positive businesses and that it encourages its workforce to speak openly and challenge the approach of the company.
Satterfield told that there was much of the coverage which was balanced and nuanced of the statement. And “I think, we’re pleased.” She said
