Facebook is stepping up its campaign against Apple’s privacy changes with a second full-page newspaper ad today. This new ad claims Apple’s iOS 14 privacy changes “will change the internet as we know it,” and force websites and blogs “to start charging you subscription fees” or add in-app purchases due to a lack of personalized ads. It follows a similar full-page newspaper ad in the The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and the Washington Post yesterday.
Apple is planning to make changes to iOS 14 early next year that will require developers to ask for permission to gather data and track users across mobile apps and websites on an iPhone or iPad. Apple revealed how iOS 14 users will be prompted to opt into tracking in apps this week, noting that developers like Facebook can explain to users why they should allow tracking within the prompt.
These changes will impact Facebook’s lucrative ad business, but the social networking giant is framing them as something far larger that could impact small businesses. Unsurprisingly, Apple doesn’t agree. “We believe that this is a simple matter of standing up for our users,” said an Apple spokesperson in response to Facebook’s first full-page newspaper ad yesterday. “Users should know when their data is being collected and shared across other apps and websites — and they should have the choice to allow that or not.”
Apple CEO Tim Cook further defended the company’s position in a Thursday evening tweet. “We believe users should have the choice over the data that is being collected about them and how it’s used,” Cook said.
Facebook clearly isn’t holding back on its PR campaign, with this latest newspaper ad trying to sway readers that Apple’s changes are more about moving websites and apps into a paid model where Apple stands to benefit from in-app purchases and subscriptions. With full-page ads in The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and the Washington Post, Facebook is also very clearly trying to convince regulators (i.e. people that still read paper newspapers) to look at Apple’s privacy changes.
This is just the latest in an ongoing public spat between Apple and Facebook over iOS 14 privacy and policy changes, and follows Apple’s new App Store privacy labels. Facebook also hit out against Apple’s App Store policies earlier this year, adding to the growing industry pressure against Apple’s cloud gaming restrictions. Facebook also welcomed the EU’s new Digital Markets Act (DMA) and the Digital Services Act (DSA) this week, hoping that the DMA “will also set boundaries for Apple.”
Update December 17th, 7:34PM ET: Added tweet from Tim Cook.
Comments
Ahh full page newspaper ads. Facebook has gone full boomer.
By tomflack on 12.17.20 4:19am
Problem is, those boomers are the ones very much in control and potential legislators. It’s kind of charming at this point. But FaceBook is looking like a desperate kid pleading to mama: Apple is trying to stop users being tracked, which hurts our whole business model! No fair! Wah!
Not a fan of Apple’s whole walled garden/ App Store fiasco, but I’m so glad they’re doing this – standing up for the user. This shit really needs to be sorted out. We should not have to rely on plugins and browser extensions to monitor tracking and privacy. Any company that pushes back against this is to be 100% supported.
By marcopolomint on 12.17.20 4:45am
I wonder if they’ll try to use their own app to send these messages like Uber and Lyft did with California Prop-22
By ViggsPR on 12.17.20 4:48am
They can’t risk their users to know what they have been doing. Many of them are still clueless.
By I am not Spartacus on 12.17.20 11:12am
That’s the only part I like about this. Big corporations having a go at each other this way has a Mad Men feel to it.
On the other hand, Facebook claiming to protect the free internet (and small business in the last one) is fucking offensive. They are basically whining that no one would freely agree to their shameful practices.
In the end user data is Facebook’s capital, whereas Apple is using privacy to sell their devices.
By chabis on 12.17.20 6:39am
Except Mad Men was cool guys in suits and up-and-comin’ Peggy Olson kicking arse and Facebook is just your dad watching Tuesday night football in the den.
This isn’t a ‘Why I’m quitting tobacco’ moment for Facebook, not by a long shot.
By tomflack on 12.17.20 7:17am
By chabis on 12.17.20 9:25am
Have you seen the videos of the senators asking Zuck questions about FB? where do you think they consume their knowledge about the tech industry?
I can totally see Tim Apple (0_o) sits on a Congress chair and being asked something like "I read in the papers that you’re against free Internet…….why?"
By ASDASDASDASDASDASD on 12.17.20 7:25am
Because boomers have most of the power. And boomers don’t understand the internet or technology very well so they are more easily manipulated by "won’t someone please think of the children small businesses!" style propaganda.
F@ck Facebook. I will be happy to see their ad market fall off a cliff when Apple throws the switch. The data collection and sale industry has gone on unchecked fro far too long.
By minimalist on 12.17.20 12:00pm
Not quite, Apple is being investigated in France for anti-trust and for GDPR violations regarding this matter, because they still track the users (and not respect the GDPR policies), while not allowing 3rd party platforms to do the same.
By chaos-observatory on 12.21.20 6:02pm
Is using people (developers and small businesses) as a shield 2020 trend?
By chris_5 on 12.17.20 4:50am
No the small business shtick has been used as a shield for ages now. It evokes a sense in people that their local mom and pop is being harmed or put at risk. Even though mom and pops almost basically don’t exist anymore and a lot of the small businesses now are businesses with small staff but hundreds of millions in rev.
By thebrownsurfer on 12.17.20 9:08am
It is interesting that both sides’ statements can be seen as correct there.
because yes, this will increase user privacy and control over their data, but it is also correct that besides the reasoning given by Apple, this will clearly increase their chances of selling subscriptions and in app purchases and generally also Apple getting more user data than all competitors and is clearly mostly another move to tighten Apple’s stranglehold.
Make no mistake, Apple is not most focused on no data being collected on users, it is about Apple getting most of that data and not some other company and as platform holder they will always have the huge advantage that most users would trust in giving the platform and platform apps any such data more than any third party app or site, so of course it is yet another thing giving Apple more data and more power and ultimately more money.
By ChiefPotato on 12.17.20 4:59am
Well you are right, Apple is not doing it because they "care" for their users. It’s always about their profits. I just hope the EU moves faster and removes this wildwest type of situation where Facebook believes everything about us belongs to them just because we may or may have not visited their website.
My data should belong to me and me and only me should be able to decide who gets access to it and how much of it they are able to see.
It’s time for digital privacy to become a thing. Imagine if your boss would be allowed to hire a private detective and follow you around everywhere and even be allowed to enter your house and see everything you do 24/7. He would also be allowed to sell that info to your next employer. The scandal that would come from that.
By jackcrouse on 12.17.20 5:22am
Here is the thing with Corporations like you said they only care about profits, but when they do a good thing for the Consumer because of profits this should be encouraged. Apples approach to privacy is something that while yes is about profits for them is good for the user and this outcome is what should always be preferred when regulating them for privacy purposes. If you don’t appeal to these Companies number 1 priority which is money then they will find a way to get around this and hurt the consumer. Its not great I know, but its also a way to harness the strength of a Corporation for the benefit of the Consumer, by incentivizing these Companies to be better. This seems to be missed a lot by our Government and we let the Companies do whatever they want without any regulation and the result is a Facebook. We can have a situation where Companies are great for Consumers AND are very profitable but our Government doesn’t seem to encourage this often which is a shame.
By silentq15 on 12.17.20 9:36am
Except Apple isn’t farming personal data the same way Facebook etc does. Yes, it wants to lock users in to the platform, but they’re going at it from another angle. In particular their revenue isn’t driven by selling targeted ads to third parties.
In part you need to take Apples word for it, but former staff from the AI/Siri teams have cited frustrations that Apples data handling policies made their job harder. That former staff would raise those issues is at least a half decent indication to me that they aren’t letting their devs tap into just anything they may want. It was also cited as a reason why Siri has lagged the competition, which was the trade off.
By Smigit on 12.17.20 8:16am
Facebooks audience for this is not their users, or the people they data harvest
It’s Old Politicians, who might not know exactly what Facebook is doing
Facebook knows they are on the wrong side of this, they just want Politicians to back them against Apple
By Weety on 12.17.20 4:59am
Facebook and Apple are not on that different a side regarding collecting data, Apple collects A LOT of data on users, too.
It is just that it is Apple vs all others there because Apple wants to reduce everyone elses’ abilities to collect data while they will still happily collect the data (and even in places where they bring up prompts in their own apps, too asking for permissions, more likely users allow it for the OS and Apple apps than third party apps and sites so Apple again puts themselves in more advantageous position)
By ChiefPotato on 12.17.20 5:02am
@ChiefPotato
I am a developper for an ad tech company and I can tell you that :
No. You are absolutely wrong. The amount of data collected by Facebook is huge, thousands of times the data collected by Apple to enhance its services.
Besides, and that the most important thing to get in mind here, Facebook shares the data it collects with anyone that is willing to pay for it, and they are legion. Apple do not share this data, because it’s not how it makes money.
It is a huge mistake to think that Apple and Facebook are alike regarding data collection.
By Joneskind on 12.17.20 5:19am
Do you work at Apple or how else do you know what all data Apple collects on users of their OS, devices, apps and services? (and also whenever users use any third party app or page on Apple devices and OS)
By ChiefPotato on 12.17.20 5:28am
Nope
We got logs of everything that is coming in and out of our devices (Macs, iPhones, PCs and Android Phones). We know where the data come from and where it’s going.
We can’t read that data though, because it’s encrypted, but we can compare volumes.
And because we are developing an ad tech, we know how easy it is to get data from Facebook, and how impossible it is to get data from Apple.
By Joneskind on 12.17.20 5:39am
Another great argument is that FB business model is running around Ads while Apple isn’t. And Ads requires personal data to optimise the algorithm
By chris_5 on 12.17.20 3:51pm
Do you? This is a weird requirement, we can easily measure how much data is being exfiltrated.
By GriffinSauce on 12.17.20 7:21am
Particularly given OPs’s original claims were about how much data is being collected.
By JamesMarsh on 12.17.20 8:31am
Apple even buys this data mined from other companies when it needs to. Advertise to targeted users vigorously across nearly every platform and app. For a business not to data mine their users for the best interests of their $Bn/Tn company in 2020 would be disingenuous. I mean I like that they’re supposedly better than Facebook, Amazon and Google but let’s not pretend that they care more about their users than what disposable income they can be parted with.
By Blondebombshell on 12.17.20 9:04am