Permission to spy: how Apple and Facebook are fighting over our data

The year 2020 will be remembered not only for the pandemic linked to the spread of the coronavirus, but also for an unprecedented wave of fake news and conspiracy theories that proliferated during the crisis.

The leading tech firms faced a raft of complaints from U.S. federal authorities, which will affect them in the near term. Moreover, the companies themselves have waged a real war against one another, justifying it as the defence of users’ personal data.

Besides the Senate hearings into potential monopolisation of the market by the four largest American internet companies, which took place in the summer of 2020, Apple dealt a heavy blow to its peers – Google and Facebook.

The latest update to iOS 14, which installed on 72% of smartphones, allows users to opt out of data collection inside apps. New rules for developers came into effect on December 8. Facebook was the first to voice its objection.

A decade-long war

Apple’s updated privacy policy has unleashed the next round in the long-running standoff with Facebook. The feud between Tim Cook and Mark Zuckerberg can be traced back to 2014, when Apple’s CEO criticised Facebook’s business model. It didn’t take long for a response: in an interview with Time magazine Mark Zuckerberg called Apple’s approach to privacy ‘ridiculous’.

But if previously the heads of the two companies merely exchanged pleasantries, a genuine media battle between the giants is now unfolding. In the summer of 2020 Facebook partially backed the Coalition for App Fairness and attempted to insert into an iOS app a message that Apple charges a 30% commission on in-app purchases. The App Store did not pass this update, and the companies had to remove the notification.

The escalation was driven by the updated privacy policy that came into effect at the end of 2020. In mid-December Facebook launched an advertising war against Apple, ordering full-page ads in The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal with the headline “We stand up to Apple for small business worldwide”.

Facebook argues that the data-collection restrictions in iOS 14 will deprive small businesses of the ability to create and run targeted ads on their platform, reducing their sales and, consequently, their profits. As the company found, targeting on its platform can cut marketing costs for goods and services by up to 60% compared with non-personalised advertising.

Apple, for its part, says it does not curb advertising opportunities and reminded Facebook of its own dismissive attitude toward users’ personal data.

Nevertheless a number of experts note that Apple is being coy on this issue. If you look at the pop-up template that asks the user for permission to track their personal data, you can see that iOS developers have employed a [simple_tooltip content=’Dark pattern’]dark pattern[/simple_tooltip]. The “Ask App Not to Track” button sits above the “Allow” button. Moreover, it looks considerably larger, which instinctively nudges users to choose that option.

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. pic.twitter.com/UnnAONZ61I

— Tim Cook (@tim_cook) December 17, 2020

The quiet response from the search giant

But it wasn’t only Facebook that was affected by the new rules. Google, owner of the world’s most popular search engine, was also subject to iOS 14 restrictions. Beyond personalised search advertising, developers of freemium apps that earn money through advertising could be affected in the future.

Google has not yet issued statements on the updated privacy policy. However, users noted that the tech giant is not rushing to update its iOS apps.

Fifteen Google apps, including YouTube, Gmail and Google Drive, were last updated on December 7 or earlier — just one day before the new rules for publishing apps in the App Store took effect.

Presumably the company took this step to avoid triggering the pop-up requesting permission to collect personal data. Yet sooner or later the companies will have to accept the new rules if they want to keep their users on the world’s second-most popular mobile OS.

What about Apple?

The Cupertino company is moving, step by step, toward its Privacy First concept, calling privacy a core value. Apple, like its peers, houses vast amounts of data on its users. The algorithms in Apple+ and Music curate relevant content based on data; the iCloud service stores terabytes of photos, and Apple Pay tracks every transaction.

The company does not derive profits from Facebook and Google, which provide services to users largely for free. The main source of revenue from iOS is purchases and microtransactions in the App Store, which, by the way, yield Apple a 30% commission on each transaction, and in 2020 brought the company $64 billion. Consequently, the company is more focused on popularising a culture of subscriptions across music, films, podcasts, magazines and games.

On the one hand, the companies publicly claim to care about their users. Yet in reality their interests lie in their own revenues. And what the giants’ feud will lead to remains unknown. One thing is clear: nobody is prepared to back down. In the end, each side will find new ways to collect user data, enabling the corporations to rake in billions.

And the antitrust cases have only just begun. As the Microsoft experience shows, it can drag on for more than a year and lead to utterly unpredictable consequences.

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