“By that time Facebook will have done what it needs to do to comply and it will have bullied the EU by lobbying to get something it likes.” “The EU act will be lobbied and debated over and won’t be passed for another couple of years then it will be another couple more before it comes in,” says Anson. Similar to Apple’s strategy of proclaiming itself a privacy champion, it is a smart tactic for Facebook to put itself on the side of the little guy, particularly as laws such as the EU Digital Services Act remain in their infancy. “Many small businesses won’t grow, continue hiring or even survive as a result of an impact of this magnitude,” it says. The impact on its advertising revenues will, it says, “be much less than what will befall small businesses” that rely on its algorithms to promote their wares. For now, Facebook is continuing to frame the advent of the Apple update as an affront to the smaller businesses that benefit from its platform. Meanwhile, WhatsApp, which Facebook acquired in 2014, is to start gradually switching off functionality for users who refuse to let it share information with Facebook about the businesses they have communicated with.Įven taken together, they are likely to be a poor substitute for what Facebook will lose if the iOS 14.5 opt-outs continue apace. Depending on take-up, Facebook’s digital currency diem, which will be piloted later this year, could also create masses of data due to the way digital transactions are logged by the technology that powers them. How Facebook attempts to keep pace will be telling. But the world in which it operates is changing fast. That is in part because it will further restrict its ability to target ads to individual users, but also because the more these rule changes are spoken about the more it shines a spotlight on exactly what it is Facebook does with user data.įacebook still makes billions from advertising. While that puts Apple ahead of the curve, it creates an even bigger problem for Facebook. Cook retaliated by tweeting that users “should have the choice over the data that is being collected about them and how it’s used”. The update was designed so users were asked their permission for the tracking to happen first.įacebook responded to the move by taking out full-page ads in the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal accusing Apple of posing a threat to the “10 million businesses use our advertising tools each month to find new customers, hire employees and engage with their communities”. Until iOS 14.5 came along, apps like Facebook could automatically track what people were looking at on their phones and sell targeted ad space accordingly. Things moved up a notch at the end of last year after Apple revealed that app-tracking transparency would be installed as part of its latest system update. Weeks later Apple introduced privacy controls that hampered Facebook’s ability to collect user data via Apple devices. Back in 2018 Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg accused his Apple counterpart Tim Cook of being “ extremely glib” for making scathing remarks about Facebook’s involvement in the Cambridge Analytica scandal. It is not unusual for the bosses of Apple and Facebook to be at loggerheads with each other over privacy.
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