As Facebook-Apple feud over privacy heightens, FB employees side with iPhone maker

Facebook vs Apple: As Facebook and Apple’s feud over user privacy and restrictions imposed by iOS 14 continues, Facebook’s own employees have apparently sided with the iPhone manufacturer. The reports have come soon after the non-profit Electronic Frontier Foundation also sided with Cupertino. The social media giant has been criticising Apple for the past few months over its recent iOS 14, which would bar Facebook from tracking user data without their explicit permission, and this back-and-forth has made things ugly between the two tech giants, even as Apple has for long been a vocal critic of Facebook’s data collection methods.

Also read | Facebook is upset with Apple because new iOS update allows iPhone users to opt out of tracking

As per reports, the employees of the social media giant said that it was hiding its bad privacy practices behind small businesses. They are apparently unhappy with Facebook’s move to publicly criticise Cupertino, with a report citing an employee as saying that they feel like the social media giant is trying to justify a malafide practice by exploiting people with the help of a sympathetic message.

Apple earlier this year launched iOS 14, which starting next year, would bar Facebook and its products from tracking non-app movements of iPhone users. This is set to hit Facebook’s targeted ads feature, a major source of revenue for the social media giant. Facebook recently published a full-page ad in prestigious newspapers like The Wall Street Journal and New York Times to criticise Apple for its iOS 14 provisions, and stated that Cupertino’s policies would hurt small businesses which rely on Facebook’s targeted ads feature to gain visibility. Facebook has been claiming to benefit small businesses with this feature for a long time, as this has been their most visible and sympathetic pitch behind targeted advertising.

To this, Apple said that it was protecting the interests of its own users and was reinstating within their hands the power to decide who could track their movements and use their data. In this fight, Facebook claimed to stand up for the interests of small businesses, even as Apple made it highly clear that iOS 14 would not stop Facebook from tracking user movement if the user so desires. Instead, Cupertino would just allow users to decide who would be able to access that data, a right which Apple believes is users’ and theirs alone. Once implemented next year, iOS 14 would not allow iPhone apps to track and sell user data secretly without the customers’ explicit permission.