Facebook Inc. and Apple Inc. it is dangerously close to full legal war, with the social media giant firmly considering a process that could ultimately influence antitrust investigators.
The conflagration is focused on the Apple AAPL,
a new iOS 14 policy, which will be launched this spring. Includes new privacy features that will require applications for the first time to request permission from users to track them on the web. One such feature, Facebook FB,
claims, would severely limit online advertising and kill small businesses in the process.
Tensions between companies have risen for years to the point where Facebook plans to sue Apple for preferential treatment of its own applications, while imposing restrictive rules on third-party applications from Facebook and others, according to reports. .
“As we have repeatedly said, we believe that Apple is behaving anti-competitively by using control over the App Store to benefit from their results to the detriment of app developers and small businesses,” a Facebook spokeswoman said in a statement MarketWatch.
Apple has no comments.
Facebook, which launched a series of print and digital ads in December to give its point of view, forced its animus during a earnings call with analysts on Wednesday.
“We also see that Apple’s business is increasingly dependent on gaining shares in applications and services against us and other developers,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said during the call. “So Apple has every incentive to use its dominant position on the platform to interfere with the way our applications and other applications work, which we do on a regular basis to prefer theirs.”
Apple CEO Tim Cook criticized the hostility on Thursday without mentioning Facebook by name.
“If a business is based on deceptive users, on the exploitation of data, on choices that are not choices at all, then it is not worth our praise. It deserves reform, ”Cook said Thursday at the online conference for computers, privacy and data protection only. “Too many are still asking themselves, ‘How far can we get out?’ ”When he has to ask“ What are the consequences? ”
“What are the consequences of prioritizing conspiracy theories and violent incitement simply because of high employment rates?” What are the consequences of tolerating not only the rewarding content that undermines public confidence in life-saving vaccinations? What are the consequences if we see thousands of users join extremist groups and then perpetuate an algorithm that recommends even more? ”
The stifling conflict highlights contrasting business approaches: Apple is enslaving the philosophy of consumer privacy, in which the customer pays for his internet experience. Facebook, on the other hand, relies on data about its members to fuel its digital advertising business.
Read more: Facebook and Apple embody a new technical division
Ironically, a legal confrontation between tech titans could hurt them on the antitrust front, as both are being investigated for what they accuse each other of, says Elizabeth Renieris, founding director of the University of Notre Dame-IBM Technology Ethics Laboratory. Our Lady.
“What proves this feud more than anything is that Facebook and Apple have enormous powers to keep gateways to the market,” she told MarketWatch.
“It demonstrates how much Facebook controls access to customers or the public through its advertising ecosystem,” said Renieris. “At the same time, the dispute reveals how much power Apple has to mediate access to our personal data through its technical choices and policy decisions.”