Apple slams Facebook and defends delay of personal privacy feature
21 November, 2020
Apple slammed Facebook and additional internet giants because of their ad-targeting practices in response to a letter questioning a decision by the iPhone maker to delay a fresh privacy feature.
The Cupertino-based technology company criticised Facebook’s approach to advertising and user tracking, according to a written reply delivered to several individual rights and privacy organisations, like the Electronic Frontier Foundation and People Rights Watch.
By contrast, Facebook and others employ a different method of targeting. Not only do they permit the grouping of users into smaller sized segments, they use complete data about on-line browsing activity to focus on ads.
Facebook executives have made clear their intent is to acquire as much data seeing that possible across both first and third party products to build up and monetise detailed profiles of their users, which disregard for user privacy continues to expand to add more of their products.
Apple’s letter defended the company’s decision to delay an iPhone feature that requires users to provide explicit permission before letting programs track them to promote purposes.
The enhancement was added as part of the company’s iOS 14 operating system in September, but a requirement that apps put it to use was delayed until early 2021 after several designers, including Facebook, said the change would hurt their businesses.
The human rights and privacy organisations criticised the delay in a letter earlier this season to Apple.
“This ensures that these privacy protections will never be available through the critical weeks before and following 2020 US elections, when people’s data can be utilized to focus on them with personalised political ads,” they wrote.
Jane Horvath, Apple’s global head of personal privacy, said the business delayed the necessity to “give developers enough time they indicated they had a need to properly update their devices and data practices.” Apple remains “totally committed” to the characteristic, she added.
Facebook responded with an extended declaration accusing Apple of trying to distract users from its own privacy concerns. The social network likewise accused Apple of which consists of size to block rivals, like Facebook, from jogging their advertising business.
“They are employing their dominant market position to self-preference their own info collection while so that it is nearly impossible because of their competitors to use the same info,” Facebook said in the statement. “They promise it’s about privacy, but it’s about profit.”
Source: www.thenationalnews.com