Allow me to go: how Apple and Facebook are fighting for our data

2020 will be remembered not only by pandemia associated with the spread of coronavirus, but also by an unprecedented number of fakes and conspiracy theories that appeared against the background of the crisis.

The largest IT corporations encountered a number of complaints from the US federal authorities, which will somehow affect them in the near future. In addition, the companies themselves launched a real war with each other, justifying it with the protection of personal data of users.

In addition to the Senate hearings in the case of the possible monopolization of the market, the four largest Internet companies in America, which took place in the summer of 2020, Apple corporation hit its colleagues-Google and Facebook.

The fact is that the last update of the iOS 14 operating system, which has already been installed on 72% of smartphones, allows users to disconnect the collection of personal data inside the applications. New rules for developers entered into force on December 8. The first indignation was expressed by Facebook.

• In September 2020, Apple announced a new version of iOS 14, where one of the innovations was an updated privacy policy in terms of collecting personal data by third -party applications: starting on December 8, developers should ask users to collect their personal data.
• Shortly before the new confidentiality policy, Facebook launched an information war against Apple, saying that new rules will make it difficult to post targeted advertising on their platform and hit the income of small businesses.
• Google, which also suffered from innovations in theory, did not make public statements, however, as users noted, the popular companies of the company were last updated the day before the entry of new rules for developers – December 7.

War of a decade

The updated confidentiality policy of Apple unleashed another round of confrontation with Facebook, which has been going on for more than one year. It manages to trace the enemy chain between Tim Cook and Mark Zuckerberg until 2014, when CEO Apple criticized the Facebook business model. I did not have to wait long for the answer: in an interview with Time magazine, Mark Zuckerberg called the Apple concept with respect to the privacy of “ridiculous”.

However, if before this, the heads of the two corporations only exchanged “courtesies”, now the real media battle between giants is unfolding. In the summer of 2020, Facebook partially supported the “Coalition for the Justice of Appendices” and tried to insert a message into the IOS application that Apple charges a 30% commission for purchases within the application. App Store did not miss this update, and the company had to delete a notification.

A renewed privacy policy that entered into force at the end of 2020 led to the escalation of the conflict. In mid -December, Facebook began Top 5 Crypto Lending an advertising war against Apple, ordering an advertisement in three largest American publications: The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal with the heading “We oppose Apple for a small business all over the world”.

According to Facebook, restrictions on the collection of personal data in iOS 14 will deprive the possibility of small businesses to create and order targeted advertising on their platform, which will lead to a decrease in their sales and, accordingly, profit. As calculated in the company, targeting on their platform can reduce the costs of promoting goods and services to 60% compared to the non -staffing.

Apple, in turn, insists that they do not limit the possibilities for advertising, and remembered Facebook, its dismissive attitude to personal data of users.

Nevertheless, a number of experts notes that Apple is cunning in this matter. If you look at the template of a pop -up window that asks the user to monitor his personal data, you can notice that the IOS developers used to receive [Simple_toletip Content = ’dark pattern – a user interface, pushing the user to do what he usually does not do what he does not do. For example, buy a premium subscription instead of a trial, subscribe to a newsletter, allow to send notifications, etc.D.’] A dark pattern [/simple_tooltip]. Button “Ask the application not to track” is above the “allow” button. In addition, it looks much more massive, which intuitively pushes the user to choose this particular option.

We Believe Users Shoup 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 RECURA THET THE YOUR PERMISSION FIRMISSION FIRMIST. Pic.Twitter.COM/Unnaonz61i

– TIM COOK (@tim_cook) December 17, 2020

Silent reaction of the search giant

But not only Facebook was under the blow of new rules. Google, which owns the most popular search engine in the world, has also come to iOS 14 restrictions. In addition to personalized search advertising in the future, the developers of conditionally paying applications that make money from the display of advertising may also suffer.

Google has not yet made statements about the updated privacy policy. However, users noticed that the IT giant is in no hurry to update their applications for iOS.

15 popular Google applications, such as YouTube, Gmail and Google Drive, were last updated on December 7 or earlier – just one day before the new rules for publishing applications in the App Store.

The company probably took such a step in order to avoid turning on a pop -up window with a request for permission to collect personal data. However, sooner or later the company will still have to accept the new rules of the game if it wants to support its users in the second most popular mobile OS in the world.

And what about Apple?

The Cupery company step by step moves to its concept Privacy First, calling confidentiality key value. Apple, just like her colleagues, have a huge set of data about their users. Algorithms in Apple+ and Music select relevant content based on data, cloud Cloud Cloud stores terabytes of photos, and Apple Pay monitors each transaction.

The company does not receive any profit from the activities of Facebook and Google, which provide services to users, for a greater extent, free. The main source of income with iOS is the purchases and microtransactions in the App Store, which, by the way, are expelled by Apple 30% of the commission from each operation, and in 2020 companies were brought by $ 64 billion. Therefore, the company is more focused on popularizing the culture of subscriptions to everything: music, films, podcasts, magazines and games.

On the one hand, companies publicly declare care of their users. However, in fact, they are only interested in their own income. And what the enmity of the giants will lead to is unknown. Only one thing is clear – no one is going to give in to. And in the end, each party will find new ways to collect user data, thanks to which corporations earn billions.

And the proceedings with the authorities have just begun. And as the experience of Microsoft shows, it can drag out for more than one year and lead to absolutely unpredictable consequences.

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