Tim Cook responds to Facebook's attack ads with tweet about privacy
Apple's CEO Tim Cook has tweeted in response to Facebook's claims that forthcoming ad tracking in iOS 14 will be "devastating" for small businesses.
Tim Cook
Following Facebook's blog post and two newspaper ads claiming Apple's privacy features will irrevocably damage the internet, Tim Cook has tweeted about Apple's position.
While Facebook's public position is that Apple's forthcoming iOS 14 privacy feature will be "devastating" for small business, it expects to lose revenue itself. Having previously estimated a 50% drop in ad revenue, it now predicts 60%.
Ad tracking is now expected to come to iOS 14 in early 2021. It will mean that users are notified that an app wants to track their use, and will ask them to accept or reject this.
Separately, Apple's new privacy labels in the App Store are meant to tell users what their data will be used for, before they download an app.
Tim Cook
Following Facebook's blog post and two newspaper ads claiming Apple's privacy features will irrevocably damage the internet, Tim Cook has tweeted about Apple's position.
We believe users should 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 require that they ask for your permission first. pic.twitter.com/UnnAONZ61I
-- Tim Cook (@tim_cook)
While Facebook's public position is that Apple's forthcoming iOS 14 privacy feature will be "devastating" for small business, it expects to lose revenue itself. Having previously estimated a 50% drop in ad revenue, it now predicts 60%.
Ad tracking is now expected to come to iOS 14 in early 2021. It will mean that users are notified that an app wants to track their use, and will ask them to accept or reject this.
Separately, Apple's new privacy labels in the App Store are meant to tell users what their data will be used for, before they download an app.
Comments
Curiously, there is an organization in the US, which I won't name, that collects information about everyone on earth for reasons that are important to them, but not to me. They mask their efforts by trying to convince you that they are helping you determine your ancestry. But really, they are helping themselves. I guess to be consistent I should also say that they shouldn't be allowed to record details about me unless I opt-in first. But the more I think about it, the more I realize how hard it is to implement an opt-in procedure.
"Monetize privacy" is an exaggerated metaphor at best. Meanwhile, without hyperbole, Facebook makes almost all of its money by exploiting your privacy - whether or not you have a Facebook profile.
Apple could do little to nothing about the privacy issue and they would be on par with every other tech giant and PC manufacturer. Apple's privacy efforts are out of scale with any meaningful impact to their bottom line. Eventually you have to give credit where it is due, Apple's privacy advocacy is part of their ethics.
Is there no limit to the kind of personal information that a company like Facebook can monetize?
- Can it monetize its knowledge about your religion?
- Can it monetize its knowledge about your handicap status?
- Can it monetize its knowledge about your race?
- Can it monetize its knowledge about your health? Eg, can they sell information about your diseases to drug companies?
- Can it monetize its knowledge about you without your explicit permission?
- Can it monetize its knowledge about you even if you explicitly tell them they don't have your permission?
- Can it collect information about you BEFORE you become a user of their service? I.e., people who aren't users of Facebook?
Simple questions. I hope you answer all of them. There is no comparison between Apple and Facebook here.So if iOS represents only 10% of the platforms which receive Facebook's advertisements, (which is a wild guess) then that "60%" would drop to a "6%" overall revenue drop for Facebook for all its ads combined.
Truthful and diplomatic. The perfect response to someone who can do nothing but buy inflammatory newspaper ads.
If you view the "invasion of privacy" in the same light as say, computer viruses and malware, I suppose that providing protection from it could be seen as a monetizable thing. But in fact, Apple isn't trying to sell you protection from privacy invasion, they are giving it away as an inherent quality of every product they sell. They're not selling it as a product.
I'm more inclined to say that Facebook is more like an elaborate confidence game that preys on human gullibility, vanity, and nostalgia. Orchestrators of these scams always know that they are engaging in a malevolent enterprise. They go to great lengths to try to hide their true intentions, but once they do get ratted out they run away and hide. They don't try to stand up and defend their actions, much less by publishing a "woe is me" missive in the form of a full page newspaper ad. They develop a new plan of attack, or find a new victim. Their entire ruse is based on disguising their true intentions from their victims.
In Facebook's case, Apple has stipulated that all apps must reveal their true intentions up-front. Apple's mechanisms mean that those who are engaging in malevolent, or even just shady, activities are ratted out from the start. Of course these players don't want to give up their gig before it's even started. It doesn't matter if Facebook is giving a cut of the action or creating opportunities for their real customers. Those who are being duped, the Facebook Livestock, need to know what they're getting into before they sign-up. If it really is all about puppies, kittens, and virtual reunions with long forgotten classmates why would Facebook be trying to hide what they are doing? They are trying to hide their true intentions because they don't want their "users" to know that they are the raw material and livestock that feeds Facebook's business enterprise.
Hey, if people want to sign up to be cow, chicken, or pig on Facebook's farm, let 'em. But they need to know what they are getting into up-front. If you want to moo for farmer Mark on the Facebook farm, moo on brother, moo on.
You're too kind. I say it's bullshit FUD. And if Apple did nothing, putting them on par with everybody else, they'd be called out by tedz and others for not doing anything.
Apple sells products. One of their features across the board, no extra charge, is privacy. We have the choice of buying the products or not. At FB, users are the product and FB is more than happy to sell them out, via secret data mining, or changing Privacy settings to Public.
Some say data breaches shouldn't count, but any entity that stores information on its members or visitors should be responsible to safeguard it.
Hilarious that you think Apple cares about your privacy when they got caught with their pants down, twice! First, using third-party contractors to listen to and save all your Siri conversations which contained location and other data to identify you. Most recently with the blundered Big Sur rollout and Apple's servers crashing, it was discovered that Apple has been tracking every single app you open on your Mac and recording your unencrypted IP address, which identifies exactly who you are. Now with Big Sur, Apple continues to do it, but in an even more devious way because Big Sur can bypass your Firewall and VPN. Any time you open an app and see the Security/Gatekeeper icon and a progress bar before the app opens, your Mac is phoning home to Apple to send that data. And how does Apple care about your privacy? Apple can identify every single iPhone user through the IMEI number. Apple knows exactly who their customers are and they can track you just like anyone else. They just do this fluff PR about privacy, just like they claim they are saving the environment, yet they are shipping more chargers than ever before as separate accessories.
And Apple also got caught, twice, doing things it promised it would not do. First with Siri conversations, and now with tracking apps and IP addresses on every Mac running Catalina and Big Sur.
Facebook and Google traffic in data, and their paying customer is advertisers. They both sell some hardware, but the hardware's purpose is to drive users toward data collection software. Therein lies the problem with something like an ad-free subscription option for Facebook. The trust is already been sold to the highest bidder. There probably aren't many people who would simultaneously be interested in a subscription-based, ad-free social media site that ostensibly would collect and sell the subscriber's data, and who would also trust facebook to honestly deliver that service. How could they, really?
Is it a Safari problem? Safari on both iPads and Mac get really bolloxed up responding to changing ads being replaced on the screen -- the contents get shifted around to accommodate the new ads. For the life of me, why would any site want their readers to be inconvenienced by such practices?