A look at the frayed relationship between Mark Zuckerberg and Tim Cook as Apple is set to release its new privacy feature for iPhones
The chief executives of Facebook and Apple have opposing visions for the future of the internet. Their differences are set to escalate this week.
New York Times
Context & Ripple Effects
The conflict had already moved beyond product rivalry: reporting in February described an increasingly personal dispute between the two CEOs, while Zuckerberg had cast Apple as one of Facebook’s biggest competitors.
The rollout turns that disagreement into an operating change on Apple’s iPhones. It also follows an earlier moment in which both leaders acknowledged a role for privacy regulation, albeit from sharply different positions in the debate.
First-order effects
Apple puts its privacy approach into effect for iPhone users, using control of the device platform to set new conditions for Facebook and other apps.
Facebook must contend with a privacy change introduced by a company Zuckerberg has identified as a direct competitor, intensifying the commercial stakes of the companies’ public dispute.
Second-order effects
Apple’s app-platform decisions become a more consequential competitive lever against Facebook’s messaging and social products, alongside the rivalry Zuckerberg described around iMessage, WhatsApp, and Messenger.
If platform-level privacy features continue to define how apps operate, competition between device owners and app services will increasingly run through governance rules as well as consumer products.
The Apple-Facebook dispute points toward a more regulated internet debate in which platform operators’ control over privacy settings becomes a central source of power and scrutiny.
The trend: Consumer-platform competition is shifting toward privacy controls, with operating-system owners able to turn their policy choices into market-defining app rules.
At a 2019 mogul fest, Zuckerberg asked Cook his opinion of the Cambridge Analytic data debacle. Cook responded acidly that FB should delete any information collected. Two years later, Zuck and Cook's opposing positions have exploded into an all-out war. https://www.nytimes.com/..…
Apple or FB? Neither. FB wants to keep collecting info about us to sell. 🍎 wants to protect some privacy as $ premium feature. Privacy is our right. Social media is an essential public utility. WE NEED A PUBLIC OPTION designed around user needs & rights. https://www.nytimes.com/.…
This is a good read on Apple's new privacy features and some background on Facebook's data collection efforts for those unaware how pervasive it is. But ... (1/2) https://www.nytimes.com/...
Hey @janewakefield, great report. 2 things worth clarifying. 1) Apple is making this change to all tracking inclusive of fingerprinting and other IDs. 2) it stops tracking defined as a company linking data collected from use of apps they don't own. So this sentence isn't right. h…
“When an app wants to follow our activities to share information with third parties such as advertisers, a window will show up on our Apple device to ask for our permission to do so. If we say no, the app must stop monitoring and sharing our data.” https://www.nytimes.com/...
A step in the right direction: “With Apple's latest mobile software update, we can decide whether apps monitor and share our activities with others.” Here is how: https://www.nytimes.com/... @bxchen for the @nytimes
#Apple's new software also includes two other interesting new features: the ability to use Siri to play audio with a third-party app like Spotify and the option to quickly unlock an #iPhone while wearing a mask. https://www.nytimes.com/...
Aaaand update! Apple's iOS 14.5 update for iPhones and iPads which is launched *today* includes a new privacy tool, called App Tracking Transparency, which could give us more control over how our data is shared. #SurveillanceCapitalism https://www.nytimes.com/...
With Apple's iOS 14.5 “when an app wants to follow our activities to share information with third parties...a window will show up on our Apple device to ask for our permission to do so. If we say no, the app must stop monitoring and sharing our data.” https://www.nytimes.com/...