Facebook and Apple may be on the verge of a legal war.
The two tech giants, whose animosity between them dates back at least a decade, are now engaged in an ever-increasing fight for data privacy and market power that could end up in court.
Apple said on Thursday that it is accelerating plans to give users the ability to prevent applications from tracking their data over the web. The changes, which will take effect this spring, will directly affect Facebook’s lucrative advertising business, reducing its ability to collect data about some Apple users.
But while Apple is promoting change as a victory for user privacy, Facebook sees it as an abuse of market power.
In recent months, Facebook has been mounting an antitrust lawsuit that accuses Apple of using its App Store to harm competitors, said three Facebook people who were not allowed to comment publicly on the matter, confirming a report by The Information.
“As we have said repeatedly, we believe that Apple is behaving in an anti-competitive manner, using its App Store control to benefit its results at the expense of application developers and small businesses,” said Facebook spokesman Ashley Zandy when asked about o lawsuit.
While it is not guaranteed that Facebook will continue the process, the fact that they are preparing for a legal battle highlights how intense the long-standing rivalry has become.
That tension dates back at least to 2010, when Apple co-founder Steve Jobs appeared on stage at a conference and, with Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg in the audience, drew a sharp distinction between his company’s privacy vision and that of “some of our colleagues” in Silicon Valley.
Jobs, who died a year later, emphasized the importance of asking users for permission to collect their data.
“I believe that people are smart, and some want to share more data than others,” he said. “Ask them. Ask them every time. Make them tell you to stop asking if they get tired of you asking. Tell them exactly what you’re going to do with their data.”
Jobs’ statement portended Apple’s new policy, and Apple used it in its promotional materials during Thursday’s announcement.
Tensions between Apple and Facebook have eased and eased over the past decade, but reappeared in 2018 after Apple CEO Tim Cook began to warn of an “industrial data complex” and the danger of people losing control about your data to companies that market and sell it at a profit.
Cook reiterated this warning on Thursday at the Computer, Privacy and Data Protection Conference and then took several less-veiled photos from Facebook and other services that prioritize user involvement over user privacy – even blaming them for feeding “polarization, lost confidence and … violence.”
“In a time of rampant misinformation and algorithm-fueled conspiracy theories, we can no longer close our eyes,” he said. “The social dilemma cannot be allowed to become a social catastrophe.”
Meanwhile, Facebook has been steadily building its case against Apple. Last August, the social media giant teamed up with Epic Games and other companies to accuse the iPhone maker of harming small businesses with its 30 percent commission rate on the long-standing app. Epic Games, creator of Fortnite, has already filed an antitrust lawsuit against Apple.
All of this occurs while Apple and Facebook are under Washington’s antitrust scrutiny by the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission.
