Reports of a longstanding rivalry between Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Apple CEO Tim Cook have resurfaced, with The Wall Street Journal reporting angry comments apparently made by Zuckerberg in 2018.
According to the Journal, as a discussion grew on Facebook’s data collection practices, Tim Cook gave an interview on national television. During the appearance, Cook said Apple would never have found itself in the same position as the social media company.
According to the Journal, people familiar with the matter said that Zuckerberg’s comments in particular went well beyond his public response that Cook was being “extremely superficial”. The Facebook boss reportedly told his team that “we need to inflict pain”, so he considered his company to be inappropriate treatment, the report said.
Tensions between the pair became public in 2014, when Cook criticized Facebook’s business model.
In the following years, tensions appear to have increased. More recently, Cook attacked Facebook after Mark Zuckerberg accused Apple of cheating users. This specific line focused on an iOS privacy update.
As reported by Insider, Cook expressed annoyance with business models that prioritized engagement above all and gathered user data to target users with advertising. Although he did not mention the name of Facebook, it was a very transparent joke on the social media network, the report said.
The iOS update will make it much easier for users to refuse to track their data to allow targeted ads, DW reported recently. Tracking can now be disabled on Apple devices, but only if users search your settings to disable it.
Once the update arrives, all users will be able to refuse this data tracking when configuring a device, by DW.
Facebook is trying to anticipate the change, asking users for permission to track their data so it can target them with ads. As reported by Insider, the request will take the form of a pop-up, which informs users that allowing crawlers means that they “will get more personalized ads” and “support businesses that depend on ads to reach customers”.
Facebook’s position is that Apple has a preference for itself and has designed policies that benefit it. According to the social media giant, Apple’s definition of “tracking” is that data must pass through a third party to be considered tracking. He said that, by definition, this applies to all applications, websites and companies – except Apple, which has the operating system.
According to Facebook, Apple has also granted special privileges for its own ad measurement and is misleading users about its own data practices by not sharing on its application privacy labels that they connect identifiers to account information, in the same way. way your competitors do.
Apple did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.
In a statement to Insider, Facebook said: “These are not two companies – this is the future of the free Internet. Apple is creating two sets of rules – one for itself and one for small businesses, application developers and consumers. to lose. Apple says this is about privacy, but it’s about profit, and we’re teaming up with others to point out their anti-competitive and personal preference behavior.
This story has been updated with more information from Facebook.
Read the original article on Business Insider