The Electronic Frontier Foundation has labeled Facebook’s attack on Apple’s anti-tracking initiatives as a “laughable campaign,” a campaign that actually works against the small businesses that the social network is supposedly trying to protect.
Facebook’s ongoing media campaign to pressure Apple to stop its program of changes to limit the amount of ad tracking in Apple’s ecosystem has already drawn criticism from Apple CEO Tim Cook and the company itself. Now, privacy-focused nonprofit EFF has entered the discussion and sided with Apple.
In an article published on the EFF’s website on Friday, the group describes that the Facebook campaign, which largely consists of a media blitz claiming that Apple’s privacy changes will be bad for small businesses, is actually the opposite. Rather than protecting privacy, the EFF says it is a “laughable attempt by Facebook” to distract users from its “poor track record of anti-competitive behavior and privacy concerns,” and pro-privacy measures that are bad. would be for the company of Facebook to derail.
Apple’s AppTrackingTransparency feature rolling out to iOS 14 and iPadOS 14 has been applauded by the EFF as “it should be an obvious basis for trackers to ask for permission before stalking you across the Internet.” By allowing users to choose which third-party trackers can or cannot function, “the change gives users greater knowledge of what apps do, helps protect users from abuse, and allows them to make the best decisions for themselves.”
The feature is “another step in the right direction,” says EFF, “reducing developer abuse by giving users knowledge and control over their own personal data.”
In the Facebook campaign against it, the EFF says it’s not about small businesses, and that it’s “ really about who benefits from the normalization of surveillance-driven ads, and what Facebook has to lose as its users learn more about what it is exactly and other data brokers are behind the scenes. ”
Targeted ads, which rely on such trackers, would make more money than non-targeted ads, but the EFF claims that the additional revenue does not reach content creators or app developers. “Instead, most of the extra money made from targeted advertising ends up in the pockets of these data brokers,” writes the EFF, citing Facebook and Google as two beneficiaries.
Since a “ handful of companies control the online advertising market, ” the EFF says that small businesses cannot compete effectively, in part because the ad industry itself “ promotes this fantasy that targeted ads are superior to other methods of reaching customers, ” preventing non- Targeted ads are less valuable.
“Facebook is touting itself in this case as protecting small businesses, and that couldn’t be further from the truth,” said the EFF. “Facebook has locked them in a situation where they are forced to be sneaky and hostile to their own customers. The answer cannot be to defend that broken system at the expense of the privacy and control of their own users.”
In conclusion, the EFF reiterates that App Tracking Transparency is a “big step forward” for Apple. “If a company does the right thing for its users, EFF will back it up, just as we will come down hard on companies doing the wrong thing. Apple is right here and Facebook is wrong.”