Facebook Inc. and Apple Inc. come dangerously close to all-out legal war, with the social media giant pondering a lawsuit that could ultimately affect antitrust investigators.
The fire focuses on Apple’s AAPL,
new iOS 14 policy, expected this spring. It includes new privacy features that for the first time require apps to ask users’ permission to track them around the web. Such a feature, Facebook FB,
claims, would severely restrict online advertising and kill small businesses.
Tension between the companies has risen for years to the point where Facebook is considering suing Apple for giving preferential treatment to its own apps, while imposing restrictive rules on third-party apps from Facebook and others, according to reports.
“As we have said repeatedly, we believe that Apple is acting in an anti-competitive manner by using their control over the App Store to use their profits at the expense of app developers and small businesses,” a Facebook spokeswoman said in a statement. statement to MarketWatch.
Apple did not comment.
Facebook, which launched a series of print and digital ads in December to make its point, expressed its animus during an earnings call with analysts on Wednesday.
“We also see Apple’s business increasingly reliant on winning a share of apps and services against us and other developers,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on the call. “So Apple has every reason to use their dominant platform position to interfere with the way our apps and other apps work, which they do regularly to show their own preference.”
Apple CEO Tim Cook on Thursday sparked hostility without mentioning Facebook by name.
“If a company is built on misleading users, on data exploitation, on choices that are not choices at all, then it does not deserve our praise. It deserves reform, ”Cook said Thursday at the Computers, Privacy and Data Protection online conference. “Too many people still ask, ‘How much can we get away with?’ when to ask, “What are the consequences?”
What are the consequences of prioritizing conspiracy theories and violent incitement simply because of their high level of involvement? What are the consequences of not just tolerating but rewarding content that undermines public confidence in life-saving vaccinations? What are the consequences if thousands of users join extremist groups and then maintain an algorithm that recommends even more? “
The dormant conflict underscores contrasting business approaches: Apple slavishly insists on its consumer privacy philosophy, where the customer pays for their Internet experience. Facebook, on the other hand, relies on data about its members to boost its digital advertising activities.
Read more: Facebook and Apple Embody New Tech Divide
Ironically, a legal confrontation between the tech titans could hurt them on the antitrust front, as both are under investigation for the things they accuse each other, says Elizabeth Renieris, founder and director of the Notre Dame-IBM Technology Ethics Lab at the University of Notre Dame.
“What this feud mainly shows is that Facebook and Apple have huge gatekeepers over the market,” she told MarketWatch.
“It shows just how much Facebook controls access to customers or audiences through its ad ecosystem,” said Renieris. “At the same time, the dispute shows how much power Apple has to mediate access to our personal data through technical choices and policy decisions.”