App Store feud: Apple lambasts tech rivals, Facebook prepares antitrust lawsuit

The feud between tech giants heated on January 28 as Apple's CEO lambasted social media companies and accused them of promoting disinformation and violence, while Facebook reportedly continues to prepare an antitrust lawsuit against Apple. The social media website Facebook has accused Apple of abusing control of its App Store by requiring outside app developers to abide by rules not applied to its own apps. Apple CEO Tim Cook, on the other hand, blasted on online platforms with “disinformation and conspiracy theories juiced by algorithms”. 

While speaking at a virtually held International Conference on Computers, Privacy and Data Protection, Cook did not mention Facebook by name, however, he skewered business models built on targeted advertising, which accounts for most of the social network’s revenue. Cook said that it’s time to “stop pretending” that the approach doesn’t come with a cost of polarisation, lost trust and violence. He added, “a social dilemma” cannot be allowed to become social catastrophe while referring to the Netflix documentary about technology and social media’s corrosive effects on society. 

Facebook’s chief executive Mark Zuckerberg, on the other hand, said that Apple was becoming one of his company’s biggest competition. While speaking at a conference call with investors, Zuckerberg said that Apple has every incentive to use their dominant platform position to interfere with how other apps work, which they regularly do to the preference of their own. He added that Apple may say that they’re doing this to help people but the moves clearly track their competitive interests. 

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Apple’s ATT update 

The tech giants have been clashing over changes in the latest version of Apple’s iOS, which includes a tracking transparency feature that Facebook claims will cripple its ability to serve up to targeted ads. Apple is set to roll out the new privacy control in the early spring to prevent iPhone apps from secretly shadowing people. It is worth mentioning that under Apple’s upcoming App Tracking Transparency (ATT) update for iOS 14, iPhone users who download apps with IDFA will be prompted with a notification informing them and asking for consent. 

For years, Apple has supplied apps with IDFA in a bid to help them link the same user across multiple programs. However, earlier this year, Apple said that it will require that apps show users a one-time pop-up message to gain their consent to access their IDFA. With Apple’s shift away from the unique identifier, Facebook and other app makers are concerned that the new warning may discourage users from opting in and cripple sales. 

(With inputs from AP) 

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