Facebook Vs Apple: The Latest Update On iOS Heats the Tussle

Earlier this week a new feature was introduced to the new range of Apple and iPads. It seems like it hasn’t gone well across the markets. Facebook and other big tech giants have been put in a spin by this integration as the user data and the advertising it can generate- is what make the companies profitable. Along the way, if the update gets instilled, it would be an aching blow to the business model of Facebook.

The row centers its tussle on a unique device identifier on every Apple and iPad, called the IDFA(identifier for advertisers). Companies that sell mobile ads, including Facebook, use this IDFA to both target ads and estimate their effectiveness. The launch of iOS 14.5 might have dwelled in the final nail on the coffin for advertising revenue-generating companies.  It will force app developers to explicitly ask recognition terms from users to proactively use this IDFA. Surveys recommend that up to 80% of the people will say no due to the lack of transparency and accountability.

 Although Apple has a negligible interest in its customers’ data as it makes most of its revenues by selling devices and in-app purchases, the company markets itself as a privacy-first company.  Privacy terms are getting acknowledged, and emphatically, the authorities ascertained that the people should know what they’re signing up for.

More recently, in what many saw as a thinly-veiled reference to Facebook, currently chief executive Tim Cook said: “If a business is built on misleading users, on data exploitation, on choices that are no choices at all, it does not deserve our praise. It deserves reform.”Facebook, on the other hand, is less pleased with the idea and says that Apple is being hypocritical and the app update could cut the money earned through its and network by half, hitting small businesses the hardest.