Facebook attempts to help clients about advantages to remember data collection before the Apple privacy change
Facebook said Monday that it is testing a new pop-up alert for iPhone and iPad clients that burdens the advantages of its apps gathering personal information. The test comes in front of an Apple privacy change with the possibility to overturn the social network’s core business.
Apple (AAPL) is set to present another necessity for clients to give explicit permission for applications to follow them across the internet, a move that has bothered Facebook, which depends on data collection to target ads.
Presently, Facebook plans to show a brief “of our own, along with Apple’s” with an effort to show clients how personalized ads “support small businesses and keep apps free,” the organization said in an update Monday to an older blog post called “Speaking Up for Small Businesses.”
“As we shared in December, we disagree with Apple’s approach, but will be showing their prompt to ensure stability for the businesses and people who use our services,” Facebook said in the post.
For Facebook (FB), the stakes of Apple’s new privacy change couldn’t be higher. The social media organization, which makes almost all of the entirety of its income from advertising, has repeatedly cautioned investors that Apple’s software changes could hurt its business if clients reject tracking permissions.
In December, Facebook took out ads in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post, saying the necessity could be “devastating” to a great many small businesses that advertise on its platform. It likewise held a press event to focus on small businesses restricted to the change and debuted a new hashtag to examine it.
Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s CEO, and co-founder, pounded a comparable point on a conference call with experts a month ago to talk about the organization’s latest earnings report.
“Apple has every incentive to use their dominant platform position to interfere with how our apps and other apps work, which they regularly do, to preference their own,” Zuckerberg said. “This impacts the growth of millions of businesses around the world, including with the upcoming iOS 14 changes. Many small businesses will no longer be able to reach their customers with targeted ads.”
While this most recent move may seem like one more shot fired at Apple, Facebook is taking Apple up on its offer for any designer to clarify why it wants certain permissions for tracking. “We feel that people deserve the additional context, and Apple has said that providing education is allowed,” Facebook said in the blog post.
On Apple’s privacy and information website page, the organization said designers are permitted to do this “so long as you are transparent to users about your use of the data in your explanation. … Apps must respect the user’s permission settings and not attempt to manipulate, trick, or force people to consent to unnecessary data access.”
Facebook didn’t quickly react to a request for comment. Apple declined to comment.
In a December tweet, Apple CEO Tim Cook shared a picture of what Facebook’s app tracking transparency messaging could resemble. Under the permissions prompt, the example language said: “Here, in addition to other screens, Facebook can explain why users should allow tracking.” Users can then “ask app not to track” or “allow.”
