Apple announced on Thursday that the next beta release of iOS 14 will include a change in App Store applications’ use of ‘ID for Advertisers’ (IDFA), which tracks user activity for the purpose of targeted advertising. Facebook argues the move will lead to a loss of ad revenue for ‘apps and websites’ and negatively impact small business.
Citing “two people with direct knowledge of Facebook’s efforts,” San-Francisco, California, digital media company The Information reported Thursday that, for some months, Facebook has been prepping an antitrust lawsuit against Apple that claims the tech company abused its market power via the iOS App Store.
The New York Times reported a similar story Friday, claiming “two people familiar with the deliberations” said Facebook is mulling a lawsuit based on accusations of Apple’s “anticompetitive actions in its App Store.”
Facebook’s reported legal preparations come alongside Apple’s IDFA announcement and accompanying “A Day in the Life of Your Data” handout.
The company emphasizes that the change in policy will allow users to “see which apps have requested permission to track so they can make changes as they see fit.”
Furthermore, under the new App Store policy, “app developers cannot require you to permit tracking in order to use the app’s full capabilities.”
A photo taken on October 21, 2020 shows the logo of the the American online social media and social networking service, Facebook and Twitter on a computer screen in Lille
Last month, Facebook took out ads in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and The Washington Post that proclaimed the company would be “standing up to Apple for our small business customers and our communities” amid the changes in iOS 14.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has also argued that Apple’s policy changes are part of larger plot to position its iMessage messenger service over Facebook’s Messenger app, which “comes pre-installed on every iPhone and they preference it with private APIs and permissions.”
Application programming interface, or API, refers to the set of functions and procedures that allow the creation of applications that interact with features or data of an application, operating system or other service.
Despite Zuckerberg’s comments, sources that spoke with The Information claimed some higher-ups at Facebook “are concerned that Facebook is not a compelling victim” in the context of a hypothetical anti-trust lawsuit.
Consequently, the permission prompt will not appear for users after Apple’s policy change takes effect.
Sourse: sputniknews.com
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