A few days ago we witnessed a confrontation between technology giants, which now escalates in intensity and promises new chapters. Late november Apple shot Facebook pointing out that Mark Zuckerberg’s company does “invasive tracking”, blaming it for the delay in launching privacy features that it had promised for iOS, the iPhone operating system.
Now, in a kind of counterattack, Facebook openly expresses its discomfort for requirements that Apple requires for WhatsApp, and accuses the Palo Alto company of applying a double standard. That is to say: they notice that certain conditions that they demand for third-party services are not respected in their own products, in this case the iMessage app.
Could Facebook apps disappear from the App Store? Will iPhone and iPad users be left without Instagram, WhatsApp and the most popular social network on the Internet? Does Apple open a new front of conflict, which will add to the shock that left their teams without access to the successful Fortnite: Battle Royale?
Facebook, Apple and privacy
The aforementioned episodes that confront the two Californian companies have one point in common: the requirements regarding data handling by applications offered in the App Store. Within this framework and in response to a series of requests from organizations, Apple will launch in January next year the labels of Privacy, which will be mandatory, as announced at the WWDC 2020 event held in the middle of the year. Those who do not comply will be left out of the available catalog.
In practice, they are indicators that seek to reflect how user data is managed in the different tools, with the intention of offering that information in a more transparent way. Following The Verge, it is possible to compare this information with the nutritional labels that are printed on food packaging.
Why is Facebook making its complaint? Happens that These labels will be required for apps like WhatsApp, which is owned by them, but they will not be seen (at least that was supposed) in iMessage, Apple’s messenger, which should not be downloaded from the store but is included by default on iPhone. It is at this point that Zuckerberg’s company notes that those with the bitten apple apply a double standard.
