Starting early next year, Apple will enable a change in an upcoming iOS 14 update that Facebook is really angry about. MacRumors reported that the change will require users to grant permission for their activity to be tracked for personalized advertising purposes. Facebook clearly does not want people to be able to opt-out of targeted advertising.
Bloomberg reported that Facebook Inc. purchased a series of full-page newspaper ads in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post titled: “We’re standing up to Apple for small businesses everywhere”.
In the full-page ad, Facebook claimed: “While limiting how personalized ads can be used does impact larger companies like us, these changes will be devastating to small businesses, adding to the many challenges they face right now.” To me, this is a very tiny acknowledgement that Apple’s iOS 14 update will harm Facebook’s ability to make money.
First off, it is questionable that Facebook calls targeted advertising “personalized ads”. Colorful language is often used to convince people that the thing that they do not want is somehow beneficial to them. This is especially true when a large company tries to persuade you to let them access your data.
Secondly, Facebook is hoping that you will believe that small businesses will become unsustainable if Apple users choose to opt-out of targeted advertising and tracking. That claim is questionable because the update hasn’t launched yet. Right now, there is absolutely no data that Apple’s privacy protection will kill off small businesses.
According to Bloomberg, Facebook is also upset about Apple’s newly launched “nutrition-label” style feature in its App Store. That feature outlines what data third-party apps collect. Bloomberg noted that Facebook may have seen this as an attack on Facebook’s app “given the amount of information it gathers.”