In the spring of 2021, Apple fully attacked the Meta model, based on the sale of segmented advertising by obtaining an infinite amount of user data. The apple company did it through the iOS 14.5 update for the iPhone, which collapsed the way in which Facebook and Instagram interacted with their advertisers when it came to sending individualized advertising to users.
Apple's move consisted of installing a feature called App Tracking Transparency (ATT) on iPhones. Until then, the applications installed on the phone did not have to ask permission to use and follow an advertising identifier that all mobile phones have, both iPhones and Google Androids.
Each iPhone has a unique number called IDFA that identifies it to advertisers. Until iOS 14.5, every time a user opened an app on an Apple phone, the application could read that number and then, for example, ask Facebook to send ads to that user, about whom the social network already had extensive data available. the long of the time.
Starting with the ATT, which has been maintained in successive iOS updates, any app must ask a user for permission to track them on the network for advertising purposes. That permission request appears disabled by default, so if the user does not activate it, the application is disallowed from the beginning to carry out data tracking.
Lacking this data, advertisers who work with Facebook cannot direct an ad towards users as they did until then, in a targeted way. A few months before Apple activated ATT on iPhones, Mark Zuckerberg's social network began a campaign through advertisements in the print editions of the main newspapers in the United States in which it stated that the change would have "devastating effects" on the small businesses because it would limit “the ability of businesses to launch personalized ads and reach their customers effectively.”
In January 2021, a few months before activating ATT, Apple CEO Tim Cook spoke at the European Computers, Privacy conference.
Cook then denounced the existence of “an interconnected ecosystem of companies and data brokers, purveyors of fake news, promoters of division, trackers and those interested in making easy money with more presence than ever in our lives.” “It is time to stop pretending that all this does not have a price in terms of polarization, loss of trust and, yes, violence,” he said.
The bridges were broken between Apple and Facebook-Meta. It makes sense for the apple company to champion privacy and the protection of user data. After all, the basis of your business is something else: devices and services, for which the voracity for data of Mark Zuckerberg's company is not necessary.
Since then, every time there has been an opportunity, Meta has denounced some behavior by Apple, such as the dominance it has, for example, with its single app store, an exclusivity that will probably end soon in European territory due to the application of the law. of Digital Markets (DMA). The battle for privacy is very open and fierce.
