Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg continues his rants against Apple’s aggressive consumer privacy protections, calling Apple’s efforts “competitive interference” with the social network.
During Wednesday’s Facebook quarterly earnings call with investors, Zuckerberg claimed Apple’s new changes around IDFA (IDentifier For Advertisers) are not actually intended to protect consumer privacy, but instead are actually intended to harm Facebook’s business interests.
“Apple may say they’re doing this to help people, but the moves clearly track with their competitive interests,” Zuckerberg claimed. The Facebook CEO labeled Apple as “one of [Facebook’s] biggest competitors” despite the social network relying on the iPhone and iOS as half of its mobile platform in the United States.
Zuckerberg says Apple’s rules that limit how advertisers can track iPhone users on the iOS platform is driven by an “incentive to interfere” with Facebook and to force a preference for using Apple’s own apps.
Facebook has been less than pleased with Apple’s tracking changes. Facebook ran full-page ads and even launched a website claiming Apple’s new rules will hurt small businesses financially.
Privacy advocates, including the non-profit Electronic Frontier Foundation, have called Facebook’s criticisms “laughable,” saying Facebook’s concerns are really about “what Facebook stands to lose if its users learn more about exactly what it and other data brokers are up to behind the scenes.”
(Via 9to5Mac)