Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple indirectly implied towards Facebook and called out it for misusing their users’ privacy and misleading them over important topics

On January 28th, Tim Cook, the CEO of the multinational American company Apple, spoke at the virtual conference CPCD (Computers, Privacy and Data Protection) announcing that the new operating system version of Apple will execute the app tracking update as soon as in spring. He also said that social media apps contain too much of their users’ personal information misleading them and thus in return sabotage their users’ trust and also get involved with discrimination and misinformation of things. He didn’t directly call out Facebook or even mentioned it but at this point everyone around knows about the on-going dispute between these two multinational giants and therefore it doesn’t takes a genius to figure out that Tim Cook was talking about Facebook at the conference.

In the conference Tim Cook spoke about the privacy Apple has offered to its users over the years and will continue to do so with its new updates. Last year in June, Apple announced that the apps will require permission from the users in order to track them, that is, in order for certain apps to track their users and their activities, they would first have to ask permission for it. This privacy and security update proved that Apple takes their user’s privacy seriously but this new update took a toll on digital advertising platforms like Facebook because they post ads related to the activity of the user’s. With the ‘App Tracking Transparency’ forcing apps to ask for permission, the profit these platforms would gain from ad posting would decrease greatly because of Apple’s new update. Facebook and Apple were from there on seen as more rivals than ever. Cook said that social media platforms like these mislead their users into joining extremists groups for which Facebook had already answered that it will not suggest the users into joining political groups. He also said that certain content by these platforms misuse certain and important information.

Photo: Stephen Lam / Getty Images

One day before the conference, Mark Zuckerberg the founder of Facebook said that Apple is Facebook’s greatest competitor and also that Apple being in a dominant position in this industry interferes with the working of other apps including Facebook. The CEO of Facebook also criticized Apple over their ‘App Tracking Transparency’ and even said that Apple is using privacy just as an excuse to cause harm to Facebook

Tim’s response to this the other day is said by some as the one of the best examples of emotional intelligence. The ‘App Tracking Transparency’ is to go in effect soon.

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