Apple Slams Facebook Over its Ad-Targeting Practices

In response to a letter questioning a decision by Apple to delay a new privacy feature, the iPhone maker has criticized Facebook and other internet giants for their ad-targeting practices, Bloomberg is reporting.

Apple

Apple has sent its written reply to several human rights and privacy organizations, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Human Rights Watch, slamming Facebook’s approach to advertising and user tracking.

The company also defended its decision to delay an iPhone feature that requires users to give explicit permission before letting apps track them for advertising purposes.

Here’s what Apple wrote in the letter:

“By contrast, Facebook and others have a very different approach to targeting. Not only do they allow the grouping of users into smaller segments, they use detailed data about online browsing activity to target ads. Facebook executives have made clear their intent is to collect as much data as possible across both first and third party products to develop and monetize detailed profiles of their users, and this disregard for user privacy continues to expand to include more of their products.”

Apple added the new privacy feature as part of its iOS 14 release, but a requirement that all apps use it was delayed until early 2021 after several developers said the change would hurt their businesses.

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