FTC commissioner met with Apple regarding Facebook’s iOS 14 complaints

FTC-Apple-Facebook-iOS14

In a letter sent to the Ranking Digital Rights organization, Apple’s Jane Horvath, senior director of global privacy, reiterated that the company believes that “privacy is a fundamental human right.”

Horvath explains that Apple delayed the App Tracking Transparency (ATT) feature to give developers more time to prepare for the changes.

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Facebook’s complaints about Apple’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT)

Facebook has criticized the App Tracking Transparency feature and said it could cause ad revenue to drop as much as 40%.

Facebook has reportedly met with advertising partners to discuss the impact the change has on advertising when users have the ability to easily opt-out of cross-platform tracking.

The company also announced the following in a press release on Sept 10th.

“We, along with the rest of the business community, continue to await final policy details from Apple.”

Given Apple’s delayed implementation of the user permission requirement, we will continue collecting IDFA on iOS 14 in an attempt to reduce unnecessary disruption to our customers’ businesses.”

We checked in with FTC to see if they were looking into some of the claims made by FaceBook against Apple’s iOS 14.

FTC looking into Facebook's complaints against Apple
Email send by FTC commissioner on Aug 28th (Source: myHealthyApple.com)

It appears, based on the reports under our FOIA filing, that Noah Philips, FTC commissioner reached out to Kate Adams from Apple on 28th August to understand some of the details around Facebook’s complaints.

A meeting was subsequently scheduled between Apple’s team and FTC attorneys around the first week of September.

FTC Meeting with Apple on iOS 14
Source: MyHealthyApple.com

Given the timing of Apple’s announcement today, it is clear that the company has good cause to take this position following meetings with FTC.

According to the letter today, Apple continues to emphasize that advertising that protects user privacy is possible.

You can read today’s complete Apple’s letter posted by Chance Miller at 9to5Mac.

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Sudz Niel Kar
I am a technologist with years of experience with Apple and wearOS products, have a BS in Computer Science and an MBA specializing in emerging tech, and owned the popular site AppleToolBox. In my day job, I advise Fortune 500 companies with their digital transformation strategies and also consult with numerous digital health startups in an advisory capacity. I'm VERY interested in exploring the digital health and fitness-tech evolution and keeping a close eye on patents, FDA approvals, strategic partnerships, and developments happening in the wearables and digital health sector. When I'm not writing or presenting, I run with my Apple Watch Ultra or Samsung Galaxy Watch and closely monitor my HRV and other recovery metrics.

1 COMMENT

  1. Yup, seems like par for the course for this administration. Here is the FTC going to bat for the interests of Facebook. Why do Facebook’s financial interests supersede the privacy interests of everyone in the world (though, FTC only speaks for US citizens)? Is this quid pro quo here, since Facebook allows Trump and his ilk to spew all sorts of lies on its site.

    I don’t see Google complaining about this, though I’m sure they have just as much to lose in terms of the ability to track people’s activity online. (But I would guess that this administration would be far less amenable to protecting Google’s interests.)

    And what a subtle innuendo there, “Chinese curse about living in interesting times,” eh? I’m sure he wasn’t referring to the “Chinese virus” that Trump likes to say, deflecting blame from his administrations failure in this pandemic.

    Facebook and privacy is like oil and water, they just do not mix, as this example shows. If you value your privacy, then stay away from having anything to do with Facebook, and use ad blockers on your browser.

    Before this corrupt administration took over, the FTC actually cared about protecting people’s privacy:

    https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2011/11/facebook-settles-ftc-charges-it-deceived-consumers-failing-keep

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