When Apple unveiled major privacy upgrades at the WWDC 2020 for its iOS14, a battle royale broke out between the tech giant and Facebook. The social media giant claimed user data was critical to its ability to serve relevant ads and that Apple’s policies would stymie small business.
As the world now grapples with Facebook’s privacy changes that require users to compulsorily share their Whatsapp data with the social media platform, Apple’s privacy labels update all but confirms what we always knew. That, data collected by Whatsapp and Facebook Messenger is far in excess of what its competitors do.
Apple’s privacy labels are a great idea, and despite Google being a data-hungry company, I wouldn’t be surprised if they make their way to Android soon, too. I love how they make the contrast between various applications to incredible stark and clear.
Good move by Apple.
If anyone finds the linked copy as completely unreadable, the original 9to5mac source is (slightly) more readable and they also provide the list as itemized text…
https://9to5mac.com/2021/01/04/app-privacy-labels-messaging-apps/
Obviously facebook deserves a lot of criticism over it’s privacy policies and this does a good job of highlighting that. But it would be interesting to add the totality of google and apple’s collection practices to this analysis for comparison’s sake. The comparison to “imessage” may be somewhat misleading because obviously apple does track a lot more about users even though it hasn’t been itemized under the imessage application itself.
The funny thing is, I’ve never had a facebook account with my real name on it, as I come from an era of the BBS where no one used their real names, and I’m legitimately appalled that so many people have given up just that simple information to Facebook, along with their birthdate, phone numbers, etc.
I once had my phone number there as ‘don’t share with anyone and only use as recovery’ until my made up name showed up as the name on a caller ID app! Facebook have always been a bunch of liars and data hoarders. People really should consider moving to other, open source platforms and away from Facebook and it’s various purchases.
This article highlights not only the problem of data collection but also marketers being professional liars. Facebook is clearly a problem but Apple’s use of marketing techniques to polish their own message and reputation is very suspect too. This is the main message I’m taking away from this.
Quality used to be equated with longevity. Sharing used to be equated to caring. Neither company demonstrates these principles because they may have to say no to a teensy weensy bit of profit.
Everyone in my family back in India use Whatsapp. I have to use it for now, while I try to convince them to use seome thing better.