Your iPhone is going to start letting you know if an app wants to track you. Facebook is mad about it.
That’s it. You really could just stop reading now and you’d still walk away with a solid, if basic, understanding of the issue.
Apps like Facebook currently track where you go and what you do on all your other apps and on the web. This is why, for example, when you poke around at Amazon looking for sunglasses your Facebook feed fills up with ads for sunglasses. Facebook snoops what you do on the Amazon app and sells that information to its advertisers. This is, in a nutshell, how Facebook makes money. It’s the core of their business model. If you’ve ever wondered why Facebook is free, this is why. You are not the customer. You are the product. Advertisers are the customers. Facebook sells your information to them. That’s how they pay the bills.
Whatever you think about Apple and its products, its commitment to customer privacy has been commendable. No surprise, then, that Apple thinks this kind of tracking is not cool. So they’re going to make Facebook ask your permission to track you in this way. They aren’t banning it. They’re just making it a choice. Your choice.
Soon, when you launch Facebook it’s going to ask you if you want to be tracked or not. Facebook gets a few sentences to explain to you why it’s worth it for you to say yes, and then you just tap your choice–yes or no.
The way Facebook is acting about all this is revealing. They’re making a big fuss because they know darned well that most people will say no. They know that even after you read their pitch, you will opt out. They know the value proposition just isn’t there for you. So they don’t want to have to ask you. They just want to do it. Just like they have been doing all along.
You have to ask yourself: is a business that depends on surreptitiously selling your information to others without your permission a business that should even be in business?
Keep in mind, Facebook can still sell ads and those ads can still show up in your feed. They just can’t be targeted at you through the use of your other online behavior. They can still be targeted at you based on your Facebook behavior.
Another thing to keep in mind is that not only is Apple not banning this kind of tracking, they aren’t even applying this ask-permission-thing across the board. Facebook can totally track you without asking when you’re using its other apps. So when you’re using Instagram, Facebook will track your activity. No ask involved. The ask is only about tracking you across other, non-Facebook-owned apps and websites.
Anyway, now you know why the wheels are going to fall off the Facebook bus next week when Apple drops iOS 14.5.
Okay, okay. What’s Apple’s motivation in all this? Are they privacy do-gooders simply doing this because it’s ethical? Or are they just trying to use their privacy record as a means to sell more iPhones? Frankly, I think this is a false choice. It can obviously be both. And besides, isn’t it good that a company who does right by its customers also reaps the rewards at the cash register? Isn’t that what we want?
If you’ll indulge me, this point gets personal for me. Much of what I do for a living is sales. I sell stuff. As much as I can, to as many people and organizations as I can. Yes, I do this so the company I work for can grow and prosper. I do it so I can prosper. But you know what? That company I work for? They make stuff that helps people. They help the elderly and disabled be safe, healthy and independent. I chose to work for this company in no small part because of this high-minded mission. My job is to sell it so it can improve the lives of the people who need it. It’s my belief that companies who do good should also do well.