On Wednesday Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) sent an update about a controversial market research app that could end up in Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) devices. However, the company took issue with the language that TechCrunch used to describe the app that ignored some key facts of the program.
In a statement, Facebook has disputed reports that the app was “spying” as all people who signed consented and were paid to participate. Similarly, it was only 5% of the people who participated who teens were, and all of them had signed consent forms. It is wrong to call a research program publicly advertised a spy program
Apple can switch off Facebook apps
Facebook lost the general argument about the program to their chief regulator Apple. Apple took steps to validate the market research root certificates and all other internal testing apps that Facebook uses. Apple has so far shut down the ability of Facebook to distribute internal iOS apps such as the early versions of Facebook, Messenger, Instagram as well as employee apps.
It is not the first time tensions between the two companies has been reported. For Tim Cook, the Apple CEO Facebook and Google are nothing less than data industrial complexes. The Apple CEO is promoting the idea of iOS devices being valuable than the rest because their business model is not advertising based.
Growing dominance
Although Facebook CEO pushed back on the comments of cook calling the extremely glib that is the farthest he can go because Apple can flip a button and remove all their apps from iOS devices. Even though Facebook is a powerful global company to Apple, it looks weak. The invalidation of Facebook’s certificates is one-way apple flipped their lesser switches.
The Facebook market research program comes at a wrong time when the company is facing growing concerns over their data privacy practices. The response from Apple is a result of Facebook’s end-run that sought sensitive data from users including teenagers which was against Apple developer policies. The actions of apple have been acknowledged by those who believe consumer data should be protected and Apple did just that.