Facebook, Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) plans to file a lawsuit against Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) for adopting restrictive policies on third party app developers.
Setback for Spotify and Facebook
Facebook accuses Apple of its anti-competitive practices and says gives preference to its apps in the App store to improve its bottom line. It is a setback for small businesses and app developers like Facebook and Spotify.
The streaming music firm – Spotify filed a lawsuit against Apple with European Regulators in 2019 for using the App Store to crush the companies that are competing with its services such as Apple Music. Another firm – Epic Games complained against Apple in August 2020 for forcing the developers to compulsorily use its payment systems. It also accused Apple of anti-competitive practices. To make the court understand the facts, Facebook said it will support Epic Games with the necessary information for inclusion in the lawsuit.
Facebook’s war with Apple intensifies
The feud between Apple and Facebook intensified with Mr. Cook and Mr. Zuckerberg trading the barbs this week. In a conference call with analysts of Wall Street, Zuckerberg said Apple is the biggest competitor to his firm citing iPhone specific text messaging app – iMessage.
Zuckerberg said Apple has every right to use its platform to interfere with third-party apps and Facebook. According to the CEO of Facebook, Apple gives preference to its apps in the App Store compared to other apps.
Apple prevents harnessing of user data
While speaking at a data protection forum in Europe, Mr. Cook said Apple introduced privacy labels and tracking features for apps that compromised the privacy of labels. He further said some companies intend to use the private information of consumers for targeting them with their digital ads and make money.
Apple made it mandatory for app developers to add privacy labels for Apps included in its App store and disclose information collection policies. New York Times in a recent analysis found that the messaging App – WhatsApp collected more information from the users compared to other apps like Signal.
WhatsApp clarifies it does not read personal data
After a backlash in India on plans to introduce a new privacy policy that allows sharing the data of the users with Facebook, WhatsApp said it will not share or read the personal chat messages.