Facebook-parent Meta sued for bypassing Apple privacy rules to track users
Meta Platform, Facebook’s parent company, was sued Wednesday on charges of building a covert privacy solution “App Tracking Transparency” that Apple launched last year to protect users from tracking their Internet activity.
Robert Burnson for Bloomberg News:
In a class action proposal filed in San Francisco federal court Wednesday, two Facebook users accused the company of circumventing Apple’s 2021 privacy rules and violating state and federal laws restricting unauthorized data collection. personal. A similar complaint was filed with the same court last week.
The lawsuits are based on a report by data privacy researcher Felix Krause, who said Apple’s Meta Facebook and Instagram apps for iOS inject JavaScript code on websites users visit. Krause said the code allows apps to track “everything you do on any website,” including typing passwords.
Facebook’s app bypasses Apple’s privacy rules by opening web links in an in-app browser, rather than the user’s default browser, according to Wednesday’s complaint.
“This allows Meta to intercept, monitor and record the interactions and communications of its users with third parties, providing data to Meta that it aggregates, analyzes and uses to increase its advertising revenues,” according to the cause.
MacDailyNews takes: > Meta’s privacy-trampling business model depended on keeping users in the dark to be successful.
Apple’s Tracking Transparency App simply gives users the control they should have always had. Clearly, users don’t want Meta to track them on Facebook, Instagram, etc.
The fact that Apple offers users the ability to be tracked or not via App Tracking Transparency hurts Facebook et al. not only highlights the inherent flaw in the business model of these societal cancers, but it makes us laugh. ? – MacDailyNews, March 9, 2022
Apple’s privacy tool allows users to understand what is stolen from them in exchange for “free” services and gives users the tools they need to protect their privacy and security.
Privacy means that people know what they are signing up for, in plain English and repeatedly. I am an optimist; I believe people are smart and some people want to share more data than other people. Ask him. Ask them every time. Get them to tell you to stop asking them if they get tired of asking them. Let them know exactly what you will do with your data. – Steve Jobs, June 2010
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