Facebook is letting iPhone users know how their data is being used for personalized ads ahead of an Apple update that will force the social media giant to get their consent.
Facebook said that it started testing prompts asking for permission from users on its platform and Instagram on Apple’s iOS.
A notification on the smartphone screen will ask Facebook and Instagram users to let their app and website activity be used for personalized ads and to “support businesses that rely on ads to reach customers,” according to a FB blog post on Monday.
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The move comes as Apple plans to launch an App Tracking Transparency feature in early spring. The feature will require apps to ask users to opt-in before allowing them to be tracked across different websites, limiting the reach of targeted ads. If a user declines, a platform such as Facebook would no longer be able to target ads at users based on their searches across other websites.
This move by Facebook is the latest in a public spat over Apple’s AAPL decision to ask iPhone users whether to allow apps to track them across other websites and apps. Such a feature, Facebook claims, would severely limit online advertising and harm small businesses in the process.
Apple said its pop-up privacy notifications will start appearing on most iPhones in the next few months.
“We believe Apple’s new prompt is designed to present a false trade-off between personalized ads and privacy; when in fact, we can provide both,” a FB spokeswoman told MarketWatch.
Apple CEO Tim Cook, meanwhile, has dismissed Facebook’s criticism.
“If a business is built on misleading users, on data exploitation, on choices that are no choices at all, then it does not deserve our praise. It deserves reform,” he said at a data protection conference last week without mentioning FB directly.
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