Facebook has funded research into Apple's new iOS 14 app transparency improvements, which it claims is solely in Apple's favor.
SSRN, the company that conducted the research, thanked Facebook for its help in financing the research and states that the opinions expressed in the research are exclusively its own (sic!).
According to the research, the update of Apple iOS 14 is an anti-competitive approach that is marketed as a privacy measure. Apple now prohibits non-Apple applications from using any information required to provide relevant, customized ads without the express consent of the user. And users can choose to join only after seeing a scary and misleading alert about tracking. SSRN also reports that Apple applications and services do not display notifications because device owners have already authorized monitoring by Apple.
The investigation is a huge indictment of Apple's iOS 14 updates, and an extensive condemnation of the company's policy. In addition to a short footnote on the first page that states:
“Huber C. Hurst Eminent Scholar Chair in Law and Professor, University of Florida Levin College of Law and Piramal Associate Professor of Business Administration, HBS. We are grateful for the support of Facebook, Inc. in funding this research. The opinions expressed here are exclusively ours ".
Facebook, of course, agrees and criticizes Apple's policy, claiming it affects small businesses and ad revenue, as the survey also notes. According to a survey published by iMore in April, only 2% of iOS users plan to allow apps to track them now that the new feature is available, suggesting that the vast majority of users would prefer to have more control over their privacy.
George is still wondering what he is doing here….
