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, Apple's iOS 14 update is an anti-competitive approach marketed as a privacy protection measure. Apple now bans applications non-Apple to use any information required to deliver relevant, tailored advertising without the user's express consent. And the users they may choose to participate only after seeing a scary and misleading notification about tracking. SSRN also reports that Apple's apps and services don't show notifications because device owners have already allowed Apple to track them.
The investigation is a huge indictment of the updates of Apple's iOS 14, and an extensive condemnation of the company's policy. Apart from 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 advertising revenue, according to the survey. According to research that posted by iMore in April, only 2% of iOS users intend to allow apps to monitor them now that the new feature is available, suggesting that the vast majority of users would prefer to have more control over their privacy.
