In a
wide-ranging interview with
The New York Times' Kara Swisher, on her podcast "Sway," Apple CEO
Tim Cook talks about Apple's feud with Facebook, its stance on privacy, Apple's legal battle with
Epic Games, and possible future Apple innovations such as
Apple Glasses.
Apple is in the midst of a
heated public spat with Facebook over privacy, particularly over an upcoming feature on iOS that will require apps to ask for users consent before tracking them.
The new feature called ATT, or App Tracking Transparency, coming with iOS 14.5 in "a few weeks," according to Cook, will force apps to ask users for permission to track them across other apps and websites. Facebook has argued vehemently against the new feature, saying it impacts small businesses that rely on personalized ads, derived from tracking, to keep afloat.
Tim Cook says he disagrees with that argument, indirectly saying that Facebook's point of view is "flimsy." Cook calls privacy the "top issue of the 21st century," adding that with tracking, companies, such as Facebook are able to put "together an entire profile of what you're thinking and what you're doing."
What [App Tracking Transparency] tries to get at is companies that are taking advantage of tracking you across apps of other companies and therefore putting together an entire profile of what you're thinking, what you're doing, surveilling you across the web 24/7.
They'll see a simple pop-up that basically prompts them to answer the question, are they OK with being tracked or not? If they are, things move on. If they're not, then the tracking is turned off.
www.macrumors.com
