Apple and Facebook have been quarreling recently over a change Apple wants to make to how companies like Facebook and Google can track your usage on a device like the iPhone. The basic premise of what Apple wants to do is to make a pop up appear so that users can give or deny permission for such tracking, and Facebook is saying, ‘not fair, it will destroy our business.’

The simple issue here is that Facebook, Google and a few others track everything we do online, including on our phones, so that they can target ads at us. For example, I ‘like’ an article on winter clothing a friend has linked on Facebook, or search for ‘winter jackets’ on Google and suddenly everywhere I go for a few days I see adverts for winter clothes.

You might be happy with this. Perhaps you have been struggling to find winter jackets in your area and the ads help you find a store you didn’t know about. However, many people are not so happy. This can range from general unhappiness at the idea that you are a product to outrage that companies are constantly spying on you.

So what’s Apple trying to do? It intends to introduce an permission screen in which you will have to actively give permission for Facebook, or any other app, on your device to track your activity outside of the app itself. Below is an example of what it will look like, according to Apple.

Facebook has objected. It claims that this policy will reduce the ability of apps to be supported by advertising, causing a shift to more paying apps, has suggested that small-businesses will suffer due to less places to advertise, and finally that many users will be denied quality free services.

So let’s think about this…

from the current situation, where apps have to ask permission to use location, the camera, etc., is that most people accept these with no thought. Why does Facebook think this won’t happen now?

Second, if being constantly tracked by Facebook is such a good thing, won’t people allow it?

‘Small-businesses will suffer.’ Well, no-one wants that, especially not a mega-advertising corporation like Facebook. Let’s re-word that one to what it really means, ’Facebook will suffer if small-business are reluctant to throw money at our ad business.’

‘More paying apps.’ It’s true that if a business can’t support itself it needs to find ways to make money. Some (admittedly not many) newspapers have done well by offering subscription services for their sites and apps. Companies like Adobe and Microsoft are also able to sell services, presumably because they are providing advert free products that many people like. So Facebook’s real fear here is that it may lose revenue, and if it loses enough it will need to find new ways of funding itself, and presumably there are plenty people in the company who know there isn’t a chance in hell that more than a handful of people would pay for their services.

So does this mean that Apple are some kind of wonderful humanitarian organisation looking out for you and me?

Obviously not. First of all, Apple are making it very public that from the first iPhone till now they allowed Google and Facebook to do what they wanted. Indeed, they still will, they are just adding a permission screen. While I’d say it’s better late than never, it is late. (Not that I’m expecting Google to introduce such a system anytime soon to my Android phone.)

So why the change form Apple? Money. Users are more sensitive and more aware of what is happening to their data and Apple is in a good place to do something. Unlike Facebook and Google, Apple makes its money from selling devices and products. It doesn’t need your personal data to keep making loads of money, it just needs to persuade you to keep buying Apple products. Now it is giving you one more reason to do so.

Apple does claim that its App Store monopoly is in the interests of customers, though many would argue that monopoly suppliers have rarely been good for people. The App Store is generally higher priced that alternatives, which is presumably coincidental to the large take Apple slices off any purchase.

In conclusion

While I’m not sure I really believe that Apple has its heart in the right place, I have to side with them on this. It’s mad that a company can invade a device that I have bought and fully paid for and track everything I do there without my permission and with no way to prevent them. If this is bad for Facebook, so be it, there are plenty alternatives out there.