Apple Gets Zucked
Tech giants control nearly every aspect of our internet experience, from social media to news, to connecting with your friends and family, tech companies are everywhere. Two of the most prominent companies in this field are Apple and Facebook, each coming in at evaluations at hundreds of billions of dollars and Apple over a trillion.
Independently the colossal companies are powerful, but what happens when they clash? Well, it looks like we may just be finding out the answer to that soon, as Apple recently announced their new iOS 14 policy coming this spring includes new privacy features that will require apps to ask for users’ permission to track them around the web. According to Facebook this feature would severely limit online advertising and kill small businesses in the process and that Apple is behaving anti-competitively by using their control of the App Store to benefit their bottom line.
Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerburg has said himself: “We are also seeing Apple’s business depend more and more on gaining share in apps and services which is why Apple has every incentive to use their dominant platform position to interfere with how our apps and other apps work” With such bold statements Apple’s CEO Tim Cook fired back at Facebook saying: “If a business is built on misleading users, on data exploitation, on choices that are not choices at all, then it does not deserve our praise. It deserves reform,”. Shots fired! It looks like this battle could heat up, and both stocks have already taken a 1 to 3% decline from this news.
Some experts have pointed out the irony that both companies are under investigation for the very things they are accusing one another of. Do you think both companies are in the wrong or do you have a side?
I am not a financial advisor and my comments should never be taken as financial advice. Investments come with risk, so always do your research and analysis beforehand.