Taking aim at Facebook & others Apple shores up its
pro-privacy, anti-tracking positioning by announcing during WWDC keynote that
users of its latest Safari 12 browser will get a notification to choose whether
to share their data with third-party widgets like Facebook Like buttons, Disqus
comments widgets and other plug-ins on a page.
Additionally, Apple is making fingerprinting — the ability
for trackers to identify specific devices — much harder. In essence, “Your Mac
will look like everyone else’s Mac,” said Apple. “It will be dramatically more
difficult for data companies to uniquely identify your device and track you.”
The move is further entrenching the company in its strategic
positioning as privacy protector against the ad tech ecosystem. Apple CEO Tim
Cook has been an outspoken critic of Facebook’s approach to data privacy and
its role in the Cambridge Analytica scandal, and with the EU’s latest General
Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), now in effect, Apple is seeking to give its
users control over their data rather than internet ad businesses who use widgets
and other third-party APIs for data collection, tracking and ad targeting.
It remains to be seen whether the new measures will have any
material impact on company sales, but nevertheless, it is encouraging to see a
leading tech company side with the consumers on an issue that has the potential
to be the defining topic of debate this decade.
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