interests are over - instead, brands must pry
out sensitive information over time through
strategically-designed algorithms and tie-ups
with third-parties. Whether it’s Google’s pixels
following us around the web or we’re feeding
Instagram our wants and needs in the form of
likes and comments, the system is simply too
powerful for the majority of us to fight back, so
companies like Apple are going to do it for us.
Apple has made its stance on privacy pretty
clear, and though it’s made a few faux pas of
its own along the way, its reputation is a darn-
sight more stellar than some of its competitors.
In iOS and macOS updates over the past couple
of years, Apple has increasingly gone in hard on
companies like Google and Facebook. Facebook
was so threatened by Apple’s upcoming ad-
tracking changes that it issued a full-page
letter as an advertisement in the New York
Times in December, though Apple was quick to
fire back, telling journalists that its privacy focus
was “a simple matter of standing up for our users.
Users should know when their data is being
collected and shared across other apps and
websites — and they should have the choice to
allow that or not. App Tracking Transparency in
iOS 14 does not require Facebook to change its
approach to tracking users and creating targeted
advertising, it simply requires they give users a
choice,” offering a firm and confident response
that sets us up for a bright future. App Store
privacy labels, another controversial change in
Silicon Valley, help consumers see how personal
data is collected and used by companies,
giving them autonomy over which apps they’re
comfortable installing on their phones, changing
the narrative going forward.