Apple hits out against Facebook

Apple has hit out against Facebook after the social media company said it would kill small businesses and was tricking its customers.

The increasingly fraught fight between the two companies comes after Apple said that it would add a new privacy feature that would allow iPhone users to opt out of having their activity tracked between different apps.

Apple has said that the feature is intended to protect its users’ privacy and to encourage developers only to collect the information they need. It has also been supported by civil rights groups including Amnesty International and even competitors such as Mozilla.

But Facebook said in a new blog post – and ads published in major US newspapers – that Apple was deceiving its users. Its supposed concerns about privacy were actually about its own profits, it argued, and it also said that fighting against personalised ad tracking could kill small businesses.