Tech Companies Are At The Heart Of Privacy Concerns Again

The public has begun mounting pressure on big techs over data privacy.

Apple recently unveiled a series of products and stressed its user-friendly feature designed to keep users’ information secure and safe. Apple has always stood for user privacy, as against its rivals. This is always a welcome idea in the digital space to make other big techs like Alphabet’s Google and Facebook Inc. imbibe transparency so that their users are aware of everything that goes on behind the scene with their data.

Facebook and Google, earlier this month said they were working to ensure transparency. This has been the same promise over time. Scandals unfold.

Apple, at the launch, announced that the company would not allow advertisers to track what kind of news interests the readers on its News app. In other words, it will not enable target marketing as Facebook and Google do. With these platforms, you can detail your marketing to make your ads very effective. While this is very beneficial for the advertisers, the law considers this breach of privacy rules. Apple says it will not share such information to the advertisers, and neither will they know where a purchase was made.

Facebook and Google rely on collating consumers’ data for advert sponsorship to make a profit. As soon as you decide to sponsor an advert on either of the platforms, you have in exchange, the users’ profiles in terms of their demography, interest and other details that a third party needs to target their audience effectively.

Facebook says it plans to encrypt conversations in its instant messaging service, limiting Facebook’s ability to analyse the texts.

Google, on the other hand, says its working towards locking down access to phone cameras and microphones to enhance the privacy features.

Apple argues that it remains distinct and loyal to its subscribers or customers. It says it remains the exception; yet, other big tech firms are unwilling to imitate this move.  It says it wants to “empower its users and give them a choice.”

Apple is currently the world’s second-most valuable technology company.