Do you know what it’s like to be so tired of something that even the expression of said tiredness is too exhausting for you? Kind of like saying you’re too tired to say how tired you are. Well, he’s thinking the relationship between Meta, Facebook and privacy and, I’m sure it’s happening to you too, I’m starting to feel a little like Bill Murray in Trapped in Time (AKA Groundhog Day), except unfortunately I’m not sharing a space-time loop with Andie McDowell.

I won’t repeat the endless list of cases where Facebook has violated the privacy of its users, because I’m sure you know them as well as I do. On this occasion, I will focus on iOS 14.5, the version of the iPhone operating system that Apple released back in April 2021. And what was so special about this update? Application Tracking Transparency (ATT), that is, the obligation of applications to ask users for permission to use information generated by the tracking functions of other applications. From the very announcement of the feature, Meta (then Facebook) began to express its deep disapproval of the feature, even going so far as to consider some kind of “painful” attack (metaphorically speaking) against those from Cupertino, which for quite a few people was a sign of confidence in ATT.

A little less than a year ago, we finally learned the impact that the ATT had on Facebook, and as expected from the first minute, the blow was quite strong. And so it is that, despite Meta’s insistence, Apple was clear from the beginning that it was not going to back down, and fears were more than confirmed by the remarkable economic losses in the second quarter of 2021. But it was a mistake to think that Meta and Facebook would sit idly by.

So as we can read in Bloomberg, Two Facebook users have filed a lawsuit against Meta for violating user privacy. This claim is based on the fact that when a user clicks on a link on Facebook or Instagram, an integrated web browser opens, which surprisingly does not contain the restrictions imposed by the ATT. And it is that this browser can run JavaScript code to track its activity without the user’s express consent. Something that, on the one hand, is a violation of Apple’s privacy policy, but could also be against some US laws, both state and federal.

Most interestingly, Meta, in response to demand, admitted that he actually monitors user activity with this method, although at the same time it emphasizes that, as it claims, it does not collect user data in this way. That’s a pretty thin line when you consider that you could theoretically collect this information if you wanted to, so it will be interesting to see how this holds up in court in terms of a legal avenue of action, which moment, it could be collective.

On the other hand, if apps are found to be tracking users after the user has requested not to be tracked, Apple can take extreme measures. And at the moment, although it has never been officially confirmed, it is known that Apple proposed ATT with Facebook in mind, not exclusively, but largely. Now, if Meta is found to have bypassed iOS’s ATT restrictions and ignored users’ security preferences, Apple could ban their apps from the App Store, which would undoubtedly be a huge setback for Facebook and Instagram.