Security News > 2021 > January > Apple CEO Escalates Battle With Facebook Over Online Privacy
Apple CEO Tim Cook fired off a series of thinly veiled shots at Facebook and other social media companies Thursday, escalating an online privacy battle pitting the iPhone maker against digital services that depend on tracking people to help sell ads.
Cook's broadside came as Apple prepares to roll out a new privacy control in the early spring to prevent iPhone apps from secretly shadowing people.
Although Apple didn't provide a specific date, the general timetable disclosed Thursday means the long-awaited safeguard known as App Tracking Transparency will be part of an iPhone software update likely to arrive in late March or some point in April.
Apple released the latest schedule update as part of Data Privacy Day.
Apple has been holding off to give Facebook and other app makers more time to adjust to a feature that will require iPhone users to give their explicit consent to being tracked.
Facebook stepped up its attacks on Apple's new privacy control last month in a series of full-page ads in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and other national newspapers.