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San Francisco \u2014 FACEBOOK users have sued its parent company Meta in the US, for allegedly tracking them via an in-app browser on iOS devices despite tough Apple privacy policies in place.<\/p>\n
The lawsuit, filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of California, alleged that Meta follows users\u2019 online activity by \u201cfunnelling them into the web browser built into Facebook and injecting JavaScript into the sites they visit\u201d.<\/p>\n
According to a report, that code makes it possible for the company to monitor \u201cevery single interaction with external websites\u201d.<\/p>\n
Apple introduced a major iOS privacy update via iOS 14.5 last year to stop third-party apps like Facebook from tracking user behaviour and their browsing history via App Tracking Transparency (ATT) feature.<\/p>\n
However, according to the lawsuit, Meta snooped on users \u201cthrough a workaround\u201d.<\/p>\n
The proposed class-action lawsuit \u201ccould allow anyone affected to sign on, which in Facebook\u2019s case, might mean hundreds of millions of US users,\u201d the report said late on Thursday.<\/p>\n
According to it, Meta is not only violating Apple\u2019s policies but also breaking privacy laws at the state and federal level.<\/p>\n
A Meta spokesperson said in a statement that the allegations were \u201cwithout merit\u201d and it will fight them in the court.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have carefully designed our in-app browser to respect users\u2019 privacy choices, including how data may be used for ads,\u201d the spokesperson was quoted as saying.<\/p>\n
Meta Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has admitted that Apple iOS privacy changes will cost the company a whopping $10bn in 2022.<\/p>\n
Meta has also accused Apple of favouring Google over app-based platforms like Facebook with its privacy policies.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe believe those restrictions from Apple are designed in a way to carve out browsers from the tracking Apple requires for apps. So what that means is that search ads could have access to far more third-party data, for measurement and optimisation purposes, than app-based ad platforms like ours,\u201d according to Meta.<\/p>\n