CNBC tech editor on the Apple-Facebook clash over personal data

Facebook last week blasted Apple's decision to prompt iPhone users to disable apps from tracking their personal data. CNBC technology editor Steve Kovach and Danny Fortson, The Sunday Times West Coast correspondent, joins 'Closing Bell' to talk about the fight between Apple and Facebook over personal data. Subscribe to CNBC PRO for access to investor and analyst insights on Apple and more: https://cnb.cx/3dIH56N

Apple CEO Tim Cook gave a slap at the business practices of Big Tech rivals during an impassioned speech at a privacy conference in Brussels in October 2018.

“Every day, billions of dollars change hands, and countless decisions are made, on the basis of our likes and dislikes, our friends and families, our relationships and conversations. Our wishes and fears, our hopes and dreams,” Cook said. “These scraps of data, each one harmless enough on its own, are carefully assembled, synthesized, traded and sold.”

Although Cook didn’t call out Facebook by name, it was clear Mark Zuckerberg’s company was one of the targets. Facebook built an empire by hoovering up the data of its users to inform its targeted ad system. Its revenue topped $20 billion last quarter, and nearly 99% of it comes from advertising.

The speech was just one in a series of jabs Cook and Zuckerberg have taken at each other over nearly a decade. The tensions between Facebook and Apple date to the iPhone’s infancy and the quest for control over the next wave of computing.

In a 2014 cover story in Time, for example, Zuckerberg criticized Apple and Cook’s stance on privacy:

“A frustration I have is that a lot of people increasingly seem to equate an advertising business model with somehow being out of alignment with your customers,” Zuckerberg said. “I think it’s the most ridiculous concept. What, you think because you’re paying Apple that you’re somehow in alignment with them? If you were in alignment with them, then they’d make their products a lot cheaper.”

The war of words over the last decade highlights the fundamental difference in opinion between two giants over how business should be done on the internet.

In Facebook’s view, the internet is the Wild West, with a multitude of competing platforms offering innovative services for free. You may not pay for them with your money, but you pay by allowing your data to be tracked and packaged so advertisers can plop things you’d want to buy right in front of your face as you travel between devices and services.

In Apple’s view, the internet is just an extension of the personal computing revolution the company helped start in the 1980s, and your phone is the most personal device of all. You should know what companies are going to do with the information collected through that phone before you share it.

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