Meta will face a proposed class-action lawsuit accusing it of tracking and collecting personal information from iPhone users and violating Apple’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT), which requires apps to obtain users’ consent before they can be tracked across apps and websites of other companies.
According to the lawsuit, Meta hijacks, recognizes and documents the interactions of its users and communications with third parties, and provides Meta with data that it collects, evaluates, and uses to increase its advertising revenue.
This comes after it emerged that Meta could monitor all of a user’s key taps, keyboard inputs, and other actions of a user when they use the Facebook and Instagram in-app browsers, unlike developers who use Apple’s Safari to open links within their apps.
For example, when a user clicks on a link on Instagram, Meta can track their interactions, text selection and even text input, such as passwords and private credit card information, through its customized in-app browser, which allows it to inject a tracking JavaScript code known as Meta Pixel into all displayed links and websites.
Meta, who has been a fierce critic of Apple’s ATT policy since its inception in June 2021, claims that Apple is actually harming the growth potential of small businesses because if users opt out of tracking, they are less likely to have ads personalized and recommended for them, and that Apple is expected to lose $10 billion in revenue this year alone as a result of the ATT policy.
The sources for this piece include an article in MacRumors.