Another tiff between Facebook and Apple emerged this week, over the privacy ‘nutrition labels’ coming to iOS. The WhatsApp team thinks Apple isn’t treating its own apps the same as third-party apps, and the labels aren’t nuanced enough.
When the labels launch, Apple will let you see the privacy ‘nutrition’ of its own apps but only on the Apple website if the apps aren’t already on the App Store. This will make it hard for users to compare which are the worst offenders when it comes to abusing your privacy.
And as WhatsApp points out, even when you can compare fairly, privacy-friendly features like end-to-end encryption aren’t communicated in the options available, potentially misleading iOS users about exactly what apps can do with their data.
Apple will probably fix these issues eventually, but for now we can savour a rare time when Facebook is on the right side of a privacy debate.