With its stock down 57% year to date and founder Mark Zuckerberg’s personal wealth slashed by $72 billion, Meta is scrambling to try and find ways to track users to overcome Apple’s recent privacy upgrades. But now it has run into a lawsuit which alleges it is violating state and federal laws in its efforts.
Apple’s (AAPL) massive privacy shakeup called App Tracking Transparency allowed users to decide if they wanted to allow apps to track them across the web. The upgrade has proven so effective it is threatening to cut $10 billion off Meta revenues this year. In its desperation, Meta has been developing new ways to try and spy on users, to track them across their web browsing.
Now reports are emerging that accuse Meta of circumventing Apple’s privacy upgrade, by opening websites in a special in-app browser, which allows the company to inject small pieces of tracking code into the website, allowing them to track users. Now the company faces a proposed class action lawsuit in California which accuses it of violating state and federal data collection laws by using this scheme.
In a statement to the media Facebook denied any wrongdoing, saying, “These allegations are without merit and we will defend ourselves vigorously. We have carefully designed our in-app browser to respect users’ privacy choices, including how data may be used for ads.”
In addition, as the Facebook app loses relevance to the newer generation, Meta faces the growing popularity of other social media outlet like TikTok, which has caused it to try and reinvent Instagram to appeal more to Generation Z. However the redesign was a disaster, even receiving criticism from Kim Kardashian which forced Instagram chief Adam Mosseri to release a public statement saying that the company would not use that upgrade.
The company has hoped its development of the new Metaverse would be its salvation, but so far, it has proven to be a massive cash sink with no returns on its investments in sight.
Judging from the company’s stock price, investors are not impressed with the Metaverse either, and that will mean it will be rough seas ahead.
