In cursory: Facebook sees Apple tree'due south App Tracking Transparency feature as a weapon pointed at its apps, then information technology's currently considering the idea of a lawsuit against the Cupertino visitor. But with so many regulators looking closely at the social giant for antitrust problems, that may not exist the best idea.

Past now, it's no longer a underground that Apple'due south App Tracking Transparency feature in iOS 14 has prompted Facebook to essentially declare war on the Cupertino giant. To that cease, the social network has been using everything from executive statements to newspaper ads and even shoving policy changes in users' faces to make Apple wait like the bad guy and discredit and undermine its effort to increase transparency for services that depend on advertizing tracking for acquirement.

Facebook closed out 2022 in surprisingly good financial standing, despite navigating what could only be described equally a difficult period for a company that makes most of its revenue from advertising. Yet, the social media business firm did warn investors that information technology faces "significant incertitude" this year, which is why the visitor is scrambling to foreclose its main stream of revenue from drying up at a time when online commerce is booming and shifts in consumer demand are making advertising more profitable.

According to a study from The Data, Facebook is ready to become to court to protect its interests. Information technology is said to exist planning to argue that Apple is using privacy every bit an excuse to abuse its ascendant position. Specifically, the company will debate that Apple routinely imposes App Shop rules on other developers while not following them when it comes to its own services.

In the case of iOS 14's App Tracking Transparency characteristic, which is designed to allow users opt-out of being tracked across apps, Facebook could focus on proving that it gives Apple a competitive reward in areas like messaging, shopping, and gaming -- especially as Apple also requires developers to use its own in-app payment service.

Some other signal of attack is said to be Apple'south insistence on not allowing third-political party alternatives to iMessage to be fix as the default messaging app on iPhone and iPad. Facebook would contend that this in turn locks consumers into Apple's ecosystem, which information technology views equally anti-competitive behavior.

It's not clear at this betoken how determined Facebook is on filing the lawsuit, only given how important targeted advertising is for the visitor'southward lesser line, it wouldn't surprise anyone if information technology does happen. It'due south said that Facebook executives are facing some "internal resistance" from employees over the possibility of this being a weak example for a company that is the field of study of at two antitrust lawsuits from the FTC as well equally xl country attorneys general. Even more so in the context of a new lawsuit that alleges Facebook and Google made a deal to help i another against antirust activity.