Zuckerberg calls Apple significant future competitor
Kurt Wagner, Bloomberg News
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Facebook Inc. Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg said he sees Apple Inc. as a âsignificantâ future competitor as the two companies begin to build out rival business lines.
Zuckerberg discussed Facebookâs key product areas on Wednesday during a fourth-quarter earnings call, and said he expects there to be âvery significant competitive overlapâ with the iPhone maker on several of them, including private messaging and augmented reality glasses. He criticized Appleâs iMessage, suggesting it offered weaker privacy than Facebookâs WhatsApp, and implied iMessageâs market dominance in the U.S. was the result of unfair advantages provided by Apple.
Facebook Inc. Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg said he sees Apple Inc. as a âsignificantâ future competitor as the two companies begin to build out rival business lines, and the social-media giant is considering filing an antitrust lawsuit against Apple for what it believes to be anti-competitive behavior.
Zuckerberg discussed Facebookâs key product areas late Wednesday during a quarterly earnings call, and said he expects there to be âvery significant competitive overlapâ with the iPhone maker on several of them, including private messaging and augmented reality glasses. He criticized Appleâs iMessage, suggesting it offered weaker privacy than Facebookâs WhatsApp, and implied iMessageâs market dominance in the U.S. was the result of unfair advantages provided by Apple.
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There’s been a furor around WhatsApp this week. New terms of service that seemed to suggest the encrypted messaging app would start sharing a lot more data with Facebook Inc., its parent company, sent users into a frenzy. Elon Musk even advocated use of a rival service, Signal, to his 42 million Twitter followers.
How much will this matter to Facebook? Very little. People are spending just as much time on WhatsApp this week as they were before the new user agreements were announced, according to app analytics firm Apptopia.
And this kind of thing happens every few years. Facebook makes changes to make more money from its services, which span WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook Messenger. A slew of users get upset about the new terms, which generally include a data grab to feed the company’s advertising business. But then they promptly return to using the apps in much the same way they did before. There’s little to suggest things will be any different this time around.
The move is the most severe punishment any social media company has taken in response to Trump, who used online platforms to encourage the violent mob that stormed the Capitol on Wednesday.