After getting blasted by Apple CEO Tim Cook, Mark Zuckerberg now faces opposition from Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, who announced his joining #DeleteFacebook because the company allowed third-party apps to probe people’s private data.
Speaking with USA Today, Wozniak said that Facebook essentially uses the info of their customers to get free ad revenue with zero payback to the user. His statement echoes that of Apple CEO Tim Cook.
“Users provide every detail of their life to Facebook and … Facebook makes a lot of advertising money off this. The profits are all based on the user’s info, but the users get none of the profits back,” Wozniak said. “Apple makes its money off of good products, not off of you. As they say, with Facebook, you are the product.”
Wozniak also expressed puzzlement over some of the hoops users must jump through in order to change the privacy settings, especially the many categories for ads he had to remove.
“I did not feel that this is what people want done to them,” added Wozniak. “Ads and spam are bad things these days and there are no controls over them. Or transparency.”
The only way that Facebook could prevent advertisers from exploiting their personal data for target advertising is to set up a paywall for those who wish to have privacy, according to Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg. Of course, people who can afford the paywall would stand to benefit, but poorer folks would risk having their private information probed. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that would thwart the social network’s mission.
“At Facebook, we are squarely in the camp of the companies that work hard to charge you less and provide a free service that everyone can use,” Zuckerberg said in response to Apple CEO Tim Cook.
Though the #DeleteFacebook campaign certainly makes for provocative headlines, especially when the likes of Wozniak are involved, evidence shows that Facebook is not on the cusp of a mass withdrawal. In fact, few have done so. Zuckerberg also maintains the #DeleteFacebook campaign has done little to affect the business.