Apple App Store policies present 'conflict of interest': Mark Zuckerberg

San Francisco, Dec 1

Amid the ongoing Elon Musk and Apple tussle, Meta Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has once again slammed the iPhone maker for its App Store content moderation policies that present "a conflict of interest".

Addressing the New York Times DealBook conference, Zuckerberg said that "it is problematic for one company to be able to control what app experiences end up on a device".

He said that the "vast majority of profits in the mobile ecosystem go toward Apple".

On Musk being the new Twitter owner, the Meta CEO said "it'll be very interesting to see how this plays out".

After his meeting with Apple CEO Tim Cook, Musk on Thursday said that they have "resolved" misunderstandings over the micro-blogging platform possibly being removed from the App Store.

Apple and Meta (formerly Facebook) are at the loggerheads over privacy changes in iOS and App Store.

Facebook is struggling to patch its ad-tracking systems after Apple brought tough privacy changes in its App Store.

Apple introduced the "Ask App not to Track" prompt as part of iOS 14.5 in 2021 which has had a significant impact on various companies, including Meta which said that Apple iOS privacy changes will cost it a whopping $10 billion in 2022.

Apple's iOS 14.5 update, released in April 2021, came with an App Tracking Transparency (ATT) feature that has affected digital advertising for tech giants.

According to the WSJ report, Apple's privacy move resulted in a "sharp business slump that has shaved approximately $600 billion from the company's (Meta's) market value in less than a year".

A Meta spokesman said that the company has "made significant changes over the past five years to protect people's data while also allowing businesses of all sizes to grow".