Meta has recently issued a plea with the Australian government, asking for a reprieve from any further regulations owing to how much Apple has limited its advertising power within the country, reports TG.
Meta pleading with Australia to stop penalizing its platforms while Apple also keeps the corporation from generating revenue is honestly hilarious to me for so many different reasons. First off is the fact that not much longer than a year ago, Meta (then Facebook) was haughtily stating that it’d block all owned platforms in the country if it didn’t stop going after them. Second off, yet one more year before the Australia thing, Meta had been launching a massive campaign against Apple and its purported attacks against small platforms and apps that relied on advertisers to generate revenue (conveniently not mentioning how much Meta itself profited off of such endeavors). The fact that it not only massively failed to intimidate literally anyone in these public tantrums, but is instead now asking for a break (albeit while still maintaining a 5-year-old child’s huffy tone) is nothing short of absolutely brilliant.
So, what happened with Australia? Well, for starters, the country realized that Meta’s platforms made a lot of money off of sharing news articles written by its own journalists and publishers, while they never got to see a penny for all of the effort. The government decided to target both Meta and Google as being prime offenders, and enforced a tax of sorts where a certain percentage would be paid to Australian writers and publishers for the work that they put in. Google quietly disagreed, but decided to acquiesce quickly enough. Meta did no such thing, and decided to be as difficult to work with as possible. However, the government stood their ground, and the tech company budged.
The other incident has to do with Apple and its Tracking/Transparency features. Tracking and Transparency essentially prevents the likes of Facebook and Instagram from siphoning off any user data without explicit permission. This means that Meta can no longer use personal data and sell it to advertisers for targeted ads and other relevant cash grabs. Meta didn’t take kindly to this, launched an entire campaign, Apple didn’t budge, so on and so forth. Now, Meta’s still doing well for itself, and Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp easily make the company more money than it’ll ever need. Therefore, grubbing for more from a country that stood up to your threats, and a company that actively dismissed your complaints, is just kind of sad.
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