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Facebook (FB) founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg raised the bar on Wednesday in a mounting battle against Apple (AAPL), calling the iPhone giant one of the site’s “biggest competitors” in its most candid recognition to date that the two tech giants are locked in a battle with each other.
On a day when the two tech giants declared profits that blew the doors of Wall Street estimates, Zuckerberg used his company’s profit call to issue a series of bulletins against Apple.
As a hardware maker, Apple is a vital link between platforms and users, facilitating the connections social media sites like Facebook need to build engagement and ad dollars. Yet Zuckerberg and Apple CEO Tim Cook have traded beards for several years, both exchanging accusations of data privacy.
However, Facebook took the war of words to a new level on Wednesday, throwing accusations over Apple’s claims about its privacy and market dominance – actions for which Facebook itself has been sued by regulators.
“We increasingly see Apple as one of our biggest competitors,” Zuckerberg said, adding that the Cupertino-based company prioritizes its own “competing interests” over user privacy.
“Apple has every interest in using its position as a dominant platform to interfere with the operation of our applications to promote theirs, which they do regularly,” Zuckerberg added.
As tech giants come under increasing scrutiny for how strictly they protect user information, Zuckerberg has criticized Apple and unscrupulous governments for being able to access people’s messages – this that he claimed Facebook was not doing.
“Apple and governments have the ability to access people’s messages,” the CEO said. Meanwhile, “WhatsApp is clearly superior,” he added, apparently comparing the messaging app to Apple’s FaceTime.
In fact, Zuckerberg’s remarks were an escalation between the two global tech giants. Last month, Facebook revealed the company was working with Epic Games in its antitrust lawsuit against Apple. This lawsuit alleges that the App Store is an illegal monopoly designed to benefit Apple, but to the detriment of app developers.
Javier David is an editor for Yahoo Finance. Follow Javier on Twitter: @TeflonGeek
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