Apple is behaving like the monopolistic corporation that it is - just as expected.<p>Treating users as pawns while bullying other corporations, using privacy as fear mongering tactic. All the while it is collecting all the data and plans to provide ads on its own ecosystem.
The discussions supposedly took place 4-6yrs ago. Apple only really went full bore on advertising their privacy focus in the past 2-3yrs, but they have had a track record since the very first iPhone of protecting user privacy.<p>They took a stance and ran with it. Before then they tolerated the ad business. But with nearly all of the younger generation using iPhone those companies stand to lose far more by leaving the platform
than Apple do.