Apple dropped a new ad this week, with Google Chrome as its likely target, that signaled the horrors of using an unsecured browser.
In the ad, a middle-aged man sits down on a bench outside and starts browsing his iPhone. Elsewhere, a woman at her office desk also picks up her iPhone.
Suddenly, an unsuspecting security camera appears to become sentient. It leaps off its perch on a wall and springs bird-like wings, flying down to the man on an iPhone to spy on him up close. A similar winged security camera creature crashes into the office window where the woman works in an attempt to get closer. The sky fills with flocks of these flying security cameras – they are everywhere.
No, this isn't a trailer for a new horror movie. It's a warning.
"Your browsing is being watched," on-screen text reads during the ad before later touting that Apple's Safari for iPhone is "a browser that's actually private."
Because the ad doesn't explicitly mention its target, viewers may not immediately realize that this unsettling new commercial is actually Apple's latest critique of Google and its Chrome web browser for iPhone.
Over the past couple of weeks, new Apple ads have been popping up on billboards to showcase Safari, Apple's privacy-focused web browser.
A big-tech company promoting one of its products isn't surprising. Especially so when it comes to Apple lauding its commitments to user privacy. After all, Apple is the company that reportedly wouldn't even consider Meta's AI model due to the company's negative history with user privacy. However, many may not realize that these billboards are part of an ongoing battle between Apple and Google, which are both duking it out for iPhone users' eyeballs.
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Apple is promoting Safari for iPhone, and the company's overall focus on user privacy, to tacitly inform consumers about Google Chrome's issues. Google's Chrome web browser is notorious for tracking users' browser usage through third-party cookies.
On top of that, just this past April, as part of a class-action lawsuit settlement, Google revealed that the company was actually collecting data from users while they were using Chrome's "Incognito Mode."
Anyone who uses Safari on iPhone knows that while performing a search, the Apple-owned web browser defaults to Google. If Google already has a working relationship with Apple, and these consumers are using their search engine product, why does it matter that they use Google Chrome?
It was recently revealed that Google pays Apple a lot of money to have their search engine be the default on Safari for iPhone. In fact, it was revealed that in 2022, Google paid $20 billion to Apple for that honor. We know that because that payment was unveiled as part of an antitrust lawsuit from the DOJ seeking to put a stop to Google and Apple's multi-billion dollar arrangement.
If the DOJ prevails, which is a very possible scenario, the financial relationship between Google and Apple for Safari's default search engine is over — and Google Search could potentially lose hundreds of millions of users.
According to The Information, Google is preparing for this potential worst case scenario and aiming to grow its iPhone web browser market share. Google Chrome is reportedly used by 30 percent of iPhone users as their default browser. However, Google is aiming for Chrome to be the default on 50 percent of iPhone users' devices. That amounts to roughly more than half a billion iPhones in total.
On desktops and laptops, Google Chrome is the clear winner when it comes to web browser market share. But, that's not the case when it comes to the more than one billion active iPhone devices out there. With Google trying to gain more a foothold on iPhone, Apple is rolling out a much larger campaign to promote Safari and play up its user privacy strengths.
But, will iPhone users care? Depending on the verdict in the antitrust case, the iPhone web browser battle will likely heat up and we'll find out just how much Apple consumers value privacy.
