The French competition authority fined Apple 150 million euros ($162 million) on Monday due to issues with its app-tracking privacy policy, a matter that is also being investigated in various other parts of Europe.
The watchdog argued that Apple's approach to implementing its App Tracking Transparency (ATT) software was "not essential or appropriate" for achieving their declared objective of safeguarding user information, and simultaneously imposed penalties on third-party publishers.
Aside from the penalty, Apple must also display the ruling on their website for a week.
Authorities in Germany, Italy, Romania and Poland have opened similar probes over ATT, which Apple promotes as a privacy safeguard.
In 2021, Apple implemented a new feature mandating that applications must seek explicit permission from users via an alert box prior to monitoring their actions on external applications and web platforms.
If rejected, the application will lose access to the user’s advertising identifier, thereby disabling targeted advertisements.
Critics allege that Apple employs the system to favor its own advertising services and limit opportunities for rival companies.
In its ruling, France’s Competition Authority stated that the ATT feature results in too many consent prompts for external applications on iPhones and iPads, which complicates the user experience.
It also found that Apple’s system required users to opt out of ad tracking twice rather than once, “undermining the neutrality of the feature” and causing economic harm to app publishers and ad services providers.
The authorities further noted that Apple’s strategy has an outsized impact on smaller publishers, which largely depend on external data gathering for financial support.
In response to objections from advertisers alleging that ATT obstructed their capacity to reach customers, France’s regulatory body for competition opted not to enforce immediate actions in 2021 but kept investigating the matter.
Provided by Syndigate Media Inc. ( Syndigate.info ).
EmoticonEmoticon