France: Apple's iOS tracking protection threatens-due to competition law

According to the Federal Cartel Office in Bonn, the authorité de la Concurrence in Paris, the National Competition Authority of France, now wants to act against Apple's app tracking protection. Previously, advertising groups had complained to the authority because Apple has made it difficult for Apple to pursue users across iOS applications. As the Reuters news agency writes, Apple will probably have to pay a punishment in France. This should claim informed circles.

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The reason: The Paris competitive keepers feared at a first rating two years ago that Apple with the so -called Tracking Tracking Transparency (Att) has been “abused by dominant position”, in which “discriminatory, unfavorable and non -transparent conditions for the use of user data for advertising purposes” were implemented.

Apple: Don't prefer ourselves

It is unclear how high the possible punishment could be. However, French competition law is a sharp sword that can theoretically move in up to 10 percent of the global annual turnover. The decision has already been expected, but now there is a further inclination of the competitive keepers to set a punishment in spring. At first, the authorité de la Concurrence did not want to make a comment.

Apple could – in addition to the punishment – also be obliged to hire ATT in France. It would then be the first really implemented competition ban against technology. Apple himself always emphasizes that you do not prefer your own advertising services and create a higher privacy protection meter than with its developers. French data protection officers have also praised Att. The competitive keepers apparently do not share the view and see the situation similar to four complainants: a total of four industrial lobby organizations from the advertising industry had already stimulated a competitive process against Apple in 2020.

Bundeskartellamt also Kontra Apple

In Germany, a similar investigation is based on ATT, but here by the Federal Cartel Office. The main reason for the Bonn concerns is that the “close requirements” of the ATT system only apply to other app providers, but not for Apple itself.

“According to the Federal Cartel Office, this could be a violation of the special abuse regulations for large digital companies (Section 19a paragraph 2 GWG (law against restrictions on competition)) and against the general abuse regulations of Article 102 TFEU (contract on the working method of the European Union),” said the authority. In this case, too, Apple announced that it is used to make higher demands in itself than to third-party developers. Apple is doing this, “by giving users the opportunity to decide whether they want personalized advertising at all”.