France’s competition authority has plunged a penalty of 150 million euros for an iOS function, which is intended to create more transparency in advertising tracking through apps. Apple’s framework “App Tracking Transparency” (Att) itself is not problematic, but the implementation is “abusive in the sense of competition law”, the authorité de la Concurrence announced on Monday after a long examination.
“Excessively complex” for users
Apple’s system prevents app providers preventing the requirements of the General Data Protection Regulation, according to the regulatory authority. Apps would be forced to display several pop-ups, which ultimately does it “excessively complex” for users. The concrete implementation in iOS is “neither necessary nor relatively with regard to Apple’s declared goal of protecting personal data”, Quotes Reuters from the decision of the authority. ATT, especially smaller app publishers, which are particularly dependent on advertising tracking.
Since iOS 14.5, apps have to ask for the consent of the user to access a fixed advertising ID assigned by the operating system. With knowledge of the ID, advertising tracking can then be carried out across app and providers. Other forms of advertising tracking are apps-at least on paper-prohibited from Apple.
Since the announcement of the function around five years ago, advertising associations and publishers have been mobilizing – especially in France. Similar studies in the function also run in other European countries, including Germany.
Apple: No changes specified
Apple was disappointed in a statement to Reuter about the decision in France. At the same time, the group emphasized that the regulators had not requested any specific changes to the tracking transparency function. The French competitive authority only said that it was now on Apple to follow the decision.
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