Report from Euractiv
In Brief – Apple has settled an antitrust investigation by Germany’s competition authority by agreeing to redesign privacy prompts that third-party app developers show mobile users when seeking consent to use their data for targeted advertising. Apple’s binding commitments to make design changes close a probe launched in 2022 after the regulator preliminarily found that Apple’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT) framework, rolled out in 2021, likely violated Germany’s competition law governing the largest digital platforms. Apple consistently argued that the ATT framework simply gave users more control over their data, but advertisers and apps dependent on tracking for targeted advertising revenue argued it was anticompetitive. Apple has now agreed to align the user prompts involving data use by third-party developers with the user prompts involving Apple’s own use of data, using neutral language, symbols and colors, including removing the word “tracking” and changing a highlight color from orange to blue. Developers will also have more space to explain why data use matters commercially and may seek consent annually. The redesign commitments will last seven years.
Context – When Apple announced the ATT policy in 2020, they billed it as a major step forward for user privacy, but the move was soon challenged by many in the ad industry as a way for Apple to harm competitors and grow its own ad business. Apple has consistently claimed that its own apps do not collect data from users the same way apps from other providers do, but critics argue that Apple has preferential access to other user data that it uses for advertising purposes, an argument the German regulator agreed with. Despite the political sensitivity of online advertising, several national competition authorities opened investigations of Apple’s policy, including France, Italy, Romania, Poland and Germany. The French and Italian regulators each fined the iPhone giant last year. Although Apple decried ad industry lobbying and threatened to turn off ATT in Europe, that now appears unlikely and instead they may extend their German redesign to other markets.