French Regulator Objects to Apple’s App Tracking Practices
On Tuesday, France’s antitrust regulator announced that it had raised concerns about Apple potentially violating regulations related to the utilization of iPhone user data for advertising intentions. The watchdog issued a statement of objection against the American tech giant.
The watchdog is concerned that Apple may “abuse its dominant position by implementing discriminatory, non-objective and non-transparent conditions for the use of user data for advertising purposes,” Apple said in a statement.
The statement will trigger antitrust proceedings, during which the company can express its views, the watchdog said.
Apple denied the charge. The mechanism “gives users more control by requiring all apps to ask for permission before tracking them,” the company said in an email, adding that it “continues constructive cooperation” with the French regulator.
Four French online advertising industry groups filed an antitrust complaint against Apple in 2020 over changes the company made to privacy features when it began asking iPhone owners if they were willing to allow apps to collect data used to define and send targeted ads. Transparency (ATT).
The feature led to a drop in revenue for publishers, industry advocacy groups said.
Four organizations – IAB France, MMAF, SRI and UDECAM – said that the changes brought by Apple were not in line with European Union data protection rules, citing the fact that while the participation mechanism involved third-party developers, Apple’s own apps did not include it.
“Apple apps do not display the ATT prompt because they are non-tracking, meaning they do not link user or device data to user or device data collected from other companies’ apps, websites, or offline properties for targeted advertising or advertising measurement, and whether they share user – or device information with data brokers,” Apple said.
“Apple holds its advertising business to a higher level of privacy than it requires of other developers,” the company added.
