Germany’s antitrust watchdog agency believes that Apple’s app privacy features may amount to “self-preferencing”
The antitrust watchdog said it believes Apple’s behavior could amount to self-preferencing. Apple is banned from preferring its own services and products in Germany since April 2023, when it became subject to special abuse controls aimed at regulating big tech’s market power.
Under the wider Pan-EU Digital Markets Act (DMA), Apple is also prohibited from self-preferencing on iOS and a handful of other core platform services such as the App Store.
The app privacy issue being investigated now relates to Apple’s App Tracking Transparency framework (ATTF), which lets iOS users instruct third party apps not to track their usage for ad targeting.
Giving people more control over app permissions shouldn’t be an anti-trust issue
I agree it shouldn;t be giving that control but considering that apple themselves collect data to similar services (eg. Apple App Store, device telemetry even if you opt out, Apple Music and TV+ perhaps now that both has come on Android?) Illduing to that I can see the watchdog’s point but They have to be careful as if they do take action this way who kows if apple is gonna decide kiss A.T.T. goodbye.
The EU legislation heavy approach to tech has caused lots of bad unintentional outcomes. Forcing third party app stores on iOS leading to malware downloads, mandatory USB-C halts innovation in connectors, and now targeting a pro-privacy feature in the OS.
If customers think this is a problem they can buy a Samsung or Pixel or Fair phone or whatever.
It’s an anti-trust issue. This is anti-trust legislation. Where monopolies exist because of anti-competitive action (forcing users to not be able to choose where to get their apps), that anti-competitive action needs to be stopped because it is illegal - my understanding of the Sherman Act.
The DMA legislation was a big win against monopolies in the EU. The Search Choice selection screen Google was forced to create for Android and Chrome makes people aware of other search engines they might like to use.
I would also consider giving iPhone users more options and enforcing USB-C interop big wins for customers.
Security or privacy are not good reasons for taking away customer choice; it’s often an excuse.
This would be all well and good if Apple’s actions were legal, which the EU did not deem them to be. Now Apple users have more choices on where to get apps. As an app developer, I consider this fantastic. As someone who wants to get apps directly from the developer, this is great too.
It’s also great that Chrome’s engine, which is more complete than Safari, can be used on iOS. As well as Firefox’s Gecko engine. And Ladybird’s libweb engine, in a few years.
(The logic for the USB-C interop enforcement is something I’ll need to look into, but the sideloading enforcement is pretty cut-and-dry)
Not least of all because patents are an artificial monopoly and royalty-free patents are the near-complete absence of one. I really can’t understand this point of view at all.
So while I agree with the DMA, I don’t agree with every EU action.
This is false and I respectfully would except better from Privacy Guides team.
In a nutshell, Apple is applying double standards.
What the authorities are having a problem is that consent process for Apple own service is different from 3rd parties, and that the one Apple subject itself to is way less strict. From the article:
“[T]he strict requirements under the ATTF only apply to third-party app providers, not to Apple itself,” the FCO wrote in a press release. “In the Bundeskartellamt’s preliminary view, this may be prohibited under the special abuse control provisions for large digital companies (Section 19a(2) of the German Competition Act (GWB)) and under the general abuse control provisions of Article 102 TFEU [Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union].”
“The consent dialogues for Apple’s own apps and for third-party apps differ substantially,” it goes on. “The current design, in particular the wording, of the dialogue for Apple’s own apps makes it more likely that users will consent than that of the ATTF dialogue for third-party apps.”
Apple being forced to treat it’s apps the same as third party apps seems like the most likely outcoming rather than the app tracking transparency framework being removed across the board.
You can also opt out from personalized ads from Apple if that’s what you mean by “privacy feature”. If you’re referring the prompt that shows up when apps request to track you though, you’re right that it’s not as clear to the user as the app tracking transparency. This will hopefully change with In Re : Apple Data Privacy Litigation, 5:22-cv-07069 – CourtListener.com
It added that the privacy tool “particularly penalized smaller publishers,” as they depend to a large extent on the collection of third-party data to fund their businesses
They are being fined for not letting advertisers track their users. The suit was brought by advertising companies:
Alliance Digitale, the Syndicat des Regies Internet (SRI), the Union des Entreprises de Conseil et d’Achat Média (Udecam) and the Groupement des Éditeurs de Services en Ligne, which had complained to the French watchdog, said the decision was a significant victory for advertisers.
The intent of ATT “is not problematic in terms of the likely benefits for users as regards privacy protection,” but “how the framework is implemented is abusive within the meaning of competition law,” the agency said. Apple’s “implementation methods artificially complicate the use of third-party applications and distort the neutrality of the framework to the detriment of small publishers financed by advertising,” it said.
Third-party publishers “cannot rely on the ATT framework to comply with their legal obligations,” so they “must continue to use their own consent collection solution,” the French agency said. “The result is that multiple consent pop-ups are displayed, making the use of third-party applications in the iOS environment excessively complex.”
They explicitly state that the intention of ATT is perfectly fine. It’s how third-parties, especially small scale companies, are disproportionally negatively affected especially as a result of “double consent” which isn’t the case with Apple’s first party apps.
First I don’t think there is anything wrong with the company who spent the resources developing the processor, OS, and App Store to have separate treatment of third party apps. Those poor small scummy ad businesses we’re supposed to worry about wouldn’t even have a business at all if Apple hadn’t done the hard work for them.
If someone doesn’t like that, they can buy a Pixel, Xperia, Samsung, OnePlus, etc. Apple doesn’t even have a majority position in EU market share.
Secondly the end result of this ruling is just going to be Apple disabling the feature as there is no point in investing in anything else just so they can be sued again because some new judge doesn’t like the way they did it.
This kind of over regulation is why there is no European equivalent to Apple or Google to being with.
