The French antitratist officials on Monday assigned a fine of 150 million ($ 162 million) to Apple on their app tracking privacy facility, also investigating in many other European countries.
The Watchdog said that the way Apple implemented its app tracking transparency (ATT) software, “was neither necessary nor proportional to the company’s declared target for protecting the user’s data” and punished the third party publishers.
In addition to the fine, Apple must publish a decision on its website for seven days.
Officials in Germany, Italy, Romania and Poland have opened a similar investigation on the ATT, which Apple promotes as a privacy security.
Apple said in a statement, “While we are disappointed with today’s decision, the French Competition Authority does not require any specific changes for the ATT.”
The feature launched by Apple in 2021 requires apps to obtain the consent of the user through the pop-up window before monitoring its activity on other apps and websites.
If they decline, the app loses access to information on the user that enables ad targeting.
Critics have accused Apple of using the system to promote their own advertising services, restricting competitors.
‘More control on privacy’
In its judgment, the French Competition Authority stated that the ATT feature leads to a large number of consent windows for the feature iPhone and the third party app on the iPad, leading to the experience more cumbersome.
It was also found that Apple’s system needs users to get out of advertising tracking twice instead of once, “reduce neutrality of convenience” and app publishers and advertising service providers.
The authority stated that Apple’s approach affects small publishers, who rely more on the third-party data collection to fund their businesses.
Following the complaints of the advertising industry players, who claimed that ATT interrupted its ability to target users, France’s competition Watchdog initially refused to implement emergency measures in 2021, but continued its investigation.
Apple stated on Monday that Att “gives users more control of its privacy through an essential, clear, and easy-to-understand signal: Tracking”.
“This signal is consistent for all developers including Apple, and we have received strong support from consumers, privacy advocates and data protection authorities around the world for this feature,” said this.
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