German regulator charges Apple with abuse of power over App Tracking Transparency

With App Tracking Transparency, apps are now required to get a user’s permission to track or access their device’s advertising identifier.
The German antitrust authority has accused Apple of abusing its market dominance via its app tracking tool, favoring its own interests. This accusation comes after a three-year investigation by the Federal Cartel Office into Apple’s App Tracking Transparency feature, which lets users prevent cross-app tracking by advertisers. If Apple does not adjust its business practices, according to German regulators, it could face daily fines.
Reuters:
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The U.S. tech giant has said the feature allows users to control their privacy but has drawn criticism from Meta Platforms, app developers, and startups whose business models rely on advertising tracking.
“The ATTF (app tracking tool) makes it far more difficult for competing app publishers to access the user data relevant for advertising,” Andreas Mundt, cartel office president, said in a statement.
Apple defended the feature in an emailed statement to Reuters, adding that it “holds itself to a higher standard than it requires of any third-party developer.”
“We… will continue to constructively engage with the Federal Cartel Office to ensure users continue to have transparency and control over their data,” it added.
The case was triggered by complaints from associations representing publishers, broadcasters, advertisers, their agencies and ad tech firms.

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MacDailyNews Take: Apple is not favoring its own interests here.
Apple does not track users across third-party apps and websites, selling user tracking data to other companies, which is why Apple apps do not display the App Tracking Transparency prompt to obtain the users’ permission to allow the collection of end user data and the sharing of it with other companies for purposes of tracking across apps and web sites.
Apple employs on-device intelligence and other features to minimize the data that the company collects in Apple’s apps, browsers, and online services, and the company does not create a single comprehensive user data profile across all of our apps and services.
More info: https://www.apple.com/privacy/docs/A_Day_in_the_Life_of_Your_Data.pdf

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