Italy fines Apple nearly 100 mn euros over app privacy feature

Italy's competition authority said Monday it had fined the US tech giant Apple 98 million euros ($115 million) for allegedly abusing its dominant position in the mobile app market.

The AGCM said in a statement that Apple had violated privacy regulations for third-party developers in a market where it "holds a super-dominant position through its App Store".

Apple said it would appeal the decision and defended its "strong privacy protections for our users".

But Italy's antitrust body said its investigation had established the "restrictive nature" of the "privacy rules imposed by Apple... on third-party developers of apps distributed through the App Store".

The rules of Apple's App Tracking Transparency (ATT) "are imposed unilaterally and harm the interests of Apple's commercial partners", according to the AGCM statement.

French antitrust authorities earlier this year handed Apple a 150-million euro fine over its app tracking privacy feature.

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Authorities elsewhere in Europe have also opened similar probes over ATT, which Apple promotes as a privacy safeguard.

The feature, introduced by Apple in 2021, requires apps to obtain user consent through a pop-up window before tracking their activity across other apps and websites.

If they decline, the app loses access to information on that user which enables ad targeting. 

Critics have accused Apple of using the system to promote its own advertising services while restricting competitors.

Apple in its statement said its privacy rules "have been embraced by our customers and praised by privacy advocates and data protection authorities around the world".

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