Did you know Germany’s Antitrust Watchdog Questions Apple’s App Privacy Framework

 

It looks like the troubles for iPhone maker Apple in the EU continue to go strong and the latest country to have issues is Germany.

A leading antitrust watchdog in Germany was busy investigating how the app privacy framework launched by Apple in 2022 was questionable. The initial findings of this preliminary investigation were similarly shared. They revealed that the Cupertino firm was not treating app developers belonging to third parties equally as per the law in the region.

They felt that there were strong findings hinting at Apple's preference its itself as compared to others. Therefore, Apple has now been banned from preferring its services and products since April of 2023. This is when it became subject to so many abuse controls designed to regulate big tech in the leading market of today.

Under this latest DMA, Apple cannot promote its own services against others located in the App Store. So far, the privacy issue under investigation is now linked to Apple’s ATTF which enables iOS users to instruct third parties not to track usage for advertising targeting. The problem lies with how Apple treats tracking permissions when requested by external parties versus how it treats tracking by those requested for its own iOS users.

The stringent requirements come under the ATTF where only third-party application providers are included, not those related to Apple, the FCO mentioned in the latest press release. This is prohibited under the country’s German Competition Act.

From what can be seen right now, it’s more likely that iOS users will consent to Apple’s own apps than those belonging to third parties. This is what is raising serious competition concerns on the matter.

While Apple might appear like they are very strict when it comes to data processing for advertising reasons across different organizations, their own rules don’t apply to the company’s practice of mixing user data across the Apple ecosystems. It also means that third-party apps might pop up as four back-to-back dialogues under this law, while Apple apps only display a few.

Interestingly, no alerts speak about Apple’s apps processing user data which is again unfair. Last but not least, the watchdog highlighted how tracking designs for consent dialogues through iOS aren’t treated equally. They’re more likely leaning towards motivating users to process data while others for third-party platforms motivate users to refuse them.