- Apple was fined $116 million by Italy’s antitrust authority over its App Tracking Transparency (ATT) privacy system.
- The authority found that Apple’s dominant app store position lets it impose strict consent rules on developers without prior consultation.
- The required double consent prompts for third-party developers were deemed excessive and harmful to competition.
- Apple plans to appeal and maintains its privacy protections commitment.
- Similar investigations are ongoing in other European countries, including France, Poland, Romania, and Germany.
Apple has been fined $116 million by Italy’s antitrust authority for allegedly restricting competition in its App Store through its App Tracking Transparency (ATT) privacy framework. The fine was imposed by the Autorità Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato (AGCM), which launched an investigation in May 2023.
The AGCM stated that Apple’s strong dominant position in app distribution enables it to unilaterally apply ATT rules to third-party developers without consulting them. The authority emphasized that while the company’s privacy safeguards are not in question, the consent process for personalized advertising is excessively burdensome and disproportionately restrictive relative to ATT’s objectives.
Developers in the European Union must serve two permission prompts under ATT and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) to obtain user consent for data processing related to advertising. In contrast, Apple’s own apps can obtain such permission from users with a single tap. The AGCM explained this dual consent requirement forces developers to request overlapping permissions, stating that “such a prompt does not meet privacy legislation requirements, forcing developers to double the consent request for the same purpose.”
The authority also noted that this double consent harms developers relying on advertising for revenue. It suggested that Apple should allow obtaining user consent through a single “Personalized Advertising” prompt to maintain user privacy equivalently.
In response, Apple announced it will appeal the decision, reaffirming its commitment “to defend strong privacy protections.” The company also said the rules apply equally to all developers, including itself, as reported by Reuters.
Apple introduced ATT in 2021 to require apps to get explicit user consent before accessing a device’s unique advertising identifier for targeted ads. This is not the first penalty over ATT, as France fined Apple $162 million in March 2025 for similar concerns about market dominance in mobile app advertising.
Additional antitrust inquiries are underway in Poland and Romania, while Germany is currently testing Apple’s proposed ATT changes. These include adjustments to the consent prompt’s text and format, aiming to keep “core user benefits” while offering neutral prompts for Apple’s own services and third-party apps. The updates also seek to simplify user permission processes to align with data protection laws.
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