Italy’s Competition Authority (AGCM) announced on Monday that it has fined the Apple corporation €98.6 million ($116 million) for imposing unfair conditions on third-party app developers through the App Tracking Transparency (ATT) policy.
This decision centers on Apple’s requirement, beginning in April 2021, that developers display an ATT consent prompt before tracking user data across apps. AGCM launched an investigation in May 2023 and ultimately determined that Apple had violated Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). AGCM found that the ATT policy created an unlawful “double consent” requirement because developers were still required to use their own consent management platform prompts to comply with European Union (EU) privacy regulations (GDPR), effectively forcing them to request the same permissions twice. In March, France fined Apple $162 million over the ATT policy, finding similar GDPR violations.
Article 102(a) of the TFEU prohibits companies holding a “dominant position within the internal market” from “directly or indirectly imposing unfair purchase or selling prices or other unfair trading conditions.” AGCM found that Apple abused its dominant position by imposing restrictive privacy rules under the ATT policy. They further asserted that Apple’s policy had been “imposed unilaterally,” and it was “detrimental to the interests of Apple’s commercial partners” and “disproportionate to the achievement of any legitimate interest.”
AGCM emphasized that it did not challenge Apple’s potential interests in adopting safeguards that protect users’ privacy, but rather it took issue with measures that are disproportionate and excessively burdensome. Importantly, the Italian Data Protection Authority (GPDP) determined that Apple could have achieved similar privacy protections through less restrictive means.
AGCM’s investigation found that reduced consent rates following ATT’s implementation had resulted in decreased advertising revenue for third-party app developers while benefiting Apple’s own advertising division, which was allowed to operate under more lenient conditions. The investigation concluded that Apple’s conduct amounted to “exploitative abuse.” In addition to the monetary fine, ACGM ordered Apple to immediately stop its anticompetitive conduct and submit a compliance report within 90 days.
This marks the latest legal development for Apple. In August, X Corp. and X.AI LLC filed a federal lawsuit alleging that Apple and OpenAI’s exclusive ChatGPT integration violates federal competition law. In April, the EU fined Apple $588 million for violating digital competition law.
While the ATT policy has drawn criticism, a working paper at the National Bureau of Economic Research shows that the policy has helped reduce financial fraud. In particular, the paper highlights that a 10 percent increase in consumers opting out of the data tracking policy translates to a 7.3 percent reduction in complaints at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
