An abuse of a dominant position? On Monday, March 31, the French Competition Authority fined Apple a hefty fine for failing to comply with competition law, particularly by implementing its "App Tracking Transparency ("ATT") system. The Apple brand will have to pay the French government €150 million. This case was initiated by several online advertising trade associations, including Alliance Digitale, SRI, Udecam, and Geste, who had filed a complaint with the Competition Authority in 2020.
These associations believed that the Californian company, which planned to implement a new system for collecting consent from Apple device users starting in April 2021, was abusing its dominant position by putting publishers of apps not pre-installed on the App Store at a disadvantage. They estimated that many players in the sector would see their revenues decrease.
A process described as complex for app publishers
Since April 2021, app publishers who wish to "track their users for advertising purposes across multiple apps or sites" on iOS and iPadOS must obtain explicit permission from the latter. To do this, Apple has implemented a partially standardized window called App Tracking Transparency (ATT) each time an application downloaded from the App Store is installed.
If authorization is given, the application can access the "Identifier for Advertisers ("IDFA"), the device identifier that allows tracking of the device through its use of third-party applications and sites," the authority explains: an essential step for many content and application publishers and online advertising players, a large part of whose revenue is based on targeted advertising.
While this system was not problematic in itself, the authority sought to understand whether Apple applied the same rules for everyone, including its own services. Users had to go through a process described as "complex" to give their consent to tracking, in the case of third-party applications, with various confirmation pop-ups... a process that was simpler for its own services.
The authority notes an "asymmetry of treatment between Apple and publishers," with "a multiplication of consent collection windows excessively complicating the journey of users of third-party applications within the iOS environment." The competition authority had also sought the opinion of the CNIL, the guardian of our personal data, on this point. Conversely, for its own services, the authority notes that the Cupertino company only uses a single window of "Personalized Advertising (...) while it continues to require double consent for the collection of third-party data carried out by publishers."
However, the implementation of this system was "neither necessary nor proportionate," the authority stated in its decision published this Monday. Its implementation was indeed "abusive in the sense of competition law."
Apple argues that the authority did not "require specific changes to App Tracking Transparency (ATT)."
In the past, Apple had considered that it complied with European Union laws. The Californian company emphasized the fact that this system allowed its users to have more "control by requiring all applications to ask permission before tracking them."
During a press conference this Monday, Alliance Digitale, which welcomed "a great victory," demanded that Apple "suspend ATT immediately" and change its practices. A point rightly raised by Apple, which, contacted by 01net.com this Monday, clarified that "the French Competition Authority has not required any specific changes to the App Tracking Transparency (ATT)."
Editor's note: this article was modified after publication to add comments from Apple and Alliance Digitale.
Source: Press release from the Competition Authority dated March 31, 2025
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