After temporarily banning ChatGPT and sparking a surge in VPN service downloads, another major tech company is now under scrutiny in Italy.
This time around, it’s Apple that gets in trouble for allegedly abusing its market dominance against third-party app developers.
In particular, the Italian antitrust authority AGCM accuses the American tech giant of applying more restrictive and unfavorable data privacy rules for non-Apple applications from April 2021. An investigation to investigate such allegations is now open.
Italy’s investigation into Apple’s ATT abuses
“The differential treatment is mainly based on the characteristics of the prompt that appears to users to obtain consent to track their “navigation” data on the web, and on the tools adopted to measure the effectiveness of advertising campaigns,” wrote the Italian portal Competition. Warranty press release.
The agency clarified that only Apple’s competitors are required to display a prompt asking for user consent to tracking in a more appropriate position than that contradicts the practice. It is also reported to use misleading language about online tracking activities.
Not just privacy issues, third-party developers also seem to be at a disadvantage because of the quality and detail Apple gives them about their ad campaigns.
“Apple’s alleged discriminatory behavior could result in a decrease in third party advertisers’ advertising revenue to the benefit of its commercial department; restrict entry and/or prevent competitors from remaining in the application development and distribution market; benefit their own applications and, consequently, mobile devices and the Apple iOS operating system.”
How Reuters announced that the American giant rejected such allegations, arguing that it imposes the same privacy rules on all developers, including Apple itself. “We will continue to work constructively with the AGCM to address any questions they may have,” it added.
However, this is not the first time that Apple has found itself at the center of antitrust investigations in Europe.
Since the company launched its App Tracking Transparency (ATT) feature two years ago – around the same time the alleged misconduct began – there have been numerous complaints and investigations into alleged abuse.
In March 2021, it was approx French start-up lobby group to raise the alarm about Apple’s privacy fraud, as it did not get the support of the national antitrust regulator at the time. Similar criticisms of Apple’s ATT practices have also been raised Germany AND Polandwhile in the same year the UK raised concerns about the overall increasing dominance of Apple’s market power.
Regardless of the results of the investigation in Italy, it’s clear that Apple faces increasing scrutiny in Europe – something that is likely to continue with the Digital Markets Act.
