Apple has been hit with a $116 million fine in Italy after the App Tracking Transparency (ATT) feature introduced with iOS 14.5 was deemed to be "disproportionate" to app developers and advertisers.
The €98.6 million penalty has been imposed by the country's Competition Authority (AGCM) regulator after it determined Apple abused a dominant position in the European market.
The crux of the matter is that app developers are forced to obtain specific consent for collecting data twice over, because the Italian regulator says ATT does not meet the threshold for the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
"The Authority established that the terms of the ATT policy are imposed unilaterally and harm the interests of Apple’s commercial partners," the regulator wrote in a press release.
"The terms were also found to be disproportionate to the achievement of the company’s stated data protection objectives. Since user data are a key input for personalised online advertising, the double consent request that inevitably arises from the ATT policy, as implemented, restricts the collection, linking and use of such data."
The press release goes on to claim the double-whammy of the iPhone's App Tracking Transparency feature and GDPR's requirement for consent is "harmful" to developers whose business model "relies on the sale of advertising space".
It ends by suggesting Apple should have "ensured the same level of privacy protection for users by allowing developers to obtain consent to profiling in a single step."
Apple's response to the fine
Apple has butted heads several times with European regulators in recent years, and the company says it "strongly disagrees" with the Italian regulator's decision. In a statement provided to Reuters, Apple said the ruling "disregards the important privacy protections" offered by ATT.
Earlier this year, Apple suggested it may have to remove the App Tracking Transparency feature (which was first rolled out back in 2021) in certain European markets following intense lobbying in markets like France, Germany and Italy. Back in March, the company was fined 150 million euros ($150 million) by France's Competition Authority for the same reason.
To a company that posted a quarterly revenue of $102 billion in October, these fines may not seem like much. But they do add up. Apple is also on the hook for 500 million euros for breaching the EU's pro-competition Digital Markets Act — the first company to do so.
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