Germany’s Cartel Office told Apple today that its consent-giving mechanism for personal data tracking gives the company an unfair advantage over other app developers.
Under German and EU antitrust law, Apple’s App Tracking Transparency Framework (ATTF) may constitute illegal self-preferencing reports the Kartellamt’s preliminary legal assessment.
Third-party app developers frequently want to track a user’s iPhone activity beyond their specific app. The ATTF facilitates this but requires users to give additional consent via a pop-up for such processing to take place, or to give third-party developers access to the phone’s advertising identifier.
However, the ATTF conditions do not affect Apple’s own apps in the same manner, says the Office, as the ATTF does not apply to Apple’s use and cross-service combination of personal data on its own operating system.
Additionally, Apple’s already wide access to first party data on its users gives it a considerable advantage, said Andreas Mundt, President of the Federal Cartel Office.
The Office also raised issues with Apple’s own services requiring fewer steps than for other apps the authority adds. The language and designs of the ATTF as applied on Apple devices encourages users to consent to Apple’s personal data processing while guiding users to reject the same consent when applied to other apps, according to the Office’s press release.
The ATTF’s prompt is “consistent for all developers, including Apple” and it has received “strong support from consumers, privacy advocates, and data protection authorities.” Apple told Euractiv.
