Italy fines Apple for abusing dominant position

The Antitrust Authority has fined Apple €98.635 million for abusing its dominant position.

According to the Italian Competition Authority, the California-based company violated market regulations in providing online distribution platforms for iOS users to developers, CE Report quotes Kosova Press.

"In this market," the Italian Competition Authority (AGCM) stated, "Apple holds an absolute dominant position through its App Store."

As reported by CE Report, therefore, the Authority determined that the App Tracking Transparency (ATT) policy is restrictive from a competition perspective. "After a complex investigation carried out in coordination with the European Commission, other national competition authorities, and the Italian Data Protection Authority (Garante per la Protezione dei Dati Personali), AGCM determined that Apple's App Tracking Transparency ('ATT') policy — i.e., the privacy rules implemented by Apple starting from April 2021 as part of its iOS mobile operating system — imposes restrictions on third-party app developers distributing apps through the App Store."

Specifically, "third-party developers must obtain explicit consent to collect and link data for advertising purposes via a screen set by Apple, the so-called ATT notice. However, this is not sufficient to meet privacy law requirements, forcing developers to request consent twice for the same purpose." "This is an independent decision, which does not affect other member states," said a European Commission spokesperson, commenting on the fine and its reasoning.

The Antitrust Authority found that "the ATT policy conditions are unilaterally imposed and harmful to the interests of Apple’s commercial partners. They are not proportionate to achieving the privacy objective, as claimed by the company. In fact, since user data is a fundamental element on which the ability to provide personalized online ads is based, the unavoidable doubling of consent requests resulting from ATT implementation — which limits the ability to collect, link, and use such data — harms the business of developers, whose business model is based on selling ad space, as well as advertisers and ad intermediary platforms."