Poland’s Office of Competition and Consumer Protection has started an investigation to determine if Apple (AAPL) is restricting competition in the mobile advertising market through its privacy policy.
Antitrust regulator UOKiK said that in 2021, Apple introduced a new user privacy policy called the App Tracking Transparency Framework, or ATT. It applies to iOS and iPadOS operating systems from version 14.5 onwards.
The UOKiK said Apple collects information about users, which is used to display personalized advertisements to them. However, Apple has introduced its own definition of user “tracking.” The regulator added that the consequence of this definition is that different messages are displayed on iPhone and iPad screens. For Apple content, it is consent to “personalised advertising,” while in the message from third-party applications, the order and content of the buttons are: “Ask the application not to track” and “Allow.”
“The wording of these consent messages – combined with their design – may lead to Apple receiving user permission to process data for advertising purposes more frequently than independent app publishers. After all, no one likes the idea of being “tracked”. Yet the practical effect is the same,” said Tomasz Chróstny, the President of UOKiK.
The regulator noted that unequal conditions for getting consent to provide personalized advertising may have affected independent mobile app publishers, including Polish entrepreneurs.
“We suspect that the ATT policy may have misled users about the level of privacy protection while simultaneously increasing Apple’s competitive advantage over independent publishers, thereby strengthening Apple’s position in the advertising market,” said Chróstny. “Such behaviour may constitute an abuse of a dominant position, which is punishable by law with a fine of up to 10 per cent of turnover.”
Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Seeking Alpha.
Apple said the ATT framework was created to offer consumers a way to control whether companies can track their activity, helping them to safeguard their privacy, Reuters reported.
“It is no surprise that the data tracking industry continues to oppose our efforts to give users back control over their data, and now intense pressure could force us to withdraw this feature, to the detriment of European consumers,” the company added. “We will work with the Polish competition authority to ensure Apple can continue to offer users this valuable privacy tool.”
The UOKiK noted that antitrust authorities in Germany, Italy, and Romania are also examining the ATT policy. In March, a French regulator issued a decision concerning Apple, imposing a fine of €150M.