Apple is appealing the hefty fine imposed on the company by the Italian competition authority AGCM for abusing its anti-tracking policy.
Earlier this week, the AGCM imposed a €98.6 million ($116.3 million) fine on Apple for not meeting privacy legislation requirements with the company’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT) framework.
Although this privacy policy was introduced in April 2021 and has been a part of iOS and iPadOS 14.5, the Italian market supervisor concluded that the terms of Apple’s ATT policy are “imposed unilaterally” and harm the interests of Apple’s business partners.
The AGCM also found that the terms were disproportionate to achieve Apple’s partners’ data protection objectives.
The competition authority didn’t criticize the policy, but the fact that Apple’s system requires third-party app makers to ask users for consent twice to comply with Europe’s strict privacy rules didn’t fare well.
“As a result, such a double consent requirement is harmful to developers, whose business model relies on the sale of advertising space, as well as to advertisers and advertising intermediation platforms,” the AGCM said, justifying its €98.6 million fine.
An Apple spokesperson told Associated Press that it strongly disagrees with the competition authority’s findings and will appeal its decision.
“At Apple, we believe privacy is a fundamental human right, and we created App Tracking Transparency to give users a simple way to control whether companies can track their activity across other apps and websites,” the Cupertino-based tech company said in a statement.
“These rules apply equally to all developers, including Apple, and have been embraced by our customers and praised by privacy advocates and data protection authorities around the world,” the statement continued.
In March, France’s antitrust regulator came to the same conclusion as the AGCM and hit Apple with a €150 million fine.
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