While Apple has long used privacy as a selling point for both its hardware and services, I do wonder whether it now regrets introducing one privacy measure: App Tracking Transparency (ATT).
For something with rather limited scope, it sometimes feels like scarcely a month goes by without a new antitrust lawsuit or regulator challenging it. A third ATT lawsuit is being brought in the UK – this one with a twist.
This piece has been updated with a response by Apple at the end of the piece …
The personalized ad controversy
Personalized advertising has been one of the hot button tech topics for many years now. Instead of seeing random ads for products that may or may not interest us, we are shown ads based on our interests, as gleaned from the apps we use and the websites we visit.
In theory, this is a win for all parties. Consumers are shown ads that may genuinely interest them; advertisers get better results from their ad spend because it is targeted; while free apps and websites funded by ads get higher payments for the same reason.
Although the data used to serve personalised ads is collected in an anonymised form, the practice has led to a widespread perception of it as an invasion of privacy. Even when Apple specifically developed a technology to ensure that this data was anonymous, many consumers remained suspicious.
App Tracking Transparency
Apple’s App Tracking Transparency was designed to solve the problem by letting consumers choose whether or not their data could be used to serve personalized ads. Developers who wish to collect this data must ask consumers for permission.
Unfortunately for the iPhone maker, this has led to a whole slew of lawsuits and antitrust investigations, mostly based around the fact that Apple’s own apps don’t seek this permission. The company has on numerous occasions pointed out that its rules are in fact consistent: Apple’s own apps don’t present the ATT prompt because they don’t collect the data it references. Third-party apps that don’t collect this data are also exempted from the need to present the prompt.
The latest UK lawsuit
Apple has so far faced three complaints to the UK’s relevant antitrust regulator, the Competition Appeal Tribunal. Apple lost the first of these – though is currently appealing – and the second one is still ongoing.
Reuters reports on the third, which was filed today.
Apple is facing a £2 billion ($2.7 billion) London lawsuit brought on behalf of app developers over its app tracking rules, with the iPhone maker accused of abusing its power to unfairly impose greater restrictions on third parties. The lawsuit, filed at London’s Competition Appeal Tribunal on Thursday, follows years of regulatory scrutiny over Apple’s App Tracking Transparency feature.
With a twist
The latest lawsuit has an interesting twist: it’s being brought by Ann Pope, who was previously a senior official with the regulator behind today’s case.
Ann Pope, a former senior official with Britain’s Competition and Markets Authority who is leading the lawsuit, said Apple’s policy “resulted in very significant harm to businesses that depend on Apple as a gatekeeper”.
“This action is important to protect the rights of British businesses that depend on Apple, to ensure that the rules that Apple applies are fair, and to compensate the losses that British companies have suffered,” Pope said in a statement.
Apple recently agreed to make eight changes to its ATT rules in the EU following an investigation by the German antitrust regulator. In respect of this lawsuit, the company told us:
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 apps have permission to track their activity across other companies’ apps and websites. Apple is bound by the exact same requirements as all developers under ATT, and this feature has been embraced by our customers and praised by privacy advocates and data protection authorities around the world, including in the UK. We disagree with these claims, and will continue to defend strong privacy protections for our users.
A number of privacy advocates have spoken up in support of ATT over the years.
- Certified refurbished Apple products 15% off at apple.com
- Official Apple Store on Amazon
- Discounted AirPods Pro 3
- Wireless CarPlay adapter
- 10-year AirTag battery case
- Logitech MX Master 4 for Mac
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
Comments