Apple's App Tracking Transparency treated its own apps better than rivals
Germany's antitrust regulator, the Bundeskartellamt, has concluded that Apple's App Tracking Transparency Framework (ATTF) unfairly favored Apple's own apps over third-party apps. Apple has agreed to change its consent prompts to be more neutral and give third-party developers more flexibility. The commitments are binding for seven years and follow fines from French and Italian authorities. The case was based on Germany's special abuse control for large digital companies.
It is key that personal data and privacy are protected effectively when using apps. Apple is allowed to provide for a level of protection for its users that exceeds the minimum legal requirements. However, if Apple sets up additional rules within its ecosystem for the use of data, these rules must, under Germany’s special abuse provision for large digital companies, not treat its own offerings better than those of its competitors.
- jshier
Title doesn't match the article, which is currently "Apple changes its rules for personalised advertising in apps".
Apple gave itself better dialogs for the permission prompts, which they will now equalize (perhaps just in the EU?) with the prompts they use for their own apps.
My understanding of ATTF is that first-party tracking needed no disclosure other than the information declared in the app's App Store privacy section about the information gathered. If you made a suite of 20 apps, you could track usage across all of them without issue, as long as you didn't also share that info with a third party.
- rad-b
I see the regulators only regulated that first-party and third-party apps be treated equally, and didn’t specify how.
It’s a bummer (albeit an expected one) to see Apple reducing the burden for third-party publishers to collect personal data, rather than increasing the burden for themselves to collect it, thus overall raising the floor of user privacy. This is to say, when a regulator requests “everyone be treated equally to ensure competition” maybe they should also take into account how users are impacted and instead request something more nuanced like: if there are unequal standards, they must be equalized in a way that maximizes user benefit.
- iamcalledrob
A good step.
Apple's own apps are still blessed with permissions that other apps have to ask for. This needs to be addressed too.
- jonplackett
They also do other things you aren’t allowed to do as a developer - eg. When they do a ‘free trial’ of Apple TV, if you cancel it cancels immediately. All proper subscriptions you retain the use of until the renewal date.
- phoghed
Imagining my grandpa calling me because his camera doesn't work because he denied the camera permission on his camera app. But then he can't because he denied all the permissions his phone app needs.