France fines Apple $162 million over app tracking privacy system
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Apple has been fined 150 million euros ($162 million) by French antitrust authorities over its App Tracking Transparency (ATT) feature.
The feature has faced scrutiny from regulators in several European countries for allegedly disadvantaging third-party publishers.
According to France’s Competition Authority, Apple’s implementation of ATT was “neither necessary nor proportionate” to its stated goal of protecting user privacy. The authority argued that the system’s design unfairly penalises third-party publishers and disrupts their revenue models.
Introduced in 2021, the ATT feature requires apps to obtain user consent through a pop-up prompt before tracking their activity across other apps and websites. If users decline, the apps lose access to valuable data needed for targeted advertising.
While Apple promotes ATT as a privacy safeguard, critics claim the system favours Apple’s own advertising services by making it difficult for competitors to collect user data. The French watchdog noted that Apple's system requires users to opt out of ad tracking twice rather than once, undermining the supposed neutrality of the feature.
Authorities in Germany, Italy, Romania, and Poland have also launched investigations into ATT over similar concerns. Despite the fine, France’s Competition Authority has not mandated specific changes to the ATT system but ordered Apple to publish the decision on its website for seven days.
The authority emphasised that Apple’s approach disproportionately harms smaller publishers who depend on third-party data collection to generate revenue. It also criticised the excessive number of consent requests presented to users by third-party apps, describing the experience as cumbersome.
Apple responded by defending ATT, stating that the feature “gives users more control of their privacy through a required, clear, and easy-to-understand prompt about one thing: tracking.” The company argued that the prompt is applied uniformly to all developers, including Apple itself, and noted that it has received strong support from consumers, privacy advocates, and data protection authorities globally.
The French investigation began following complaints from advertising industry players who argued that ATT hampered their ability to effectively target users. Although emergency measures were not imposed in 2021, the probe continued, ultimately resulting in the hefty fine.