France Fines Apple for Illegally Harvesting iPhone Owners' Data for Ads

"France's data protection authority, CNIL, fined Apple €8 million (about $8.5 million) Wednesday," reports Gizmodo, "for illegally harvesting iPhone owners' data for targeted ads without proper consent." It's an unusual sanction for the iPhone maker, which has faced fewer legal penalties over privacy than its Big Tech competitors. Apple makes privacy a selling point for its devices, plastering "Privacy. That's iPhone." across 40-foot billboards across the world.... Apple failed to "obtain the consent of French iPhone users (iOS 14.6 version) before depositing and/or writing identifiers used for advertising purposes on their terminals," the CNIL said in a statement. The CNIL's fine calls out the search ads in Apple's App Store, specifically. A French court fined the company over $1 million in December over its commercial practices related to the App Store....

With iPhones running iOS 14.6 and below, Apple's Personalized Advertising privacy setting was turned on by default, leaving users to seek out the control on their own if they wanted to protect their information. That violates EU privacy law, according to the CNIL.... The newer versions of the iPhone operating system corrected the problem, presenting users with a prompt before the advertising data was collected. Gizmodo also notes this response from an Apple spokesperson. "We are disappointed with this decision given the CNIL has previously recognized that how we serve search ads in the App Store prioritizes user privacy, and we will appeal. Apple Search Ads goes further than any other digital advertising platform we are aware of by providing users with a clear choice as to whether or not they would like personalized ads."

Gizmodo calls France's fine "a signal that Apple may face a less friendly regulatory future in Europe."

Re:

[sosume]

1400 euro for a phone and you still get ads, insane

No opt-out

[Retired ICS]

It is all useless drivel if there is no option to opt out completely. Printing the ads on 10x12 plywood and shove them up Tim Cook's ass should be an option.

How about fining Google

[Alain Williams]

for taking personal data via google-analytics. Some javascript for this seems to infest most web sites. Very few users are aware of it and fewer have consented to it. Maybe the javascript has been put there by the site owner but even so Google is vicariously culpable in collecting and processing personal data without agreement.

Re:

[moronoxyd]

Sure. But here, today, we are talking about Apple.
So how about you leave your whataboutism at the door? Thank you.

Re: How about fining Google

[SleepingEye]

Sure, but if you bother looking, google is an unapolegetically analytics business that more often than not has prompts to warn that the information is being sent to google (see Wifi assisted GPS). Apple specifically says they do not, but then do... like all the other dozens of times they lied

Re:

[Kitkoan]

To start with, screw your whataboutism.

And second, I don't recall Google making giant ads claiming privacy and then doing the exact opposite like apple here is doing.

Third, your whataboutism just makes you look pathetic.

Fourth, Google is already being sued about privacy issues in France.

Fifth, no one cares about your stupid whataboutisms. Get lost.

Noooooo!

[Anonymous Coward]

bUt ApPlE aRe PeRfEcT!!!

But, but, Apple DOESN'T SELL Your Information!!!

[BBF_BBF]

Yep, they don't sell your information to OUTSIDE ad companies, but that doesn't mean that they don't mine the crap out of all the information that they gather from their customers to power their OWN ad sales.

Re:

[Carewolf]

They do claim to the right to resell the data, anonymizid as everybody else. Though hopefully they do not do that for EU citizens as that would be illegal.

Thank you France.

[biggaijin]

Apple, Google, and the rest are out of control, but Apple is the worst. It's about time someone held them accountable for their intrusions into our privacy and their giant data harvesting operation. Thank you, France.

Re:

[AmiMoJo]

I find Apple's privacy controls very poor. Google's are much better, although they could be simplified. I don't mind sharing some data if I am in control of what it is used for and there is some considerable benefit to me.

Smack the one who is behaving the best

[DutchDopey]

So we have MS probably the most sneakiest with Windows, LinkedIn and other services. We have the most blatant like Facebook, the biggest with Google. All really exploiting your data on a personal level and working with third parties. But lets fine the one company that at least tries not to do it on an individual level and only for a specific and limited service, their App Store.