Apple Fined $162 Million for App Privacy System That Harms Developers

France's competition authority has fined Apple 150 million euros ($162 million) for abusing its market dominance through its App Tracking Transparency system, ruling the privacy initiative unfairly disadvantages app developers. The watchdog determined that requiring third-party developers to use two pop-ups for tracking permissions while Apple's own apps need just one tap creates an "excessively complex" process that particularly harms smaller publishers lacking sufficient proprietary data for alternative targeting.

The authority acknowledged the system's privacy benefits, but concluded the framework is "neither necessary nor proportionate" with data protection goals. The regulator is not requiring Apple to modify the system, only imposing the fine for past practices. Apple must display a summary of the decision on its website for seven days.

Re:

[Valgrus Thunderaxe]

The Navy is the branch that brought you Rear Admirals, Seamen, the Head and Poop Decks.

Let that sink in for a minute.

Re:

[Truth_Quark]

At the risk of being ostracized for having unfashionably clicked through to the article and read some of it: The excessive complexity arose from the barrage of pop-ups that users with several third party apps installed experienced.

The watchdog said the feature's rollout resulted in users being barraged by pop-ups from third-party apps requesting their consent. It bemoaned how the proliferation of these consent windows made it "excessively complex" for app users to navigate the iOS environment. - TFA [yahoo.com]

Re:

[Malay2bowman]

The TFA mentions "barrage" which to me means "more than 2 pop ups". It's still light on details and I don't know if "barrage" is being used subjectively. Maybe 2 popups are a "barrage" to some people. And are they being nagged only when the install the app, or are they being nagged every time they open or switch to those 3rd party apps? I want to know if this is a big deal over nothing.

3, 2, 1...

[Big Hairy Gorilla]

Just waiting for someone to say this is anti American and you should stop drinking French wines.
I'm guessing Muricans like the warm embrace of Apple We-Know-Best-ism.

I'll wait here.

Re:

[test321]

I don't think so. America has brands, Asia has manufacturing. What we (everybody) needs is manufacturing. There is some coolness factor and some inertia in using American brand, but that's not a need. If American brands would leave Europe, whatever from Korea/Japan/China would replace them instantly. There would be a Y2K-level of chaos in OSes, but nothing that can't be fixed.

Re:

[Truth_Quark]

I suspect the timing is out. If the US wanted to squeeze allies for using their tech, while maintaining that they do use US tech, before China was producing AI at 15% of the cost of US AIs, and Japan's outsourcing is mature with world class chips and electronics being produced by Korea, Vietnam and Taiwan. As does Japan.
... and I hear China makes the odd thing these days too.

Re:

[WankerWeasel]

Long ago the US showed they could compete and beat French wines. We'd be just fine.

Competition

[JBMcB]

I remember the days when monopoly power meant you were blowing up rail lines, buying out the entire supply of a commodity, or paying suppliers not to sell to a third party. Now it means clicking two buttons to make an application work instead of one.

Re:Competition

[test321]

The news is about France, and what you described probably never occurred there (in particular blowing up trains). I think there never were monopolies in the sense you use, and the regulator also did not use this word either, but "dominant position". There can be several "dominant" companies in a market, and France has issued a lot of such fines yearly for price fixing.

* 2000-09-19 174.5 million euros -- price fixing in housing credit fees
* 2005-11-30 534 million euro fine -- Orange, SFR, Bouygues Télécom -- price fixing in mobile phone operators
* 2010-09-20 384.9 million euro fine to the 11 biggest banks in France, for agreeing on a 4.3 euro cent commission fee on cashing checks after the checks went digital and therefore did not justify charging a fee anymore
* 2011-12-08 361.3 million euros fine -- price fixing in laundry detergents -- All the famous detergent brands: Henkel (Le Chat, Persil, Super Croix, X-Tra), Unilever (OMO, Skip), P&G (Gama, Ariel, Dash)
* 2014: 951 million euros, laundry and aesthetics: Colgate-Palmolive, Henkel, Unilever, P&G, SC Johnson, Gillette, L'Oréal (some of them repeat offenders from the previous!)
* 2016: 671 million euros for fixing the yearly price increases: Chronopost, DHL, TNT Express, Geodis, FedEx

Additionally, one can see that most of the affected companies are European.

Sources:
* (in French, 2011) https://www.latribune.fr/entre... [latribune.fr] ;
* (in French, 2019) https://www.leprogres.fr/franc... [leprogres.fr]

Judging by the comments

[Anonymous Coward]

Judging by the comments on here (which is all of them so far), it's clear Americans have no clue what "anti-competitive" means.

But it's quite fun to watch them scream as they twirl round and round as their country gets flushed into the shithole that it is.