Germany Probes Potential Inequity in Apple’s App Tracking Transparency

Image Image by Jörn Heller from Pixabay

15 JUNE 2022 - From the “no good deed” file, a piece from Cult of Mac says the German government is investigating Apple’s implementation of App Tracking Transparency (ATT) for possible malfeasance. Specifically, authorities are questioning whether ATT was “designed to give Apple an unfair advantage in advertising.”

Jogging the memory - ATT makes apps and developers ask a user’s permission before tracking their activity outside of a given application. Its implementation dented the bottom lines of a number of companies in the online-advertising game. What seems to have some worried is the fact that ATT can’t stop whatever tracking Apple might like to run on its own.

Enter the Bundeskartellamt, which is apparently Germany’s anti-trust arm. That agency’s president, Andreas Mundt, is quoted in the piece, saying:

We welcome business models which use data carefully and give users choice as to how their data are used… We see that Apple’s rules apply to third parties, but not to Apple itself. This would allow Apple to give preference to its own offers or impede other companies.

Mundt goes on to say:

While users can also restrict Apple from using their data for personalised advertising, the Bundeskartellamt’s preliminary findings indicate that Apple is not subject to the new and additional rules of the App Tracking Transparency Framework.

According to the Cult, the agency’s investigation will probe “whether these rules may lead to a reduction of users’ choice of apps financed through advertising.” No word on what sanctions or remedies could follow.