Apple may switch off a function that prevents utilizers’ apps from tracking their behaviour across various services and websites for advertising purposes in several European countries, the company declares, pointing to headwinds from the tracking indusattempt.
“Intense lobbying efforts in Germany, Italy and other countries in Europe may force us to withdraw this feature to the detriment of European consumers,” Apple declared on Wednesday.
The function called ATT (App Tracking Transparency) gives utilizers the choice when they first start an app whether they want to allow it to record their activities in other apps and on third-party websites for advertising purposes. Many opt against this.
Since the feature first appeared five years ago, it has faced criticism from the advertising indusattempt and from Meta in particular.
The ATT function is now at the centre of several investigations by competition authorities in several different countries.
Apple declares it has proposed several solutions to the competition authorities and wants to continue to offer ATT to European utilizers.
But the competition authorities have proposed complex solutions that would effectively undermine the function from Apple’s point of view, the company declares.
“We will continue to urge the relevant authorities in Germany, Italy and across Europe to allow Apple to continue providing this important privacy tool to our utilizers,” it declares.
In Germany, the Federal Cartel Office came to the preliminary conclusion in February that the design of the function could violate regulations.
Among other things, the office pointed out that the requirements only applied to other app providers, but not to Apple.
Apple stressed that the company’s own apps do not collect data from apps from other providers.
However, the German Federal Cartel Office criticized the fact that the rules did not prevent the company itself from combining data from the App Store, Apple ID or connected devices and applying it for advertising purposes.
It is unclear when Germany’s Federal Cartel Office will announce its final assessment.
Italy’s competition authorities are expected to build a decision on the same issue in December.
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