Apple gets €150 million fine in France for its complex privacy options

France's competition watchdog has fined Apple €150 million (approximately $162 million at the current exchange rates) as it found that the company's App Tracking Transparency (ATT) system lets it abuse its dominance in the mobile app market.

The initiative is pitched by Apple as a way to give users more control of their privacy, but the French authority says this harms small publishers and is "neither necessary for nor proportionate with" Apple wanting to protect its users' personal data.

App Tracking Transparency launched back in 2021 and it forces app developers to show two pop-ups asking for permission to track your data across other apps and websites. On the other hand, approving location tracking for Apple's own apps requires only a single tap, as does opting out of location services on third-party apps.

The French authority argues that this system makes using third-party apps "excessively complex" compared to Apple's own apps. In fact, many companies criticized ATT when it launched saying it would make it more difficult to track users for targeted ads, one of the main ways in which apps make money. Snapchat, Facebook, and Twitter may have collectively lost around $10 billion in ad revenue as a consequence.

The French agency says that "although the introduction of ATT has impacted all application publishers, the framework has been particularly harmful for smaller publishers that do not enjoy alternative targeting possibilities, in particular in the absence of sufficient proprietary data".

Apple responded: "App Tracking Transparency gives users more control of their privacy through a required, clear, and easy-to-understand prompt about one thing: tracking. That prompt is consistent for all developers, including Apple, and we have received strong support for this feature from consumers, privacy advocates, and data protection authorities around the world."

Interestingly, the fine doesn't come with a requirement for Apple to change ATT in any way. Apple will however have to display a summary of the agency's decision on its website for seven days.

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