Apple is forced to stop favoring its own apps in personal data collection prompts
A German competition authority said that Apple’s prompts favors its own apps versus third-party options.
Apple has been hit with another anticompetitive charge, but this time about how the company prompts users for data collection from apps. According to the Bundeskartellamt, or Germany's independent competition authority, Apple's pop-up prompts that let users either allow or deny an app developer to collect personal data tends to favor its own apps, instead of those created by third-party devs.
The German regulatory authority's anticompetitive claim revolves around Apple's App Tracking Transparency (ATT), which was introduced in April 2021. The ATT framework prompts Apple users to decide if they want their data shared with an app they just opened. However, the Bundeskartellamt accused Apple of not applying a level playing field across apps, claiming "the wording, design and selection options of the request used for Apple's own offerings had the potential to encourage users to give their consent, whereas they had the potential to discourage consent for third-party apps."
Following the Germany agency's ruling, Apple has to make a few changes. According to the Bundeskartellamt, Apple has to remove "possibly discouraging symbols and wording in Apple's predefined requests for third-party providers" and that the data collection consent prompts have to be "neutral in terms of content, wording and layout." Apple has four months to implement the changes, while also requiring the company to test these revisions with app developers. The Bundeskartellamt said these commitments will last seven years and will have an independent monitoring trustee ensure that Apple remains compliant. We reached out to Apple for comment about the changes and will update the story when we hear back.