The AdC will not take temporary measures to limit Apple’s new tracking transparency framework – but the dispute is far from over
Apple wins the first battle: The French competition authority (AdC) ruled in favour of Apple, in a case that sees the company in conflict with online advertisers. The ruling represents only a partial victory for Apple, because while the AdC is not imposing temporary measures to stop the company, it will continue to investigate the complaint filed by advertisers’ associations in October 2020, in relation to the new App Tracking Transparency framework (ATT) that Apple plans to introduce sometime in the next few weeks.
What’s causing the standoff? When an app is opened, the ATT introduces an additional request for consent from the end user, so that they can decide whether or not they want to authorise apps to collect a key identifier for ad targeting and measuring campaign performance. The advertisers noted that few people will be likely to grant consent, and that Apple will not hold itself to the same standards, because it will still be able to send targeted ads to iOS users without asking for such prior consent. Hence the decision to complain to the competition authority.
There is still a lot to play for: The AdC decided that, for the time being, Apple’s conduct does not appear to be anticompetitive and falls within the “legitimate exercise of its commercial strategy”. The AdC issued this decision with the assistance of the data protection authority, the CNIL, and reached the conclusion that the practice is compatible with the GDPR – something that needed to be taken into account. However, as the investigation of the AdC continues there may well be a different outcome – the AdC reportedly decided against the advice of its own team, who saw grounds for suspending Apple’s new feature.
