Italy’s competition authority has fined Apple, along with Apple Distribution International and Apple Italia, €98 million, accusing the company of abusing its dominant position through the App Store by placing unfair burdens on app developers via its tracking rules.
Regulators said Apple leveraged its control of iOS app distribution by enforcing App Tracking Transparency (ATT) in a way that disproportionately affected third-party developers. The authority concluded that Apple required developers to obtain duplicate user consent for advertising data—exceeding what privacy law demands—thereby damaging ad-based business models without delivering equivalent privacy gains.
According to the ruling, the duplication created a “lack of proportionality,” noting Apple could have ensured the same level of privacy by allowing consent to be collected in a single step. The decision followed a lengthy investigation coordinated with the European Commission and Italy’s data protection authority, the Garante per la Protezione dei Dati Personali.
Scrutiny of ATT has intensified across Europe. In March, France’s competition authority fined Apple €150 million, finding the policy’s implementation unnecessarily burdened developers. Introduced in 2021, ATT requires apps to seek explicit permission via standardized pop-ups before tracking users across apps and websites; refusal cuts off access to data commonly used for targeted ads.
Competition watchdogs argue the system—unilaterally imposed by Apple—can disadvantage third-party developers and ad intermediaries, even as Apple benefits from its own advertising operations within the iOS ecosystem.