Italy's competition authority fines Apple over 98 mln euros

ROME, Dec. 22 (Xinhua) -- Italy's competition watchdog on Monday fined U.S. tech company Apple over 98 million euros (115 million U.S. dollars) for abuse of its dominant position in the domestic mobile app market.

Following a complex investigation conducted in coordination with the European Commission, other national competition authorities and the Italian Data Protection Authority, the Italian Competition Authority (AGCM) said its findings confirmed "the restrictive nature - from a competition-law perspective - of the App Tracking Transparency (ATT) policy."

This policy refers to the privacy rules Apple imposed for iOS devices as of April 2021 on third-party developers distributing apps through the App Store.

The regulator explained that Apple Inc., Apple Distribution International Ltd and Apple Italia S.r.l required third-party app developers to obtain specific consent for the collection and linking of data for advertising purposes through Apple's ATT prompt.

Such prompt would unfairly overburden third-party developers, and "not meet privacy legislation requirements, forcing developers to double the consent request for the same purpose," AGCM stated.

Requiring duplicate user consent for advertising data undermines developers' ad-based business models, thereby harming the interests of Apple's commercial partners.

"The terms were also found to be disproportionate to the achievement of the company's stated data protection objectives," the authority said.

According to the ruling, Apple breached article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), which prohibits any abuse of a dominant position within the EU internal market.

"In this market, Apple holds a super-dominant position through its App Store," the watchdog said. (1 euro = 1.17 U.S. dollars) ■