Apple Hit With $2.7 Billion Lawsuit Over App Tracking Rules - MacRumors
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Apple Hit With $2.7 Billion Lawsuit Over App Tracking Rules

generic tracking prompt orangeApple is facing a £2 billion ($2.7 billion) lawsuit in London accusing it of imposing stricter App Tracking Transparency rules on third party developers than on its own advertising services (via Reuters).

The case, filed at London's Competition Appeal Tribunal, follows a similar suit in which the tribunal ordered Apple to pay around £1.5 billion over App Store commissions last October, a ruling Apple is appealing. The new claim still needs to be certified before it can proceed.

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Top Rated Comments

1 hour ago at 07:54 am
Won't someone think of the advertisers?!?
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
JulienCasey Avatar
1 hour ago at 07:51 am
Apple keeps getting grounded by multiple governments.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
rorschach Avatar
13 minutes ago at 09:03 am
Not this again.

App Tracking Transparency consent is only required to track users across other apps and websites they do not own. For example, Meta tracking your activity on a blog that has an embedded Facebook widget.

Companies are not required to get consent to track you across their own apps and websites. Meta does not need permission to track you across Facebook and Instagram.

Apple apps don’t show the consent dialog because Apple does not track you in third party apps and websites.

So no, Apple is not holding itself to a different standard.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
StudioMacs Avatar
1 hour ago at 08:08 am
Apple doesn’t have the “ask not to track” pop up for their apps because they don’t track across apps. This will go nowhere.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
StudioMacs Avatar
43 minutes ago at 08:32 am

Not even with Siri AI that has to have visibility on the whole device?🤔
Apple’s first-party apps do not track users across apps and websites to build ad profiles. Therefore, they don't trigger a prompt designed specifically to regulate cross-app tracking.

If you download an app in the App Store, Apple will record that and may use it to recommend apps in the App Store itself. If you want to stop Apple from using even this siloed data, you can turn off personalized ads entirely by navigating to Settings > Privacy & Security > Apple Advertising
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Graphate Avatar
1 hour ago at 07:57 am
Presumably the goal of these tracker developers is to remove this protection and disclosure, rather than to require Apple to include the disclosure.

This is not a comment on the law or merits.

It might be that there are key differences between Apple’s incidental tracking and these developers tracking for commerce. Maybe not, but does Apple sell the tracking data or use it to push marketing if the personalized ads setting is turned off? It just feels different if the product is the phone that collects data to provide the service, than if the product is an app that collects data and sells it. I need to think about it a little more.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)