Apple Must Change Data Consent Pop-Ups After Being Caught Favoring Its Own Apps
Germany’s antitrust office has completed a lengthy investigation into Apple’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT) framework, which it caught giving Apple’s own services more favorable consent prompts than those attached to third‑party developers. Now, Apple must adjust its data consent pop-ups on iPhones and iPads, ensuring fairness across those messages’ verbiage for at least the next seven years.
German regulators argued that Apple’s current messaging encourages users to deny consent to data tracking on third-party apps, while Apple’s “Personalized Ads” prompt encourages users to consent to the brand itself. The antitrust office identified several specific differences in symbols, wording, explanations, and button order that made it easier for users to say “yes” to Apple’s own ads while making it harder to do the same on other apps, Reuters reports.
In one example, this meant using the term “track” on a third-party app’s data consent form while implementing the much friendlier-sounding phrasing “personalized ads” for Apple-oriented pop-ups. Some third-party pop-ups also put the denial button before the “allow” button, even though Apple’s switched the order around, potentially making agreement more appealing.
These differences are seen as an anticompetitive influence because Apple, as the gatekeeper of iOS and iPadOS, sets the rules for how apps access user data. Those rules were arguably tilted in Apple’s favor.
Rather than fining Apple, German regulators accepted the brand’s seven-year commitment to overhauling its data consent pop-ups under the supervision of an independent trustee. Apple has four months from now to implement the changes.
Although this antitrust case is German, authorities coordinated with other nations to ensure the changes would also apply across most of the EU.
