Apple Fined $162 Million For ‘Excessively Complex’ Privacy Options

After discovering that Apple’s App Tracking Transparency system enables the firm to misuse its dominance in the mobile app market, France’s competition watchdog, the Autorité de la concurrence, ordered the corporation to pay €150 million, or about $162.4 million. The authority’s ruling states that the program, which Apple promotes as a means of granting users greater privacy control, hurts small publishers and “is neither necessary for nor proportionate with” Apple’s objective of safeguarding personal information.

Apple’s App Tracking Transparency project, which was introduced in 2021, requires developers to display two pop-ups requesting consent before tracking users’ data across other applications and websites. Opting out of location services on third-party apps and approving location tracking with Apple’s own apps both simply take a single tap.