Berlin The Federal Cartel Office is now also taking a close look at Apple for its handling of other app applications. There is an initial suspicion that the regulations of the US group prefer its own offers and / or hinder other companies, the Bonn authority justified its antitrust investigation on Tuesday. Similar to the ongoing procedure for determining the cross-market importance of Apple, the latest audit is being initiated on the basis of the strengthened role of the competition authorities.
The latest procedure revolves around the app tracking procedure ATT introduced by the iPhone manufacturer Apple in April 2021. According to this, users can decide for themselves whether apps may track them or pass on their information to third parties or not. This is crucial for advertisers, who place personalized ads based on this data and also pay more money to the app operators for it.
“However, a company like Apple, which can unilaterally set the rules in its ecosystem and especially in the App Store, should make them competitive. There are reasonable doubts about this if Apple sets rules for third parties, but they should not apply to Apple of all people, “said the President of the Federal Cartel Office, Andreas Mundt.
Apple announced that it would cooperate with the Federal Cartel Office. A company spokesman said on request that the ATT rules would apply to all developers – including Apple. We have received strong approval from authorities and data protection officers for this function. Apple adheres to a higher standard of data protection than almost any other company by giving users the opportunity to decide for themselves whether they want personalized advertising or not.
