A judge has ruled in favor of Apple in the legal battle between it and online advertising companies.
The Paris court refused to suspend a device that forces applications to ask for user consent before obtaining information sharing for better advertising targeting, according to the French newspaper La Tribune.
This decision marks a major step in the battle between Apple and online advertising players on the issue of tracking user data, since it allows the apple brand to maintain this alert on its devices.
“We welcome the court’s decision that rejects these unfounded allegations,” says Apple. (…) This feature has been widely adopted by our users and hailed by privacy advocates as well as by data protection authorities around the world, including in France. We will continue to support strong protections for the privacy of our users,” Apple told La Tribune.
Last year Apple was hit with an 150 million euro (about US$162.4 million) fine by France’s competition authority for abusing its dominant position in mobile app advertising on its devices via the privacy control tool. However, the Authorite de la Concurrence didn’t require Apple to change anything about its ATT tool, which seems kind of weird.
“While the objective pursued by ATT is not in itself open to criticism, the way it is implemented is neither necessary nor proportionate to Apple’s stated objective of protecting personal data,” the regulator said in a statement. The Authorite de la Concurrence added that Apple’s ATT “particularly penalized smaller publishers,” arguing that the ability to use tracking data was more crucial for these publishers than larger ones.
Apple introduced the App Tracking Transparency Framework for third-party apps with its updates iOS 14.5, iPadOS 14.5 and tvOS 14.5 in April 2021. ATT allows you to choose whether an app can track your activity across other companies’ apps and websites for the purposes of advertising or sharing with data brokers. Starting with iOS 14.5, iPadOS 14.5, and tvOS 14.5, apps must ask for permission before tracking your activity across other companies’ apps and websites.
Tracking occurs when information that identifies you or your device collected from an app is linked with information that identifies you or your device collected on apps, websites and other locations owned by third parties for the purposes of targeted advertising or advertising measurement, or when the information collected is shared with data brokers.
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Article provided with permission from AppleWorld.Today
