{"id":49773,"date":"2025-10-24T15:10:53","date_gmt":"2025-10-24T19:10:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=49773"},"modified":"2026-01-23T17:21:36","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T22:21:36","slug":"europe-vs-app-tracking-transparency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2025\/10\/24\/europe-vs-app-tracking-transparency\/","title":{"rendered":"Europe vs. App Tracking Transparency"},"content":{"rendered":"

Marcus Mendes<\/a>:<\/p>\n

In its statement issued earlier this week to the German Press Agency<\/em>, Apple said the following:<\/p>

“Intense lobbying efforts in Germany, Italy and other countries in Europe may force us to withdraw this feature to the detriment of European consumers. (…) We will continue to urge the relevant authorities in Germany, Italy and across Europe to allow Apple to continue providing this important privacy tool to our users.”<\/p><\/blockquote><\/blockquote>\n\n

Juli Clover<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Germany launched a probe into App Tracking Transparency back in 2022<\/a>, and in February 2025, Germany’s Federal Cartel Office preliminarily ruled that Apple abused its market power with ATT, giving itself preferential treatment, even though Apple says it does not collect data from third-party apps. The cartel said that Apple’s restrictions made it “far more difficult” for app publishers to access user data relevant for advertising.<\/p>

In March 2025, Apple was fined 150 million euros<\/a> by France’s Competition Authority. French regulators said that Apple complicated the process for users to opt out of tracking and unfairly disadvantaged third-party developers and ad providers. Apple is facing a similar investigation in Italy, with a ruling expected later this year.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

Steve Troughton-Smith<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Apple would rather disable app tracking prevention in Europe entirely than to have to conform to the rules in its own apps that it imposes on third party developers.<\/p>

And then it tries to blame regulators and lobbyists for the situation.<\/p>

At every turn, Apple is determined to prove that it’s a scummy company that can’t remotely be trusted<\/p>

“Apple (…) holds itself to a higher standard than it requires of any third-party developer. [Just trust us, bro 🤞]”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

Josh Calvetti<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

Apple does LOTS of telemetry and tracking in their apps. They just believe that it’s okay because they are trustworthy because they said so.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Dare Obasanjo<\/a>:<\/p>\n

You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.<\/p>

Regulators are now catching on how Apple uses protecting users as an excuse for anticompetitive practices.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

Previously:<\/p>\n