Apple won an initial victory in France over its controversial offer to implement stricter privacy changes on iOS 14. The French competition regulator today rejected a request by lobby groups for the online advertising industry to block anti-tracking controls from Apple. First announced last June, Apple has postponed plans to force stricter transparency rules on data collection for developers. The updates would essentially require apps to ask the user for permission to access the ad tracking ID on iOS 14.
A request to suspend the measures on antitrust grounds was submitted to the French competition watchdog in October. But, the regulator sided with Apple in its preliminary decision. The Autorité de la concurrence said it did not see the new appeal as an abusive practice by a dominant company, effectively nullifying the complainant’s objections.
The agency – which also consulted with the French data protection regulator on the case – said it still plans to conduct a thorough investigation of the updates to see if they are a form of Apple’s self-preference. He will now examine whether Apple could be enforcing privacy rules that are more binding on third parties than those it reserves for itself.
“We cannot intervene just because there could be a negative impact for companies on the ecosystem,” said Isabelle de Silva, head of France’s competition authority, reports Wall Street Newspaper. “At this stage, we have not found any striking examples of discrimination.”
The decision is a blow to tech companies in general looking to disrupt Apple’s plans due to its perceived negative impact on digital advertising revenue. Europe already has some of the strictest privacy laws in the world and it appears that its regulators are unwilling to give up these data-tracking controls to citizens.
Facebook, one of the biggest opponents of privacy updates, attacked Apple’s policy in newspaper ads in the United States. It is also preparing an antitrust lawsuit against the iPhone maker for fear that the changes will give it an unfair advantage in the ads that appear on the iOS App Store and elsewhere.