Another big one Big Tech ends under Antitrust investigation. After intervening in the clash between Meta and Siae, this time the Competition Authority puts in the Apple viewfinder. started ainvestigation against the Cupertino company to ascertain the existence of a alleged abuse of a dominant position in the market of platforms for online distribution of apps for users of the iOS operating system. Three companies under observation: Apple Inc., Apple Distribution International Ltd and Apple Italia Srl
Disadvantage third-party app developers
According to the authority, from April 2021 the Apple company would have adopted one privacy policy is disadvantaged third-party app developers. In fact, one was applied more restrictive policy for them than what society applies to itself. The different treatment was mainly based on the characteristics of the prompt that appears to users to acquire consent to the tracking of their "navigation" data on the web and on the tools adopted to measure the effectiveness of advertising campaigns.
Request for consent in prominence and different advertising treatment
Apple only requires competitors to use a consent request prompt in position of more prominence than that of the option to withhold consent and uses a dissuasive linguistic formulation of tracking. Furthermore, according to the investigations, third-party developers and advertisers would be disadvantaged in terms of quality and detail of the data made available by Apple and related to theeffectiveness of advertising campaigns on their applications. The technical characteristics of the programming interface that they can access, in fact, lo Skad Network, appears much less effective than Apple Ads Attribution which is the tool adopted by Apple itself.
Alleged discriminatory conduct by Apple
"The availability of data aimed at user profiling and measuring the effectiveness of advertising campaigns - while in compliance with privacy protection regulations - are essential elements for the attractiveness of advertising space sold by app developers and purchased by advertisers ”. explains the Antitrust in the note. And for this reason “the alleged discriminatory conduct by Apple can cause a decline in advertising revenue of third-party advertisers, for the benefit of its commercial division; restrict entry and/or prevent competitors from remaining in the app development and distribution market; benefit their own apps and, consequently, mobile devices and the Apple iOS operating system”.
La reduction of competition in the relevant markets and the consequent reinforcement of Apple's digital system, according to the Authority, could reduce incentives to develop innovative apps and hinder the transition of users to competing digital ecosystems.
