The German antitrust regulator has accepted a complaint against Apple related to the imminent launch of iOS 14.5. The fact is that a fresh OS will force application developers to ask users if they agree to share personal data with the application. Many iOS users are expected to prohibit the collection of their data, and this will severely hit developers’ ad revenue.
Companies that rely on online advertising, such as Facebook, are opposed to innovation. They claim that it will reduce the effectiveness and profitability of targeted ads and can seriously harm the ad business. A complaint about Apple’s new privacy policy has been filed with the German regulator by the German Advertising Federation (ZAW) on behalf of the nine industry organizations it represents. Among them are Facebook and the media giant Axel Springer. ZAW claims that Apple’s App Tracking Transparency feature violates antitrust laws and demonstrates the company’s abuse of market power.
ZAW says Apple’s new privacy policy effectively denies all competitors the ability to access commercially sensitive data in the Apple ecosystem. The German Advertising Federation expects Apple to single-handedly collect massive amounts of user data, which will then be used to generate revenue.
Apple did not comment on the allegations in any way. Recall that a similar complaint against the American tech giant was filed a month earlier in France. The group of companies, which, incidentally, also represents the interests of Facebook, argued that Apple by default collects the data necessary to provide personalized ads on all devices with iOS 14. The California tech giant then said that these charges were groundless.
