German cartel watchdog investigates Apple’s anti-tracking feature

The Bundeskartellamt has launched an investigation into Apple’s anti-tracking feature, App Tracking Transparency, or ATT. The cartel watchdog wants to find out whether Apple is harming developers and whether the American company is violating German competition laws.

The agency is looking at whether Apple is misusing the anti-tracking feature to unfairly gain an edge over its competitors. Apple users have to give permission for each app to track their activities so that the developers can display targeted advertisements. They can also choose to decline these tracking requests by default.

“We welcome privacy-friendly business models that give users choices about how their data is used,” writes Bundeskartellamt chairman Andreas Mundt† “However, a company like Apple, which can unilaterally set the rules in its ecosystem, must create rules that promote fair competition. We doubt this will be the case if it turns out that Apple’s rules apply to others, but not to the company itself.”

An Apple spokesperson says to Reuters that the company wants to talk to the Bundeskartellamt about ATT. The spokesperson also points out that companies and developers are not prevented from displaying advertisements, while allowing users to control their privacy.

With a new German law that came into effect last year, the Bundeskartellamt can more quickly restrict companies with a lot of market power. This concerns, for example, preventing its own products or services from being presented more attractively than those of competitors, or prohibiting the provision of exclusive, proprietary software and services on devices.