The French government has imposed a fine exceeding 200 billion KRW on Apple for abusing its dominant market position in its App Store.
On the 31st (local time), according to the local economic newspaper Les Echos and others, the French competition authority fined Apple 150 million euros (230 billion KRW). The French authorities judged that Apple's privacy feature introduced in April 2021, called "App Tracking Transparency" (ATT), violated fair competition laws.
This feature requires applications (apps) to obtain prior consent whenever they track users' personal information such as usage records from other apps or websites. As a result, advertisers and app developers who had previously tracked iPhone and iPad users' search activities or app usage records to deliver targeted ads have experienced a decline in targeted advertising performance.
The French competition authority acknowledged that "Apple's introduction of ATT for privacy protection purposes is reasonable," but viewed its implementation as asymmetrical and detrimental to fair competition. In particular, they judged that Apple abused its dominant market position by enforcing complex and restrictive consent procedures on third-party apps while creating a favorable advertising and search environment for its own apps. Authorities in Germany, Italy, Romania, and Poland are also investigating Apple's ATT on similar grounds.
In a statement, Apple expressed disappointment over the French authorities' fine, saying, "ATT is applied consistently to all developers, including Apple, and has strong support from consumers and data protection authorities worldwide."
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