As a result of a multi-year antitrust probe by Germany’s federal competition regulator and others, Apple has agreed to modify the requirements for apps on its platforms that ask for consent to track the user across other apps or websites.
Regulators said this system, known as App Tracking Transparency, or ATT, had favored Apple over third-party apps, since Apple allows its own apps to use consumers’ data from its ecosystem without requiring a consent screen.
The new agreements with select European competition authorities don’t do away with the need to prompt users, or when that prompt is to be shown. Instead, they allow app developers whose software is distributed in the EU to display an alternative consent screen that includes modified formatting, language, and the option to link out to “additional information” about why the app is requesting this permission, among other things.
Apple’s compliance involves over half-a-dozen changes that attempt to make these ATT consent screens less scary to end users. This includes showing them as full-page screens, not pop-ups; removing the word “track”; changing the choice buttons to “Allow” and “Reject,” instead of “Allow” and “Ask App Not to Track”; changing the colors, formatting, and more. Plus, developers can offer users more detailed information through a clickable link, explaining how they use this data and why it’s being requested.
The iPhone maker says that, due to legal requirements, only the alternative version of the system prompt will be available to apps distributed in Germany, France, Italy, Poland and Romania.
Users typically respond to consent screens by asking apps not to track them, which hurts ad-supported businesses, like Meta, while boosting Apple’s own. In short, the apps asking for such permissions do so because it lets them show personalized advertising, which generates more revenue, helping the app developer to make money.
Apple, however, argued that these consent screens help protect consumer privacy, even though it permits its own apps to display personalized ads based on the data they collect from its ecosystem.
The company said it will now allow app developers distributing to the EU to re-prompt their EU users one year after the user’s previous choice in their ATT consent screen.