A group of app developers in the UK have jointly sued Apple, seeking damages exceeding £2 billion, alleging that Apple's app data tracking rules are unfair to them.
International news agencies report that a group of app developers have filed a lawsuit against Apple in a London court, demanding over £2 billion in damages related to disputes over app data tracking rules, accusing Apple of abusing its power to unfairly restrict third-party app developers.
The lawsuit, filed at the London Competition Appeal Tribunal on Thursday (3 Sep), follows intense regulatory scrutiny over the 'App Tracking Transparency' (ATT) feature introduced in 2021.
Apple has stated that this feature was designed to allow users to control whether apps can track their activity across other companies’ apps and websites.
However, lawyers representing the developers claim that this feature imposes stricter requirements on third-party app developers than on Apple’s own services, giving Apple’s advertising ecosystem an unfair competitive advantage.
Ann Pope, a former senior official at the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) leading this lawsuit on behalf of the app developers, said Apple’s policies have caused "serious and significant harm to businesses that rely on Apple as a gatekeeper."
“This legal action is important to protect the rights of UK businesses that depend on Apple, to ensure Apple’s rules are fair, and to seek compensation for losses incurred by UK companies,” Pope said in a statement.
Apple responded that the ATT feature was created “to give users an easy way to control whether apps are allowed to track their activity,” adding that Apple “is subject to the same requirements as all app developers.”
Apple’s ATT feature is currently under investigation across Europe, especially in Germany, where last month Apple agreed to amend the rules governing how app developers can use personal data for targeted advertising.
Previously, German competition regulators accused Apple of abusing its market power after Meta, Facebook’s parent company, along with publishers, advertisers, and app developers—whose business models rely on data tracking for advertising—criticized the feature.
Regulators in France, Italy, Poland, and other countries have also launched investigations into the ATT framework.
/International news updates:https://www.thairath.co.th/news/foreign
/Source:cna