France fines Apple over App Tracking Transparency

Apple can continue to use its iOS App Tracking Transparency privacy tool in France, but must still pay a fine for having used it before.

France's Authorite de la Concurrence, its competition authority, first announced an antitrust investigation into Apple and its App Tracking Transparency (ATT) in July 2023.

Now according to Reuters, it has released its conclusion and also fined Apple — but for less than it had previously been expected to.

As with recent reports of the European Union reducing its fines to appease the US and avoid retaliatory tariffs, France has elected to fine Apple $162.4 million, where its regulations allow for up to 10% of a company's annual global revenue.

More significantly, France has not required Apple to change anything about its ATT tool. Nonetheless, it is fining Apple for having used ATT between 2021 and 2023.

Watch the Latest from AppleInsider TV

"While the objective pursued by ATT is not in itself open to criticism," said the regulator in a statement, "the way it is implemented is neither necessary nor proportionate to Apple's stated objective of protecting personal data."

The regulator added that Apple's ATT "particularly penalized smaller publishers," arguing that the ability to use tracking data was more crucial for these publishers than larger ones.

One 2020 complaint said that Apple failed to stick to EU privacy rules, since while apps and other advertising platforms were limited by the feature, Apple itself wasn't held to the same privacy standard. While apps could be blocked from tracking via ATT, Apple's own apps weren't controlled in the same manner, meaning they were effectively unrestricted from tracking the user.

In 2021, the French Competition Authority said it couldn't find fault in App Tracking Transparency ahead of its launch. At the time, authority chief Isabelle de Silva said that it couldn't intervene "just because there might be a negative impact for companies in the ecosystem," and that they hadn't found "flagrant examples of discrimination."

Apple has reportedly responded that it is disappointed with the French regulator's decision. But notes that the country is allowing ATT to continue exactly as it is.

France has, though, ordered Apple to publish the decision about the fine on its website for seven days, although at time of writing there doesn't appear to be such a notice on Apple's French site.

Separately, Germany has been investigating Apple's use of ATT. In mid-March 2025, Apple lost an appeal against German's Federal Court of Justice, and is now awaiting a decision on a fine from the country.

Previously the French Competition Authority set a record-breaking fine of 1.1 billion euros ($1.2 billion) against Apple in 2020 over pricing practices that amounted to an antitrust violation. In 2022, an appeals court reduced the fine to $366 million.

14 Comments

anonymouse 16 Years · 7050 comments

About 4 days ago

Blatant shakedown.

2 Likes · 0 Dislikes

beowulfschmidt 13 Years · 2397 comments

If they had said, "ATT is fine, but Apple has to follow the same rules, so since you didn't, we're fining you," that would have been pretty legit.

Instead they said, "ATT is fine, nothing wrong with it. But we're going to fine you anyway. Because we can, and there's not a damned thing you can do about it."

3 Likes · 0 Dislikes

avon b7 21 Years · 8198 comments

beowulfschmidt said:

If they had said, "ATT is fine, but Apple has to follow the same rules, so since you didn't, we're fining you," that would have been pretty legit.

Instead they said, "ATT is fine, nothing wrong with it. But we're going to fine you anyway. Because we can, and there's not a damned thing you can do about it."

The Reuters article is a little clearer on that point.

"Coeuré told reporters the regulator had not spelled out how Apple should change its app, but that it was up to the company to make sure it now complied with the ruling.

The compliance process could take some time, he added, because Apple was waiting for rulings on regulators in Germany, Italy, Poland and Romania who are also investigating the ATT tool."

https://www.reuters.com/technology/french-antitrust-regulator-fines-apple-150-million-euros-over-privacy-tool-2025-03-31/

On the size of the fine, that was also tackled head on (it was proportional):

"
We apply competition law in an apolitical manner," Benoit Coeure told a press conference."

While maximum fines can be up to 10% of global revenue (and it's global as a dissuasory measure), the fines still have to be proportional and take into account other factors such as reincidence.

1 Like · 0 Dislikes

avon b7 said:

beowulfschmidt said:

If they had said, "ATT is fine, but Apple has to follow the same rules, so since you didn't, we're fining you," that would have been pretty legit.

Instead they said, "ATT is fine, nothing wrong with it. But we're going to fine you anyway. Because we can, and there's not a damned thing you can do about it."

The Reuters article is a little clearer on that point.

"Coeuré told reporters the regulator had not spelled out how Apple should change its app, but that it was up to the company to make sure it now complied with the ruling.

The compliance process could take some time, he added, because Apple was waiting for rulings on regulators in Germany, Italy, Poland and Romania who are also investigating the ATT tool."

https://www.reuters.com/technology/french-antitrust-regulator-fines-apple-150-million-euros-over-privacy-tool-2025-03-31/

On the size of the fine, that was also tackled head on (it was proportional):

"We apply competition law in an apolitical manner," Benoit Coeure told a press conference."

While maximum fines can be up to 10% of global revenue (and it's global as a dissuasory measure), the fines still have to be proportional and take into account other factors such as reincidence.

Like everything else the EU and Eropean countries do, this is like a bad joke. "We didn't say what you needed to do, but, because you didn't do what we wanted, we're fining you."

That's like deciding you want a low speed limit, not setting or posting it, then fining "speeders" for being over the limit by whatever amount you want them to be. Europe and the EU no longer operate under the rule of law, they operate under the whims of the "regulators".

4 Likes · 1 Dislike

anonymouse said:

avon b7 said:

beowulfschmidt said:

If they had said, "ATT is fine, but Apple has to follow the same rules, so since you didn't, we're fining you," that would have been pretty legit.

Instead they said, "ATT is fine, nothing wrong with it. But we're going to fine you anyway. Because we can, and there's not a damned thing you can do about it."

The Reuters article is a little clearer on that point.

"Coeuré told reporters the regulator had not spelled out how Apple should change its app, but that it was up to the company to make sure it now complied with the ruling.

The compliance process could take some time, he added, because Apple was waiting for rulings on regulators in Germany, Italy, Poland and Romania who are also investigating the ATT tool."

https://www.reuters.com/technology/french-antitrust-regulator-fines-apple-150-million-euros-over-privacy-tool-2025-03-31/

On the size of the fine, that was also tackled head on (it was proportional):

"We apply competition law in an apolitical manner," Benoit Coeure told a press conference."

While maximum fines can be up to 10% of global revenue (and it's global as a dissuasory measure), the fines still have to be proportional and take into account other factors such as reincidence.

Like everything else the EU and Eropean countries do, this is like a bad joke. "We didn't say what you needed to do, but, because you didn't do what we wanted, we're fining you."

That's like deciding you want a low speed limit, not setting or posting it, then fining "speeders" for being over the limit by whatever amount you want them to be. Europe and the EU no longer operate under the rule of law, they operate under the whims of the "regulators".

Each EU member state has to transpose EU law into its own national laws. As a result, there can be different requirements across different member states but all of them comply with EU legislation.

This case is France specific but Apple knows it could fall foul to other member state requirements. It could come up with a compliance effort that satisfies everyone.

That means waiting for other rulings to be made and that is exactly what my quoted text says.

It's not a joke.

The French ruling makes it clear that Apple exempted itself from the application of ATT for its own apps.

ATT itself was not a problem. Apple's implementation was (in the view of the regulator).