On December 22, local time,The Italian Antitrust Agency, the Italian Competition and Market Authority, announced that it had decided to fine Apple approximately 98.635 million euros (approximately RMB 813 million) for abusing its market dominance.
The Italian antitrust agency determined that Apple has restricted competition in its mobile operating system since April 2021 in the "App Tracking Transparency" policy it has imposed on third-party developers who provide apps to users through the App Store, violating Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFUE).
The antitrust agency stated that given that user data is a core element of the ability to achieve online personalized advertising, the "application tracking transparency" policy results in inevitable repeated consent requests under its specific implementation, restricting the collection, association and use of relevant data, thus adversely affecting the business activities of application developers, advertisers and advertising intermediary platforms whose main business model is the sale of advertising space.
