Apple Scores Legal Win in France Over App-Privacy Changes -- 2nd Update
March 17 2021 - 6:48AM
Dow Jones News
By Sam Schechner
France's competition regulator rejected a plea from advertising
companies and publishers to block Apple Inc.'s plan to restrict
tracking of individuals' mobile-app usage.
In a potential blow to smaller companies hoping to block
big-tech rivals' privacy initiatives on antitrust grounds, the
French regulator on Wednesday said that Apple's plan to require
apps to obtain consent from users to track them "doesn't appear to
be abusive."
"We can't intervene just because there might be a negative
impact for companies in the ecosystem," said Isabelle de Silva,
head of France's competition authority, at a press conference. "At
this stage, we haven't found flagrant examples of
discrimination."
The authority said, however, that it plans to pursue an in-depth
investigation to determine whether Apple's changes could be
regarded as "self-preferencing" by imposing stricter rules on
third-party apps than it does on itself. That investigation could
stretch to next year, Ms. de Silva said.
Wednesday's decision removes one source of doubt over Apple's
plans, announced last year, to require apps on its smartphones and
tablets to get opt-in permission from users before collecting their
advertising identifiers, unique strings of letters and numbers that
companies use to identify individuals in order to show them
targeted ads and monitor how ad campaigns performed.
Privacy advocates and regulators have generally praised moves
like Apple's, saying consumers should have as much control as
possible over how their data is collected and used. In recent
years, a push toward greater online privacy has resulted in new
laws in Europe and California. But companies in the
online-advertising ecosystem have said such changes put them at a
competitive disadvantage.
The companies behind the complaint, filed last fall through a
group of trade associations, had argued few Apple users will agree
to be tracked, making it harder for apps to make money from
personalized ads and hurting companies that broker their sale.
Damien Geradin, the competition lawyer representing the
coalition of industry groups, said the companies were disappointed
with the French decision but satisfied that the authority would
pursue an in-depth investigation. "Apple is not off the hook yet,"
Mr. Geradin said.
Apple applauded the decision and said it would work with the
authority on its investigation. "We firmly believe that users' data
belongs to them, and that they should control when that data is
shared, and with whom," an Apple spokesman said.
The French regulator's decision comes as tech giants including
Apple, Alphabet Inc.'s Google, Amazon.com Inc. and Facebook Inc.
are coming under growing scrutiny in Europe and the U.S. -- both on
antitrust grounds for their treatment of smaller rivals, and on
privacy grounds, for their collection of users personal
information.
Wednesday's decision is the first major one to highlight how
that push to protecting user privacy can be at odds with
regulators' efforts to safeguard online competition. That is
because one of tech's most popular business models is targeting
advertising at individuals based on their online behavior, and
smaller companies sometimes accuse the giants of using privacy as a
pretext to cut off data they need to do so.
Earlier this month, some companies complained that Google's plan
to stop supporting or using technology that tracks individuals' web
browsing behavior for advertising purposes would simply increase
Google's ad monopoly because it already has so much data about
users from its own properties.
"We are seeing more and more competition questions around
privacy and data protection," Ms. de Silva said Wednesday, adding
that she had solicited advice from France's privacy regulator,
which she said had backed Apple's plans as good for users and
neutrally applied.
Ms. de Silva said her authority might also investigate Google's
plan to remove tracking technology from its Chrome browser,
similarly to the U.K.'s Competition and Markets Authority.
Facebook has also attacked the Apple plan, arguing that it is an
abuse of dominance that would hurt smaller companies. But
restricting Apple's identifiers would also undermine one strength
of Facebook's business: how it gathers data from mobile apps on
what people do on the apps, what they search for, what they buy and
more.
The complaint that led to Wednesday's decision centers on
Apple's move to introduce its own language asking users to opt in,
separate from the prompts already required by European privacy
law.
The complaint also highlighted how Apple was still able to
gather data about iPhone users through their use of Apple apps,
giving the Cupertino, Calif., company an unfair advantage over
other apps when it sells targeted ads in its own App Store. It is
on this latter point that the authority said it would continue to
investigate.
In her press conference, Ms. de Silva said that dominant
companies have the right to set rules for their services, so long
as those rules aren't anticompetitive or applied unfairly.
"We will be very vigilant," Ms. de Silva said.
Write to Sam Schechner at sam.schechner@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 17, 2021 06:33 ET (10:33 GMT)
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