On December 22, 2025, Italy's Autorità Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato (AGCM) announced a fine of exactly €98,635,416.67 (approximately $115-116 million) against Apple Inc., Apple Distribution International Ltd., and Apple Italia S.r.l. for abusing its dominant position in the market for app distribution platforms to iOS users. The penalty stems from the agency's determination that Apple's App Tracking Transparency (ATT) policy, introduced in April 2021 with iOS 14.5, imposes unilateral, disproportionate, and anti-competitive restrictions on third-party app developers.
The AGCM concluded that ATT violates Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), which prohibits the abuse of a dominant market position. Apple holds a "super-dominant" or "absolute dominance" position through its exclusive control of the App Store, the only gateway for distributing apps to iOS devices.
At the core of the ruling is the ATT framework, which mandates that third-party apps display a standardized Apple-imposed prompt requesting user permission before accessing the device's advertising identifier (IDFA) or tracking activity across other apps and websites for personalized advertising purposes. The AGCM found that this ATT prompt does not fully satisfy the requirements of EU privacy legislation, particularly the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). As a result, developers must obtain a separate GDPR-compliant consent—typically through their own consent management platforms (CMP banners)—for the same advertising-related data processing.
This "double consent" requirement creates unnecessary friction for users, who face multiple prompts for identical purposes, leading to lower opt-in rates and reduced data availability for targeted advertising. The authority described this as harmful to developers, advertisers, and intermediary advertising platforms, as user data is essential for monetizing apps through personalized ads. The AGCM emphasized that Apple's conditions are "imposed unilaterally," "detrimental to the interests of Apple's business partners," and "not proportionate" to the company's claimed privacy objectives.
The regulator argued that Apple could have achieved equivalent user privacy protection through less restrictive means, such as allowing developers to rely on a single GDPR-compliant consent process without the mandatory additional ATT layer. Instead, the policy disproportionately burdens third-party developers while potentially conferring competitive advantages to Apple's own services. Although ATT technically applies to Apple's apps as well, the company does not display the prompt for its own applications because it does not engage in cross-app tracking or sell user data to third parties in the same way.
The investigation, designated as case A561, began in May 2023 following complaints from affected parties in the advertising ecosystem. It was conducted as a complex probe in close coordination with the European Commission, other national competition authorities across the EU, and Italy's Data Protection Authority (Garante per la Protezione dei Dati Personali). This collaboration reflects broader European scrutiny of how dominant tech platforms balance privacy features with fair competition in digital markets.
Apple responded swiftly to the decision, stating that it "strongly disagrees" with the AGCM's findings. The company described the ruling as disregarding the "important privacy protections" provided by ATT, which it says gives users "a simple way to control whether companies can track their activity across other apps and websites." Apple emphasized that the rules apply equally to all developers, including itself, and have been "embraced by customers and praised by privacy advocates and data protection authorities around the world," including Italy's own Garante. The tech giant confirmed it plans to appeal the decision and remains committed to defending strong privacy protections.
This fine adds to a pattern of regulatory challenges for Apple's privacy policies in Europe. Earlier in 2025, France's competition authority imposed a larger penalty on similar grounds related to ATT. Ongoing investigations in other EU countries, such as Poland, are examining comparable issues. The Italian case also intersects with the broader enforcement of the EU's Digital Markets Act (DMA), which designates Apple as a "gatekeeper" and imposes obligations to ensure fair access and interoperability in core platform services like the App Store.
Critics of the AGCM's decision, including some privacy advocates, argue that ATT has been highly effective in curbing invasive tracking practices that were previously opaque to users. Opt-in rates for tracking have reportedly hovered around 20-30% globally since ATT's launch, significantly reducing the volume of cross-app data available to advertisers like Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook), which estimated billions in lost revenue in the feature's early years. Proponents of the fine counter that privacy enhancements should not come at the expense of distorting competition, particularly when imposed by a gatekeeper with monopoly-like control over an ecosystem.
The €98.6 million penalty represents a calculated amount based on the gravity, duration, and effects of the infringement, though it is a fraction of Apple's annual revenue, which exceeds hundreds of billions of dollars. Under EU competition rules, Apple has the right to appeal to national courts and potentially escalate to the European Court of Justice.
This development underscores the ongoing tension between privacy innovation and antitrust enforcement in the digital economy. As European regulators continue to probe Big Tech's practices, outcomes like this could influence how platforms design user consent mechanisms and handle data in advertising-driven ecosystems.
