French court saves Apple from possible ban over iPhone privacy feature

Apple has escaped a French ban on its App Tracking Transparency feature, at least for now, after a Paris court ruled in its favor this week.

The feature, marketed as a privacy benefit for users, requires iOS apps to ask for permission before tracking them across other apps and websites. If the user says no, all of that useful data is withheld, preventing the deployment of personalised advertising. And so advertisers have been foremost among those who want the feature to be removed.

And it seemed like they were making progress, at least in the EU. Last March, the Autorité de la Concurrence, France’s antitrust regulator, fined Apple €150 million (roughly $176m by today’s exchange rates). In the text of its decision the regulator called ATT “neither necessary nor proportionate” and its implementation “abusive within the meaning of competition law.”

Advertisers, and the third-party app developers who rely on personalised advertising for their revenues, hoped the fine would be followed by a total ban on the feature in France. But La Tribune reports that a Paris judge fruled in Apple’s favor, and ATT will not be suspended. Apple promptly released a statement welcoming the decision and pledging to continue protecting user privacy.

It’s not clear how Apple would have handled the band had the ruling gone against App Tracking Transparency. The privacy feature has been baked into Apple’s operating system since iOS 14.5, so removing it would require massive changes.

This may not, however, be the end of ATT’s troubles in Europe. As MacRumors notes, there remains scrutiny of the feature in Germany, Italy, and Poland.