Apple to Change iPhone App Tracking Consent Prompts After German Antitrust Investigation
The Facts
- Apple will change rules governing how app developers use personal data for targeted advertising on iPhones and iPads in Germany and other EU countries.
- Germany's Federal Cartel Office closed its years-long investigation into Apple's App Tracking Transparency (ATT) framework.
- The regulator found ATT gave Apple's own apps more favourable consent prompts than third-party developers' apps, potentially breaching competition rules.
- Apple has four months to implement the changes after the decision is served.
- The commitments are legally binding for seven years and will be monitored by a trustee.
- Consent pop-ups for third-party apps must be redesigned to remove discouraging language and symbols and made visually and linguistically neutral.
- The word "Tracking" will no longer appear on the selection screen shown to users.
- App providers will be allowed to ask users again after one year for permission to track their activity.
- The advertising industry has opposed the tracking prompt, while Apple cites users' right to data protection.
Context
What is App Tracking Transparency?
ATT is a feature built into iOS and iPadOS that shows a dialog box when a user first opens a newly downloaded app, letting them decide whether the app may record their activity across other apps and websites for advertising purposes Spiegel Online,heise online. Apple introduced it in 2021 tagesschau.de. The Verge reports Apple is also a designated "gatekeeper" under the EU's Digital Markets Act, bringing additional scrutiny of whether the framework provides a level playing field Verge.
What exactly did the German regulator object to?
The Bundeskartellamt concluded in February 2025 that the design of the prompt could violate rules on abuse of market power, noting that ATT's requirements applied to other app providers but not to Apple itself Handelsblatt. In its preliminary assessment, the authority said the prompt design steered users away from consenting to third-party data use while encouraging consent for Apple's own apps Verge. Apple counters that its own apps do not collect data inside other providers' applications Handelsblatt.
What changes will users and developers actually see?
Consent windows for Apple's apps and third-party apps will look much more alike, with symbols and wording judged discouraging removed, said Federal Cartel Office president Andreas Mundt N-tv,ZEIT ONLINE. Third-party publishers will get more room to combine Apple's consent request with their own separate data-protection prompts and to explain the role of personalised advertising Investing.com,Yahoo! Finance,Heute.at.
Has Apple faced action elsewhere over ATT?
The Straits Times reports that the new rules will apply across most EU countries and follow fines imposed by French and Italian authorities over the App Tracking Transparency framework Straits Times. Apple said it worked with the Bundeskartellamt, other European competition authorities and the European Commission to develop changes that resolve the various proceedings together Handelsblatt.
Where Left and Right agree, and where they split
- Where Left and Right agree
- A company that wrote the consent rules gave its own apps softer prompts than third-party developers got — both reads treat that self-exemption as the failure the remedy must fix.
- Where Left and Right split
- Whether the story is about privacy protections that only hold when a trustee enforces them for seven years, or about developers and users getting choice back from the gatekeeper.
How left and right read it
Consent rules stop protecting anyone when the company that writes them exempts its own apps — and that is precisely the asymmetry the Federal Cartel Office found in App Tracking Transparency, where Apple's prompts drew more favourable treatment than third-party developers' did. Neutral means neutral. Redesigning those pop-ups in plain, non-discouraging language is only worth something because the commitments bind for seven years under a trustee's watch, so insist that the same standard governs Apple's own screens.
Whoever writes the consent screen shouldn't get softer terms on the field he built, yet the Cartel Office found Apple's own apps drew more favourable prompts than third-party developers'. Real choice belongs to the user, so pop-ups stripped of discouraging language and symbols, plus a fresh ask after a year, hand the decision back. Will Apple's own screens meet that standard?
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