Apple loves to position itself as a champion for user privacy. To be fair, it’s not just marketing. The company has released quite a number of hardware and software features to protect user privacy. This includes features like Hide My Email, iCloud Private Relay, and App Tracking Transparency. Unfortunately, the Apple App Tracking Transparency feature landed the company in a lawsuit.
Apple hit with lawsuit over App Tracking Transparency
For those unfamiliar, App Tracking Transparency (ATT) was introduced by Apple back in 2021. The feature is designed to give users more control over how much activity an app is allowed to track apps and websites. It sounds good, right? However, the problem is third-party developers feel like Apple isn’t playing fair with the feature.
According to the $2.7 billion lawsuit filed in the UK by a former official with the Competition and Markets Authority, third-party developers think that Apple is being stricter with them compared to itself. Apple told Reuters that it was “bound by the exact same requirements as all developers.” However, regulators across the EU suggest otherwise.
You see, when an app wants to track you, there is a popup that lets you know it’s happening and if you want to give it consent. It sounds fairly simple and straightforward and standard. However, regulators believe Apple favored itself, and the popups Apple used for its own services allegedly “had the potential to encourage users to give their consent, whereas they had the potential to discourage consent for third-party apps.”
Basically, Apple is accused of framing those notices for its own services in a better way. Whereas popups for third-party apps might sound alarming enough to discourage users to give their consent.
Sounds familiar
If this lawsuit sounds familiar, it’s because it’s not the first time Apple got in trouble over ATT. Back in 2025, German antitrust regulators accused Apple of giving itself an unfair advantage. It took over a year, but Germany’s Federal Cartel Office followed through last month, ordering Apple to stop favoring its own apps in ATT’s consent prompts. Apple has since rolled those changes out across the EU. Now, with this new UK lawsuit, it looks like Apple could be on the hook to make similar changes in the UK, and possibly other markets, too.
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