App Tracking Transparency (ATT) is an Apple privacy initiative intended to allow iPhone owners greater control over how developers collect and use their data. However, the company was accused of treating its own apps more favourably than third-party ones.

The company has now agreed to apply new rules to how ATT works throughout the EU, following an investigation by the German antitrust regulator. Update: Apple statement added at the end of the piece …

There is no doubt that the introduction of ATT was well-intentioned, and a much-needed pushback against certain developers (mentioning no names …) capturing and using vast swathes of personal data without truly informed consent.

The problem for Apple was that the company applied these rules to third-party developers without displaying the same permission prompt within its own iPhone apps. The company argued that this is because it doesn’t carry out the kind of tracking ATT was intended to control, but Apple’s continued expansion of its ad sales business certainly led some to question this.

(As an aside, a recent poll showed that almost all 9to5Mac readers think Apple should exit the ad business.)

Earlier this year, German publishers urged the antitrust regulator to hold Apple to the same standard as third-party developers. The regulator agreed that Apple was taking an unfair approach, and TNW reports that the iPhone maker has now agreed to make changes.

Under the agreed remedy, the consent pop-ups shown to outside developers must become “visually and linguistically neutral”, stripped of the discouraging wording and symbols the regulator said nudged users towards refusing.

Developers will also be allowed to combine Apple’s mandatory tracking request with their own data-protection prompt, rather than putting users through two separate hurdles that Apple’s own apps could quietly sidestep.

Apple has four months to do so, and its compliance will be monitored for a seven-year period. The company told us that the changes required are minor:

“At Apple, we believe privacy is a fundamental human right, and we introduced App Tracking Transparency to give users a simple way to control whether apps have permission to track their activity across other companies’ apps and websites. While we believe the current ATT prompt provides a clear, easy-to-understand and effective way to keep users in control of their data—an opinion shared by the German data protection authorities—we have agreed to make changes to the text and formatting of the prompt at the FCO’s request. These commitments ensure we can continue to provide this important privacy tool in Europe and keep users, not ad tech companies and data brokers, in control of their data.”

We’ll be taking a deeper dive into this tomorrow.

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