Italian Authorities Fine Apple IDR 1.9 Trillion for Alleged Monopoly and App Store Privacy Rules

JAKARTA - The Italian competition authority officially imposed a fine of 98 million euros or equivalent to Rp. 1.9 trillion on the American technology giant, Apple. The decision, announced in Rome on Monday, December 22, was based on Apple's alleged abuse of a dominant position in the mobile applications market through its App Store platform.

The Italian antimonopoly agency, AGCM, said in a written statement that the results of the investigation showed violations of privacy regulations that harmed third-party developers where Apple had full control over the distribution of applications.

The main focus of these sanctions relates to the App Tracking Transparency (ATT) feature introduced by Apple since 2021. This feature requires third-party applications to obtain explicit permission from users through a pop-up window before they can track their activities on other applications and websites.

If users refuse, app developers will lose access to important data that is usually used for ad targeting. Authorities assess that this rule is applied unilaterally and is restrictive, so it harms the interests of Apple's commercial partners.

Although Apple promotes the feature as a leading edge of user privacy protection, regulators and critics suspect unhealthy business competition motives.

Apple is accused of using the privacy policy to strengthen its own advertising services while limiting the ability of competitors to collect advertising data. This is considered to create unfairness for independent developers who rely heavily on the App Store ecosystem to reach users.

Responding to the decision, Apple said it would immediately appeal and defend its privacy protection policies, which it considers to be very strong. The company argues that its privacy rules have been widely recognized by customers and have the support of data protection activists around the world.

Apple insists that the move is purely to give users more control over their personal data and not to stifle competition.

This case in Italy adds to the long list of legal sanctions faced by Apple in Europe. Previously in the same year, French antitrust authorities had imposed a fine of 150 million euros for a similar issue.

Currently, several other European country authorities are also reportedly opening investigations into Apple's ATT feature to determine whether the policy is really a data protection measure or a hidden strategy to dominate the global digital advertising market.