Apple escapes interim measures against targeted advertising in France

A reprieve for the apple company. The French Competition Authority announced on Wednesday March 17 that it refused to impose provisional measures requested by the advertising industry against an update made by Apple on its smartphones.

“The Authority does not pronounce precautionary measures against Apple but continues the investigation of the case on the merits” on this update, which requires the user’s consent for the use by third parties of the advertising identification number (IDFA) of his smartphone, she said in a statement.

The Authority’s investigation services had nevertheless concluded that there was a need to impose protective measures, in particular in the face of the risk of Apple eventually benefiting from a transfer of the free and advertising model of applications to a paid model. But the college of the competition police decided that the argument was not sufficiently substantiated and that the device did not necessarily constitute, as it stood, a “anti-competitive practice”.

“Companies are free to set the rules at home, this room for maneuver also exists for dominant players and structuring platforms”, declared the president of the Authority, Isabelle Da Silva, during a press conference.

“However, companies are subject to vigilance in the way they set their rules, we will be very vigilant about the conditions of their implementation so that they are not unfair”, she added. The Authority thus intends to continue its investigations on the merits to verify that Apple does not apply to itself rules more advantageous than those imposed on third-party developers.

“We are grateful to the Autorité de la concurrence for recognizing that the ATT device in iOS 14 is in the interest of French users. It will allow powerful control of their privacy by users by forcing developers to request their permission before sharing their data with other companies for advertising purposes “, said Apple.