The Italian antitrust watchdog AGCM announced on Thursday that it has initiated an investigation into Apple for potential exploitation of its dominating position in the app market.
According to the watchdog, Apple penalised third-party app developers by adopting “a more restrictive privacy policy” than it does for itself beginning in April 2021.
External app developers are also disadvantaged “in terms of the quality of the data made available by Apple,” according to the AGCM.
Companies found guilty of abusing market dominance face fines of up to 10% of annual sales under European Union competition law.
Users of non-Apple apps, according to the Italian watchdog, have more obvious and strongly worded prompts to disable data collection.
Third-party app developers are also given less detailed information regarding the efficacy of their ad campaigns, according to the AGCM.
“Apple’s alleged discriminatory conduct may cause a fall in advertising revenues for third-party advertisers, to the benefit of Apple’s commercial division,” the regulator said.
European regulators have repeatedly scrutinized Apple and other tech giants. The European Commission said on Wednesday that it was looking for further information on Apple’s mobile payment system as part of an ongoing antitrust probe against the iPhone maker.
