ROME: Italy&#39;s competition authority said Monday it had fined US tech giant Apple 98 million euros ($115 million) for allegedly abusing its dominant position in the mobile app market.&nbsp;The AGCM said in a statement that Apple had violated privacy regulations for third-party developers in a market where it &quot;holds a super-dominant position through its App Store&quot;.&nbsp;The body said its investigation had established the &quot;restrictive nature&quot; of the &quot;privacy rules imposed by Apple... on third-party developers of apps distributed through the App Store&quot;.&nbsp;The rules of Apple&#39;s App Tracking Transparency (ATT) &quot;are imposed unilaterally and harm the interests of Apple&#39;s commercial partners&quot;, according to the AGCM statement.&nbsp;French antitrust authorities earlier this year handed Apple a 150-million euro fine over its app tracking privacy feature.&nbsp;Authorities elsewhere in Europe have also opened similar probes over ATT, which Apple promotes as a privacy safeguard.&nbsp;The feature, introduced by Apple in 2021, requires apps to obtain user consent through a pop-up window before tracking their activity across other apps and websites.&nbsp;If they decline, the app loses access to information on that user which enables ad targeting.&nbsp;Critics have accused Apple of using the system to promote its own advertising services while restricting competitors.

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Italy fined Apple €98 million for allegedly abusing its App Store dominance, imposing restrictive privacy rules on third-party developers via App Tracking Transparency, which critics say favors Apple’s own advertising while harming competitors.

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Italy fines Apple nearly 100m euros over app privacy feature

Italy fines Apple nearly 100m euros over app privacy feature