An analysis of how Apple's ATT approach is blatantly anti-competitive and harms targeted advertising that is an essential ingredient to the new internet economy
The stakes are asymmetric self-preferencing — Apple restricts third-party ad tracking while operating its own advertising and services businesses. The Bundeskartellamt's later designation of Apple as of paramount significance for competition across markets gave it the legal tool to impose curbs, making this analysis a early articulation of the case the regulator ultimately pursued.
First-order effects
Apple now faces a regulator explicitly examining whether ATT's opt-in framing disadvantages rival advertisers while Apple's own first-party ad inventory sits outside the constraint — the analysis hands the Bundeskartellamt a self-preferencing theory of harm.
Advertisers and app publishers whose monetization depends on targeted advertising gain a formal complaint channel: the German probe converts their ATT-driven revenue losses into an antitrust record.
Second-order effects
If the Bundeskartellamt finds ATT abusive, Apple's options narrow to weakening the feature in Europe or accepting conduct remedies — a path it previewed by later threatening to turn ATT off in Europe entirely rather than run it under regulator-imposed rules.
Rival mobile platforms and ad networks get a template: privacy changes that hit third parties harder than first parties can be litigated as gatekeeper self-preferencing, raising the compliance bar for every platform that controls both distribution and ad inventory.
Third-order effects
The pattern points toward platform gatekeeping becoming contestable per-market: national antitrust authorities, once they hold a 'paramount significance' designation, can force structural changes to features like ATT that no individual advertiser could extract commercially.
If regulators keep separating privacy justifications from competitive effects, gatekeepers lose the ability to set unilateral platform rules that double as moats — privacy policy becomes negotiated policy, with ad-funded internet business models as the constituency forcing the negotiation.
The trend: Platform gatekeeper leverage is shifting from unilateral control to contestable gatekeeping, as national antitrust regimes — Germany's foremost — treat privacy-framed platform rules like ATT as potential self-preferencing.
honestly if you report on technology, I love you but you kinda didn't do your job over the last 24 months. I still love you though. https://twitter.com/...
Even the EFF is coming around to the fact that Apple has hidden it's anti-competitive behavior in plain sight by pointing the finger at Facebook as being the bad guy they're protecting users from. But one person's protection is another's lock-in. https://www.eff.org/...
Why haven't more mainstream press outlets covered the German Cartel Office's investigation into the competitive problems with Apple's ATT privacy policy? I only count the FT and Reuters here. https://twitter.com/...
“The greatest trick the devil ever played was convincing the world that he did not exist.” - Keyser Söze Apple narrowly defined tracking in its ATT prompt in a way that meant them collecting your data to show you ads is OK but other companies doing so not https://stratechery.com/…
@alextcone Great 🧵@alextcone. Given the monopolistic implications of single & central control of these very needed APIs. I think there is no other viable option here than to regulate them by law. Fee market competition won't work in this case
The UK's Competition & Markets Authority on App Tracking Transparency: “ATT is likely to result in harm to competition, make it harder for app developers to find customers & to monetise their apps, & ultimately harm consumers” https://mobiledevmemo.com/...
“used to deliver targeted advertisements that are by-and-large bought not by targeting specific criteria, but rather by specifying desired results: app installs, e-commerce conversions, etc.” @stratechery https://stratechery.com/...
(1/n) An element of logic @benthompson should add to further analysis is that in order to create a more powerful SKAdNetwork API, something that might incentivize the ecosystem away from global, unrestricted x-app identifiers, @Apple must track conversions across apps. https://tw…
(11/n) These systems are just beginning to scratch the surface of the possible. Let's not inhibit what they can become by insisting that there's no difference between data staying on or very close to a device/browser & data spraying through unconstrained, global x-app/site IDs.
2/ As a user when you buy See's Candy, a Victoria's Secret gift, a birth control pill from Hers, and a ticket to Nebraska on Expedia.... do you consent that See's, Victoria's Secret, Hers, and Expedia collude and figure out that you did all of those and trade PII?
Yup. Apple is doing exactly what Facebook does, even as it slams Facebook for doing so, but everyone applauds them because “Facebook bad” and Apple is 100x better at marketing. https://twitter.com/...
.@stratechery on ATT: “Data and Definitions” https://stratechery.com/... The real problem here is to have allowed the same corporations to own the platform and run advertising at scale too. Judge & party. The problem is 10x worse on Android.
(5/n) We're in this situation where we could have a more private web & mobile life with Privacy Sandbox & @Apple's equivalents limiting the spray of unconstrained, global x-app/site IDs & replacing them with purpose limited APIs powering advertiser outcomes.
(2/n) App developers obviously must configure SKAdNetwork, so it's not like Apple is surreptitiously observing x-app transactions. Nevertheless, the signal to power SKAdNetwork is x-app.
That Apple did something this blatantly self serving and was labeled a hero by tech media was when I realized the tech press has very little understanding of the tech they cover. https://twitter.com/...
1/ Consent. The article explains everything we need to know about dollars and ad market shares, and how Facebook doesn't really sell data. He's right about that. But it's NOT about that. It's about consent.
3/ And this week I published this piece, which further explores Apple's privileged access to all App Store data in a way that is likely not understood by consumers to be meaningfully different from ‘tracking’, & why regulators are right to scrutinize it https://mobiledevmemo.com/…
3/ In the real world, you can go buy these things independently and know that each of them has just the relevant amount of data to do business with them. That is what you consented to. What if store managers met up every night and traded receipts? So they could “track” you.
(4/n) Therefore, as @benthompson says “definitions matter.” If SKAdNetwork were subject to the same “tracking” controls as unconstrained global x-app IDs the signals fueling it will be diminished and its outputs less compelling to developers (and advertisers).
(9/n) If the outcome of the awareness @benthompson, @eric_seufert & others are raising is that non (technically) purpose limited, global x-app/site IDs remain because the moves @Apple & @Google are making feel unfair & anti-competitive it will be very disappointing.
@anshublog @benthompson You are missing the main point. Apple is insisting that any transaction in any third-party app on iPhone is its first-party data. So Apple is not asking for consent to use that data for targeted ads. Apple is hiding behind a technicality and that's not wha…
Apple could double the Safari team's size and still spend less than 10% of its revenue from the web (via Google search deal) on improving things for users and developers. It's *shocking* how little Apple spends.
(7/n) I think this is partially due to lack of understanding & partially due to a sense of unfairness. It feels unfair for the browser or OS, particularly given who they're owned by, to take away these global x-app/site identifiers & then control the replacement technologies.
This epic post on Apple privacy controls and ad tracking war with Facebook by @benthompson somehow misses the most important point. 🧵Let me explain: https://twitter.com/...
5/ @Apple is doing the right thing here. It's making any attempts to gang up on the user by colluding businesses a choice in the hands of the user. Do you consent to being tracked?
(13/n) In sum, to get the more private future I know many of us want coupled powerful new APIs to power legit use cases, we need to acknowledge the difference between tracking via IDFA, third party cookie syncing and IP addresses & tracking that powers new OS & browser ads APIs.
(6/n) But many want to treat these technical advancements in privacy & data protection with the same indignation they have for the unconstrained, global x-app/site IDs.
(10/n) I don't think we have to regress like this. I believe there is a future for powering personalization, measurement & other analytics-fueled commercial growth via combinations of privacy enhancing technologies (like SKAdNetwork or IPA) deployed at (or with) the gatekeeper.
6. Each stick figure here is a real human being. Someone's 13 year old daughter who got pregnant in Texas, someone's father who got diagnosed with Cancer. Who said it's ok to treat them like cattle so you can personalize the ad on a shopping site? https://twitter.com/...
8/ So yes Facebook is an ingenious data platform that can be used by merchants and app developers to SHARE their data, and without leaking PII (in theory) get targeted advertising. That is neat. But that is NOT what users consented to unless you explicitly get that consent.
Apple has used this line to both make a show of removing features from native apps it never should have handed out (e.g. IDFA) and to stifle browser choice in the process. And it has been *wildly* profitable for them: https://9to5mac.com/... https://twitter.com/...
Excellent update from @benthompson on @stratechery today exploring why Apple's usage of clever rhetorical subtleties and semantics gives it privileged access to data that results in the same type of ads targeting that it broke for 3rd parties with ATT: https://stratechery.com/...