France Fines Apple €8 Million for Targeted App Store Ads
French regulators today fined Apple €8 million for breaching France's data protection rules with targeted App Store ads. France's National Commission for Informatics and Liberty (CNIL) says that Apple did not get the consent of French iPhone users before using identifiers to present targeted ads in the iOS 14.6 update.
Apple was collecting information and using that data for ads by default, and CNIL says that users had to undertake a "large number of actions" to turn advertising off in the Privacy section of the Settings app. As a result, CNIL ruled that Apple breached Article 82 of the Data Protection Act, leading to a sanction of 8 million euros.
The CNIL services have found that under the old version 14.6 of the iPhone operating system, when a user went to the App Store, identifiers for several purposes, including purposes of customizing advertising ads displayed on the App Store, were by default automatically read on the terminal without collecting consent.
In a statement to Fortune's Patrick McGee, Apple said that it is "disappointed" with the decision and plans to appeal, noting that it only uses its own data for personalized ads.
We are disappointed with this decision given the CNIL has previously recognized that how we serve search ads in the App Store prioritizes user privacy, and we will appeal.
Apple Search Ads goes further than any other digital advertising platform we are aware of by providing users with a clear choice as to whether or not they would like personalized ads. Additionally, Apple Search Ads never tracks users across 3rd party apps and websites, and only uses first-party data to personalize ads. We believe privacy is a fundamental human right and a user should always get to decide whether to share their data and with whom.
Today's fine dates back to a 2021 investigation that CNIL launched after a complaint from the France Digitale association. France Digitale, a lobbying group that represents startups and venture capital firms, said that the iOS 14 update did not comply with European protections for personal data. Apple has since changed how targeted advertising works, and the opt-in and opt-out procedures.
Popular Stories
Significant changes are expected to arrive with Apple's fourth-generation iPhone SE, in terms of both design and hardware, MacRumors has learned. The iPhone SE 4, known internally under the codename Ghost, is expected to receive a new design derived almost entirely from the base model iPhone 14. According to our sources, the iPhone SE 4 will use a modified version of the iPhone 14 chassis...
Apple today released iOS 17.0.2 and iPadOS 17.0.2 updates, with the software coming five days after the releases of iOS 17.0.1 and iPadOS 17.0.1. Today's iOS 17.0.2 and iPadOS 17.0.2 updates arrive as build 21A351 and can be downloaded on eligible iPhones and iPads over-the-air by going to Settings > General > Software Update. Note that iOS 17.0.2 was previously made available for iPhone...
Wednesday September 27, 2023 1:57 pm PDT by
Juli CloverJust a week after releasing iOS 17, Apple has seeded the first beta of iOS 17.1 to developers. iOS 17.1 adds some features that Apple promised were coming to iOS 17 in the future, plus it refines and improves some existing features. This guide covers everything new in the first iOS 17.1 beta. Apple Music Favorites You can favorite songs, albums, playlists, and artists in the iOS 17.1...
iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max overheating concerns continue to make headlines this week, with the topic highlighted by The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg. Both of the reports document anecdotal complaints from customers, and outline potential causes, but it's unclear how many devices are actually affected. Bloomberg said the overheating could be caused or compounded by the iPhone's setup...
Complaints about heat issues with the iPhone 15 Pro models are not related to TSMC's 3-nanometer node that was used for the A17 Pro chip, according to well-respected Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. Kuo says that overheating could be caused by "compromises made in the thermal system design" that allowed Apple to cut down on the weight of the iPhone 15 Pro models. Kuo says that the reduced heat...
Apple added a USB-C port to the iPhone 15 lineup this year, allowing it to work with USB-C cables, USB-C power banks, and more. It turns out that some USB-C battery packs are not working properly with Apple's iPhone 15, resulting in charging issues. As highlighted on Reddit and the MacRumors forums, not all existing USB-C power banks can be used with the iPhone 15 models, perhaps due to the...
In macOS Sonoma, Game Mode prioritizes CPU and GPU performance for gaming purposes on Macs. For those unfamiliar with Game Mode, Apple on Tuesday published a support document providing more information on how to use the new feature. Game Mode optimizes your gaming experience by giving your game the highest priority access to your CPU and GPU, lowering usage for background tasks. And it...
Top Rated Comments
Then they went and abused it for themselves in the App Store.
https://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/technology/327602-dominant-force-threatens-current-and-future-innovation/
https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/10/6/21505027/congress-big-tech-antitrust-report-facebook-google-amazon-apple-mark-zuckerberg-jeff-bezos-tim-cook
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/04/republicans-and-democrats-increasingly-agree-big-tech-is-too-powerful/