The Bundeskartellamt also suspects that Germany’s app tracking rules may be favouring Apple, while impeding competition for others.
Apple has lost a court appeal challenging the German competition watchdog, which designated the tech giant as a significant market power.
The Bundeskartellamt or the Federal Cartel Office says that Apple operates a wide-ranging digital ecosystem, holding a key position for competition worldwide and in Germany.
It initially designated Apple as a significant market power in 2023. At the time, Andreas Mundt, the watchdog’s president said that their designation enables the office to “take action against and effectively prohibit anti-competitive practices”.
Apple appealed against this decision at the Federal Court of Justice, Germany’s highest court.
However, yesterday (18 March), the court backed the cartel office’s 2023 designation. Now, following this decision, Apple is now subject to extended market abuse controls in Germany.
With this, Apple joins other tech giants, including Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon and Meta, which the country’s competition watchdog considers as having “paramount significance across markets”.
In a statement to Reuters, an Apple spokesperson said that the court’s decision “neglects the value of a business model that places the privacy and security of users at its centre.”
The Court is saying that German legislation can stand. But the Digital Markets Act’s scope is not affected and in real life it basically remains the primary standard for Big Tech.”
While Cartel president Mundt welcomed the Court’s decision. “This means that the highest court has confirmed that Apple is subject to stricter abuse control,” Mundt said in a statement to Reuters.
Moreover, the competition watchdog also began examining Apple’s app tracking rules in 2022, suspecting that the country’s App Tracking Transparency Framework (ATTF) could be favouring Apple while impeding other companies.
Germany introduced the ATTF 2021, which mandates that providers offering third-party apps obtain special consent from users before gaining access to certain user data for advertising. However, the ATTF rules only apply to third-party apps main providers like Apple.
In its preliminary decision, the watchdog considered that this may curtail competition, making it more difficult for third-party apps to access user data while allowing Apple a competitive edge.
“In our preliminary view, doing so may amount to unequal treatment and self-preferencing, which are prohibited under competition law,” Mundt said last month in the department‘s legal assessment into Apple’s ATTF.
While giving an update into the investigation yesterday, Mundt told news outlets that their “ongoing review of Apple’s tracking regulation for third-party apps is therefore on a solid footing”.
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