Italian Competition Authority Fines Apple $115M for Abusing Dominant Position

https://en.agcm.it/en/media/press-releases/2025/12/A561

by amarcheschi • 7 months ago

154 130 7 months ago

en.agcm.it

lioeters• 7 months ago

OK now slap the wrists of Alphabet and Meta.

Lapel2742• 7 months ago

OK now slap the wrists of Alphabet and Meta.

Google is probably next (Antitrust case(s)). AFAIK the EU is currently probing a case.

And before the Nationalists get mad again: If I sell in the US I'm naturally obliged to follow US rules and regulations. I wouldn't even think twice about this. The same is true in other markets. So for the Single Market: If you play on European turf, you play by European rules.

mk89• 7 months ago

The weirdest thing is that all fines from EU countries are about privacy and anti-competitive behavior, which literally every citizen can benefit from. The implementation might be something questionable sometimes, but this hatred is totally nonsense.

It strikes me as odd that the land of opportunity has become the land of bigX that must overtake everything and everyone just accepts it. This isn't the spirit of the Americans I know, who actually challenge and see opportunity everywhere. How can you just choose to bend to Apple/Google/Meta etc? I understand they are great companies, but they do really ugly things to push competitors out, to allow scam/phishing, etc.

slowmovintarget• 7 months ago

Apple's consent requirement isn't good enough for legal consent so third-parties have to ask twice, which "harms advertisers" trying to get at that juicy personal data.

nicole_express2• 7 months ago

I'm so glad they're protecting us from Apple (checking document) making it too hard to collect personal data for advertising. Thanks, Italy

znpy• 7 months ago

It really depends if apple is making it hard to collect data that apple itself can collect with blanket permissions from users.

In that case yes, apple is abusing its dominant position and is competing unfairly with other companies. And they must be fined for that.

Apple does advertising too: https://ads.apple.com

nicole_express2• 7 months ago

Nothing about unfair competition is mentioned in the press release, so I can only assume this wasn't a significant factor in the competition authority's decision. Unfortunately, I can't read Italian, so I'm not sure if this is brought up in the 199-page full text of the order.

monocularvision• 7 months ago

Apple is allowed to share data among its apps. Third-party app developers are allowed to share data within their apps. If third-party developers want to share data with _other_ third-party developers (aka the advertising ID), then they need the explicitly request permission. It is fairly straightforward.

concinds5• 7 months ago

I wonder where this narrative came from. It's simply not true. Third-party apps with ATT denied have the same data access as Apple does.

troupo3• 7 months ago

Of all issues they chose "poor advertisers can't get their hands on user data"

sonuhia2• 7 months ago

money laundering? a bribe? someone ink and track every single one of those dollars!

mainde• 7 months ago

Don't you find it excessive to imply the above regarding a G7 country?

sonuhia2• 7 months ago

no, in the given context and dogma, it's just 'persons' all the way down ... and up ....

I'm just annoyed the HN kind is too retarded, which might be age related or not, to throw a better narrative at the rest of us.

You see, it's all "laissez faire" only until it isn't ... and that's becoming a little too obvious to the wrong people ... who are not among the staff but among those who sense and communicate opportunity ...

the last time something similar played out, nobody--the least the left or the greens or anyone considering themselves a fucking democrat or feynman-style anarchist--noticed the fake/posing devil in the details deliberately put on stage as a show of "pwowa" ... ... by those who only held it over multiple but rather individual instances ... the narrative which mostly left them out, .... "almost" went worse ... than history

f6v• 7 months ago

I don't download any apps anymore, so not very informed on the state of alternative app stores in EU. I decided to Google where I can find those. One of the first links is leading to MacPaw's website. It's a company with questionable ethics and business practices that tries to sell you "antivirus" and "decluttering" app. So I'll pass.

But are there any real 3rd-party AppStores for iOS now? Something that's used by more than just a couple of people? Or is EU just trying to milk rich USA tech giants (I think I know the answer).

brendoelfrendo• 7 months ago

One of the first links is leading to MacPaw's website.

Yikes, Google results are bad these days! They seem to focus on Mac applications, not iOS app store alternatives.

But are there any real 3rd-party AppStores for iOS now?

Yes, the main one I am familiar with is AltStore: https://altstore.io

However, according to Apple's docs, they only allow alternative app stores in the EU and Japan, so you have to be using an iOS account with the region set to one of those two places and be physically located there in order to install the app store. Not something that's easy to experiment with for people in the USA to see how the other half lives.

Or is EU just trying to milk rich USA tech giants (I think I know the answer).

I don't really see an angle for the EU to do much milking here. Actually I think the AltStore founders are Americans? So they seem to be reaping the benefits of EU and Japanese legislation, remotely.

troupo3• 7 months ago

However, according to Apple's docs, they only allow alternative app stores in the EU and Japan

Also: even though Apple is explicitly told not to censor these alternative stores, Apple effectively does this through notarization

Terretta• 7 months ago

are there any real 3rd-party AppStores for iOS now

"Always has been": Setapp. Very interesting model.

Readily recommend devs subscribing to this collection, but non-devs as well if you're into "there's an app for that" and fatigued with IAP.

https://setapp.com/

rdtsc• 7 months ago

privacy rules imposed by Apple for iOS devices, as of April 2021, on third-party developers of apps distributed through the App Store. In particular, third-party app developers are required to obtain specific consent for the collection and linking of data for advertising purposes through Apple’s ATT prompt

Wait, so they are punishing Apple because Apple makes it harder to spy on users.

What happens if Apple just exits the Italian market? They can create their own Apple competitor, I guess.

amarcheschi5• 7 months ago

As far as I can understand, the fine is for having a prompt for 3rd party apps, but not apple's own apps. Then I'm not sure because even to me, the wording used by the authority is not entirely clear, but the issue would lie in a different treatment reserved for 3rd parties compared to 1st party apps

dns_snek8• 7 months ago

Yes, precisely, take a look at the summary document [1] at the bottom of the article.

xii. As a matter of fact, revenues from App Store services increased, in terms of higher commissions collected from developers through the platform; likewise, Apple’s advertising division, which is not subject to the same stringent rules, ultimately benefited from increased revenues and higher volumes of intermediated ads
xiii. Therefore, considering that Apple holds an absolute dominant position in the market for the supply to developers of platforms for the online distribution of apps to users of the iOS operating system, the Authority established that Apple’s conduct amounts to an exploitative abuse, in breach of Article 102 TFEU, that started in April 2021 and is still ongoing.

[1] https://en.agcm.it/dotcmsdoc/pressrelease/A561_SUMMARY.pdf

concinds5• 7 months ago

ATT isn't about a vendor tracking you across their apps (Facebook can still log you into all their apps at once). It's about using data collected by third-parties or sending data to third party trackers, which Apple doesn't do for their own ads.

epolanski2• 7 months ago

It's about 3rd party vs apple's own.

piva003• 7 months ago

No, they are punishing because the ATT pop-up is not enough to comply with privacy rules, requiring 3rd party apps to have a secondary pop-up to be compliant (which Apple's own apps wouldn't need since they don't use ATT).

So it's more that Apple's ATT is not compliant with stricter privacy rules, not the opposite...

concinds5• 7 months ago

The "stricter" privacy rules of "Accept all" banners that send your data to 1000+ companies? Or "Accept all", but to Refuse you must tap a small grey link and manually uncheck dozens of boxes? Or worse, banners that force you to choose between accepting all tracking or paying a monthly subscription, blatantly illegal in the EU but ubiquitous in Italy even among large companies and news sites?

Meanwhile ATT blocks access to IDFA (instead of making it a pinky promise), and if apps were honest and were denied ATT it should disable other tracking too. The user has already indicated lack of consent.

aucisson_masque• 7 months ago

It's not only that.

The terms were also found to be disproportionate to the achievement of the company’s stated data protection objectives. Since user data are a key input for personalised online advertising, the double consent request that inevitably arises from the ATT policy, as implemented, restricts the collection, linking and use of such data. As a result, such double consent requirement is harmful to developers

p-e-w• 7 months ago

What happens if Apple just exits the Italian market?

They can’t.

If they did, the company (and thus shareholders) would lose money. Shareholders would vote out the board, and the new board would appoint a CEO who would promptly re-enter the Italian market.

This is why corporations get slapped around by regulators everywhere, even though on the surface, the regulators need the company far more than the other way round.

embedding-shape6• 7 months ago

What happens if Apple just exits the Italian market? They can create their own Apple competitor, I guess.

My guess is that if they want to do that, they'd also need to leave the European market as a whole, as many countries share similar laws and regulations, besides the ones that applied across the entire European Union. And since Europe seems to represent ~25% total revenue in 2025 for Apple, that feels like a highly unlikely choice for them to do, considering they're a public company and have obligations to the shareholders.

concinds5• 7 months ago

The Authority found the App Tracking Transparency (“ATT”) policy to restrict competition. [...]
In particular, third-party app developers are required to obtain specific consent for the collection and linking of data for advertising purposes through Apple’s ATT prompt. However, such prompt does not meet privacy legislation requirements, forcing developers to double the consent request for the same purpose.
The Authority established that the terms of the ATT policy are imposed unilaterally and harm the interests of Apple’s commercial partners. The terms were also found to be disproportionate to the achievement of the company’s stated data protection objectives.

They must think we're fucking stupid.

petcat2• 7 months ago

EU privacy regulations and the GDPR are a complete farce. You'll notice that the EU's own government websites are littered with cookie banners. They want the data just as bad as everybody else.

The goal was not in any way to protect privacy, but rather to extract rent from American tech companies.

hnbad3• 7 months ago

They want the data just as bad as everybody else.

Sure. Let's look at the main site: https://european-union.europa.eu/index_en

Big cookie banner. Wait. What's that. It's not a modal? And a big "Accept only essential cookies" button with the same visual weight as the "Accept all cookies" button? Surely everybody does it this way because it's literally what EU law requires - surely nobody would try to trick people into clicking "accept all" by hiding the alternative behind multiple layers of opaque options and checkboxes.

So let's look at what data they are harvesting: https://european-union.europa.eu/cookies_en

Technical cookies... functional cookies... boring - most of these are just for handling logins and preferences. Ooh, analytics! But what's Europa Analytics? Let's check: https://european-union.europa.eu/europa-analytics_en

Oh, they are not only opt-in, they even respect DNT headers. And they're masking the IP addresses before processing them further. Damn, they must really want that data just as bad as "everybody else".

wkat42423• 7 months ago

No the goal was to give users that want privacy an option to get it. Even the EU site allows users to say no to tracking. That's a good thing.

runako3• 7 months ago

This looks like it's targeted at the relationship between Apple and Italian developers. I guess this means Apple could also comply by kicking Italian developers out of the iOS developer program?

esperent3• 7 months ago

Unlikely because services in the EU have to be offered without barriers to everyone across all member states.

joe_mamba• 7 months ago

Which EU law say that exact thing?

Because now I live in an EU country that had (and has) foreign products and services, typically of US origin, that are not officially available in my home EU country, like for example Xbox GamePass for console. Was same with Nextflix till a few years ago. Same with AMEX cards.

So NO, you can definitely provide your services only to specific EU member states if that's what you wish, they can't force you to sell in all countries.

wqaatwt2• 7 months ago

Yet plenty of companies are not doing that. Sony and MS amongst others..

nradov2• 7 months ago

I don't necessarily disagree with this ruling, but it's sad that EU governments now take in more revenue from fining US tech companies than from taxing local tech companies. An entire continent is on the path of becoming parasites instead of builders. Will they ever adopt a growth and abundance agenda again?

amarcheschi5• 7 months ago

Maybe companies that break eu/local rules could respect the law

arpinum• 7 months ago

Hard to respect vague laws. Apple can't read the regulators' minds and figure out their interpretations, or instantly pivot when regulators change their minds.

jncfhnb• 7 months ago

If the US tech companies stop behaving this way, maybe.

nradov2• 7 months ago

Sure. I'm not here to defend bad behavior by US tech companies. Just pointing out the sad contrast in terms of lack of growth and innovation by EU tech companies.

vnchr• 7 months ago

Or the US tech companies could abandon EU markets

epolanski2• 7 months ago

US tech companies already avoid paying jackshit by moving to Ireland.

So apple Ireland sells services and devices to apple italy on which the profit is all in Ireland.

geon• 7 months ago

EU governments now take in more revenue from fining US tech companies than from taxing local tech companies

Do you have a source for that, or did you just make it up?

wendgeabos• 7 months ago

The government is everywhere prone to becoming the mafia.

dinkblam• 7 months ago

no year goes by without Italy imposing random >100m€ fines for 2-3 american tech companies. whenever they need money, they just hit another one without care whether actual laws were violated. the amount they take has no correlation to what has been blamed, only to how much the companies can afford to pay without threatening to leave the country.

the 'Guardia di Finanza' has a long standing tradition of trying to extort money without regards to actual laws. its not long ago that they told all companies 'if you pay X% more than your tax report says you own then we won't destroy your company'. more recently they went after the Agnelli family trying to extort money without having an actual case.

its not the rule of law, its simply Might makes Right or modern robber knights...

threemux2• 7 months ago

It's the EU way. The only area where they produce world-leading innovation is regulatory regimes, so gotta use it to hit up American tech companies like an ATM.

razakel• 7 months ago

Just an idea - how about not breaking the law?

prettygood• 7 months ago

They can always chose not to sell their products and services in the EU if they don't want to comply with the laws here.

embedding-shape6• 7 months ago

no year goes by without Italy imposing random >100m€ fines for 2-3 american tech companies. whenever they need money

Since you apparently know, how large would a 100M EUR injection into the Italian budget for 2026 actually be, relatively to the other things?

You're saying they're doing this because they need money, but wouldn't changing the tax rates be more effective at this? 100M feels like a piss in the ocean, when you talk about a country's budget, but since you seem to imply Italy is doing this survive, would be nice to know what ratio this fine represents of their budget, which I'm guessing you have in front of you already?

franch2• 7 months ago

Italy's unconsolidated budget for 2025 is projected to be around 700 billion euros in revenue and 900 billion in expenditures:

https://www.rgs.mef.gov.it/VERSIONE-I/attivita_istituzionali...

So yeah, whoever talks about these fines as a strategy for fixing the budget knows nothing about the actual budget of a G7 state, these fines are completely immaterial to Italian fiscal policy.

For perspective, that's roughly equivalent to someone with a €50,000 annual income finding €7 on the street and someone claiming they're doing it "to survive."

next_xibalba• 7 months ago

This, I think, is the real answer why this is happening. The motivation behind these huge fines on large U.S. tech companies by EU countries is actually "we need revenue", not "we must protect our users". I would expect this to become another source of strain between the EU and the US as the EU economy continues to atrophy. Especially so if the U.S. economy weakens, too.

gbalduzzi• 7 months ago

European companies are fined all the time as well, you just don't see the news about it, there definitely no ill-intent vs american companies as you are trying to imply

sMarsIntruder• 7 months ago

Completely agree with this analysis.

Especially on the GDF aspect which is definitely true and impacting both SMBs and big Corps.

When the majority of the GDP is generated by public expenditures, you need to extort money. Which is pretty bad but that’s standard practice.

fn348x2• 7 months ago

On the Euro, Maastricht Treaty circa. ratified in 1992.

Is certainly a leverage in Apple’s third-party research.

earthnail3• 7 months ago

Surprised by the negative comments here. Usually HN univocally complains about Apple‘s dominant App Store. Now a government fines them for it and some people are upset?

petcat2• 7 months ago

I think people would sympathize more if it was something like "Apple makes choosing a different default browser or email client unnecessarily cumbersome" --

instead of "Apple makes you double-opt-in to sharing your private data with even more advertisers"

dns_snek8• 7 months ago

But that's not the story here. I hate ads as much as anyone, but this action is a matter of market competition, not privacy. They're completely different fights and intelligent people ought to be able to distinguish between the two. Anti-competitive behavior by Google, Apple, Meta, etc. is what got us into this mess with tracking and privacy violations in the first place.

earthnail3• 7 months ago

When Apple introduced these changes, rates for Apple Search Ads tripled.

Because Apple Search Ads are offered by the same company that sold you the device, they are legally not a “third party” service. Apple still tracks your installs, your revenue, your retention period, etc, and uses it for Apple Search Ads. Developers can see these metrics for their own apps.

You can’t opt out of this.

embedding-shape6• 7 months ago

It's almost like the stories on HN always attract more nay-sayers/detractors/negative nancies than positive ones, so if you just go by "general vibe of the comment section by submission theme", it'll always look like HN has split personality disorder, while in reality HN is composed of a wide range of diverse individuals :)

Someone1234• 7 months ago

It is a nationalistic thing. When foreign governments fine "American" companies, they get all up in arms, while constantly asking the US Government to provide better consumer protections and promote competition.

This position commonly ignores that these fines are against these companies position within the market for which they're fined. Meaning that the EU will look at the EU profits and fine relative to those, so they aren't fining the "American" side/profits of the company but rather their "EU" (or Italian in this case) balance sheet.

StopDisinfo910• 7 months ago

The EU moved to fining on the basis of global revenues a long time ago to avoid companies using accounting to hide local revenues and avoid fines.

Then again, it could be seen as a tit for tat move regarding how the US applied its laws extraterritorialy using the dollar as a medium so it's bit harsh to complain about the EU when the US started the whole thing.

amarcheschi5• 7 months ago

This whole procedure started after Meta (that meta) reported apple to the authority, it's not even an investigation that was started by the authority of its own volition

like_any_other• 7 months ago

When foreign governments fine "American" companies, they get all up in arms

Which is ironic, because Apple is more aligned with China than the US:

Apple CEO Tim Cook "secretly" signed an agreement worth more than $275 billion with Chinese officials, promising that Apple would help to develop China's economy and technological capabilities - https://www.macrumors.com/2021/12/07/apple-ceo-tim-cook-secr...

YetAnotherNick2• 7 months ago

EU doesn't fine relative to EU profits, it fines relative to global revenue.

dns_snek8• 7 months ago

You shouldn't be surprised. Almost every single story involving the EU and Apple that I've seen over the past few years was full of low effort responses and generic rants about the EU by people who clearly haven't read past the title, especially when it comes to fines.

Take your pick: "EU is fining us to finance itself", "EU can't innovate", "I can't believe that EU is fining Apple for [gross misunderstanding of the situation]"

wrxd2• 7 months ago

I don’t think it’s surprising. The ideal setup for many people here is an OS that gives them control over what they run and over their data.

An App Store that restrict us from running the application we want is bad. An App Store that prevents applications from tracking us is good. The former restricts our freedom, the latter restricts the freedom of developers who want to take advantage of our data.

Obscurity4340• 7 months ago

It wasnt until recently that we could even have emulators to play old video games we grew up with, instead of having to buy "clones" one by one for $5/piece. The only thing that was protecting was Apple's profits

earthnail3• 7 months ago

Except the Apple App Store literally tracks you, which in turn powers Apple Search Ads.

shkkmo• 7 months ago

Usually HN univocally complains about Apple‘s dominant App Store.

There is a strong population on HN that dislikes walled gardens. In my experience there are also plenty of people who disagree. There's also a large population that doesn't like EU tech regulations.

The ratio between different parts of the HN population can change significantly depending of stuff like time of day and headline draw. I don't find it particularly surprising, it isn't like HN is a monolith with internally consistent views across the entire population.

jaredklewis2• 7 months ago

Ok, but can you give me an example of even ONE specific commenter who has made inconsistent comments on this topic in different threads?

“HN” is lots of different people with lots of different opinions. Different threads select for different commentators. This is not unusual (nor has it been the other thousand times people have commented on the inconsistency of HN).

amelius• 7 months ago

These posts should really have a poll on HN, so we know what HN thinks about the case.

stronglikedan• 7 months ago

It's almost like HN is a (semi-)large community with many different viewpoints!

port11• 7 months ago

This one's getting negative reception because the optics are crap. I've ranted plenty about Apple, but ATT is a great thing and I don't see how it's “abusing market position”. Like, just don't track people across the web and then you don't need to show the ATT pop-up?

smegma2• 7 months ago

I think comments on pretty much everything skew negative. There’s not much to say if you support the fine.

dmitrygr• 7 months ago

probably due to this: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/linasbeliunas_insane-the-eu-n...

EU now makes more money fining US tech than it does taxing its own public internet companies

goobatrooba2• 7 months ago

The post you link, and the following comments, directly contradict what you are saying.

victorbjorklund• 7 months ago

That is a false post. That is not all public tech companies from the EU.

dns_snek8• 7 months ago

Why is the narrative "the EU is bad for fining criminals" and not "US big tech companies need to lay off the crime"?

primer42• 7 months ago

Apple makes, what, $1 billion (with a B) in profit every day.

So this is nothing to them.

groundzeros2015• 7 months ago

What about profit in Italy?

Relative amounts don’t make it right or wrong.

linhns2• 7 months ago

I’m on the fence on this matter however they need to look at other actions of fellow big companies, for equality under the laws.

ursAxZA• 7 months ago

I might be missing some procedural detail, but if there’s no formal “warning → fixed-window for correction → penalty” sequence, isn’t that just state overreach?

If the issue has existed for years, retroactively jumping straight to fines feels less like regulation and more like the government exploiting its timing advantage.

ece• 7 months ago

The answer to Apples self-preferencing would be to let users opt-out of Apple's on device spying, like installing another OS.

Italian Competition Authority Fines Apple $115M for Abusing Dominant Position

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