France readies Apple ATT antitrust fine and ban

France’s antitrust regulator is readying to rule on an antitrust fine against Apple this month over its app tracking transparency (ATT) privacy policy, according to a report.

Two people with "direct knowledge of the matter" told Reuters that it would also order the tech giant to halt the practice. This would make it the first regulatory veto against the policy.

The report noted any fine could amount to 10% of Apple's global annual revenue. France's regulator said a decision is expected in the spring.

Expanding user 'privacy'

ATT was rolled out almost four years ago in April 2021, officially enforced and expanded since the iOS 14.5 update.

The decision made its identifier for advertisers (IDFA) completely opt-in. The consequence was a tougher marketing landscape, making effective user acquisition much more challenging for publishers.

Apple claimed it aimed to protect and increase user privacy on its devices. The move came as it expanded its own ads business.

Cause for concern?

An antitrust procedure was triggered in France back in 2023 over concerns that Apple could "abuse its dominant position", with it becoming more expensive and difficult for other companies to advertise on Apple devices.

Now it’s been claimed that a decision by the regulator is near, which may see Apple fined and potentially forced to remove the ATT policy from the country.

Apple's privacy policies are attracting scrutiny from other regulators in Europe, with Germany also highlighting potential antitrust issues.

Putting numbers to the impacts felt by developers, analytics platform Singular found that fewer than 19% of mobile games received ATT consent in Q2 2024 where permission was requested immediately upon download.

Meanwhile, Robert H Smith School of Business associate professor of marketing Daniel McCarthy co-authored a paper on the impacts of ATT in 2024, finding that conversion-optimised Meta advertisements had seen a 37% reduction in click-through rates.

Meanwhile, AdInMo CEO Kristan Rivers expressed excitement at the idea of privacy in the industry during PGC London 2025, where he suggested devs should consider it a "feature" to be embraced rather than "something you've got to do".