UK app developers have launched a £2 billion ($2.7 billion) collective lawsuit against Apple at London’s Competition Appeal Tribunal, accusing the company of abusing its market dominance by using its App Tracking Transparency (ATT) framework to handicap third-party developers (via Reuters).
The lawsuit is led by Ann Pope, a former senior director at the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). It centers on the privacy framework Apple rolled out in April 2021 as part of iOS 14.5. The ATT feature requires all third-party iPhone apps to display a mandatory prompt asking users for explicit permission before tracking their online activity across other companies’ apps and websites.
When the feature launched, opt-in rates plummeted well below 30%, crippling the targeted advertising models that thousands of app developers relied on for revenue. Without cross-app identifiers, developers struggled to target ads effectively or measure user conversions, significantly driving up customer acquisition costs.
While Apple has consistently defended the feature as an essential consumer protection tool designed to give users control over their personal data, the lawsuit argues that the company enforced a double standard.
Lawyers behind the claim argue that Apple applied far stricter consent requirements to third-party developers than to its own internal services. This setup allegedly allowed Apple to gather comparable user data for its expanding digital advertising network without subjecting its own services to the same intrusive opt-in prompts.
“Privacy is an important protection for consumers, but it should be applied fairly and in a way that ensures businesses of all sizes can compete on a level playing field,” Pope said in a statement. “It cannot become a reason for digital platforms to play by one set of rules while forcing app developers to play by another.”
In response to the filing, Apple rejected the allegations and reiterated its stance on user privacy. “At Apple, we believe privacy is a fundamental human right, and we created App Tracking Transparency to give users a simple way to control whether apps have permission to track their activity,” a company spokesperson said. “Apple is bound by the exact same requirements as all developers under ATT, and this feature has been embraced by our customers and praised by privacy advocates.”
Under the Competition Appeal Tribunal’s opt-out class action system, the lawsuit automatically covers all affected UK developers unless they actively choose to opt out.
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