HN Reader

> Benoit Coeure, the head of France's competition authority, "told reporters the regulator had not spelled out how Apple should change its app, but that it was up to the company to make sure it now complied with the ruling,"

Sounds like a good shakedown to me. Wait until they tweak it then fine them again for getting it “wrong”. I wonder if they even got the chance to change anything before they were fined the first time. And all because the regulator wants users to be advertised to more?

Actually Apple were fined because they don't apply the same standard to their own pop-ups that allow users to reject tracking. On Apple popups you seem to need one click, while on 3rd party popups you need to confirm twice.

So the fine seems to be for treating 3rd parties differently from their own stuff.

They could make their own popups require double confirmation instead...

No good deed goes unpunished. Don't protect users' privacy, and you get flak from regulators for "not doing enough". Protect users' privacy, and you get flak from regulators because it's "too complex and hurts small companies that rely on advertising revenue". You see similar levels of cynicism directed at Google. When firefox banned third party cookies, it was almost universally welcomed, but when Chrome does it the cynics come out and say how it's actually some sort dastardly ploy to cement their position in the ad market because third party adtech firms are disproportionately harmed.

Do other apps require double consent or is it actually a dark pattern they’ve adopted:

* explain and prompt the user for consent

* if they acquiesce pop the real modal

* otherwise bide your time and try again later

The reason for this is because once you receive a rejection in the official modal you are not allowed to ask again.

Most of you won't read the past the headline but this isn't accurate

>The agency said there is an "asymmetry" in which user consent for Apple's own data collection is obtained with a single pop-up, but other publishers are "required to obtain double consent from users for tracking on third-party sites and applications." The press release notes that "while advertising tracking only needs to be refused once, the user must always confirm their consent a second time."

They take issue with Apple making it easier for their apps but applying a different standard for third parties. I think this fine is fair.

Some apps have a “pre permissions” pop up telling users about what permissions they’re about to ask for, before then initiating the iOS permissions pop up.

The Apple apps go straight to the permissions pop up.

How is it Apples fault they do this?

If the EU isn't fining someone for tracking users too much, they're fining them for not tracking users enough.

can we start also fining companies for not easily offering "no and never ask again"? the "maybe later" trend needs to die ASAP

Can we just frikkin ban tracking completely and just see how that goes?

I do not really care if some businesses can no longer make money in the way they like to. I’m sure they’ll figure it out if they have to. Businesses existed for a loooooong time without tracking their customers. I’m sure they can do it again.

>pop-ups that let users reject tracking

No pop-up is needed to reject what is already banned union-wide. Therefore, a banner that is trying to collect my explicit+specific+informed+voluntary consent to partially lift that ban is not a "pop-up that lets users reject". Its a "pop-up that lets users surrender" some of their rights & freedoms.

Refreshing to see a huge fine for too many pop-ups. It’s usually the other way around, which can be frustrating for those of us who don’t like pop-ups.

Perhaps they should fine the companies that want to do such intrusive tracking? Apple’s not sharing data with third parties for their internal stuff, that’s a big difference when Dominos wants to share with someone that isn’t Dominos.

At this point, I am convinced EU fines American tech companies for fun.

I think Apple will need to make a new phone line. Call it the ePhone.

In a few years we can compare who got it right.

150M is ridiculously low for a company with a 3.34T market cap.

It's the equivalent of fining a millionaire 150 EUR, or a regular person fifteen cents.

That's not a fine, it's a show put on for people who can't do division.

Yearly EU tax bill

"We will not tell you how to fix what we found to be 'wrong', reserve the right to find your fixes 'wrong' again, and will charge you more"

At which point do we admit that this is simply extortion?

To Apple, that's just a Tuesday

I’m curious how things like this play into Trumps recent reciprocal tariff threats.

Any update on noscript/basic (x)html interop of french administration web sites?

It is good to straighten the other guys, hopefully they do not forget about themselves.

This is such a bizarre move from Apple honestly. They're acting like they're letting users make a choice when realistically all users are going to choose not to get tracked. It's like a "do you want to install malware?" button. They just did it for the lulz and to hurt the finances of companies they don't like.

So much dumb in this article that it's hard to figure out what's actually going on.

I have to assume this this is the same "issue" with all Apple permissions. They can only be requested once by the app and if the user denies it then the user has to dig into Settings to turn it on later. To avoid/work around this a lot of app developers prompt the user before they trigger the OS-level prompt so that if the user says "no thanks" they don't "burn" their one chance to request a permission.

Apple, it seems, doesn't use those "pre-consent" screens so it's only 1 dialog. Also, to my knowledge, Apple doesn't allow it's apps to prompt with the system dialog multiple times either so they are on equal footing it appears.

As always it's important to see who is complaining/behind this:

> The French investigation was triggered by a complaint lodged by advertising industry associations.

Ahh, got it.

The "Autorité de la concurrence" seems to suffer from the same issue almost all government regulators suffer from, they know fuck-all about technology which is perfectly summed up with this:

> Benoit Coeure, the head of France's competition authority, "told reporters the regulator had not spelled out how Apple should change its app, but that it was up to the company to make sure it now complied with the ruling,"

Not only is it a "You need to make _A_ change but we won't tell you what it is"-type thing which is super annoying [0] but "Apple should change its app". If you don't understand the difference between an "App" and an "OS" then you should not be making rules for either.

ATT is a 100% win for consumers and I don't for a second believe the BS around "but what about small businesses!", just look at all the people championing small business, it's check notes, ahh, yes, Facebook and large ad agencies, bastions of small business /s.

[0] Yes, it's even more annoying when Apple does it to developers and I think we are all feeling a little bit of Schadenfreude over it.