Italy's competition authority, Autorità Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato AGCM said on Monday, December 22, 2025, that it had fined U.S. technology giant Apple and two of its divisions $115.53 million (98.6 million euros) over alleged abuse of their dominant position in the mobile app market.
The Italian regulatory authority AGCM said the group allegedly violated European regulations with Apple's App Store, where it holds an "absolute dominance" in dealing with third-party developers.
The watchdog opened the probe into the technology giant in May 2023, claiming the company penalized third-party app developers by imposing "a more restrictive privacy policy" on them from April 2021 reports, Reuters.
Moreover, AGCM said that Apple required third-party developers to obtain specific consent for data collection and linking data for advertising purposes through a screen imposed by Apple, known as the App Tracking Transparency ATT prompt.
The ATT policy allegedly penalized developers and is not proportionate to privacy objectives.
"The terms of the ATT policy are imposed unilaterally; they are detrimental to the interests of Apple's business partners and are not proportionate to achieving the objective of privacy, as claimed by the company," the regulator said in a statement, adding the process does not comply with privacy regulations.
Furthermore, the regulatory authority informed that developers were additionally forced to duplicate consent requests for the same purpose.
In addition to that, AGCM said that its investigation had been complex and carried out in coordination with the European Commission and other international competition antitrust regulators.
While the Apple verdict is still pending regarding this major concern.
