App developers drag Apple to London court over app tracking rules

Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) has been accused of holding third-party developers to stricter standards than Apple applied to itself. The accusation was made in a £2 billion ($2.7 billion) collective action filed Thursday at London’s Competition Appeal Tribunal.

UK app developers say Apple’s App Tracking Transparency rules are unfair because developers rely on advertising to fund a free app, and this rule puts a price on five years of consent prompts that quietly diverts ad money to Apple.

The double-consent complaint that forms the crux of the case

The complaint was made by ATT Collective Action Limited, and it relies on one argument, which is the fact that Apple forced third-party developers to comply with a two-step consent rule before they could track users across other apps and websites. Meanwhile, Apple’s advertising and data collection were exempted from such a requirement.

Third-party apps were required to obtain a user’s permission twice, while Apple’s in-house services were not saddled with such a restriction. Developers who rely on ad revenue eventually spend more to reach new users while experiencing weaker ad value. 

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