Apple will let EU apps use less alarming tracking consent screens

A multi-year antitrust investigation by German and other regulators has prompted Apple to alter its approach to obtaining user consent for tracking across apps and websites. The system, known as App Tracking Transparency (ATT), granted Apple an advantage over third-party apps by permitting its own apps to access consumers' data without displaying a consent screen.

The EU-based agreements, however, do not eliminate the requirement to prompt users or determine when that prompt should appear. Instead, they permit app developers distributed in the EU to present a modified consent screen with altered formatting, language, and an option to link to additional information about the app's data request.

To make ATT consent screens less intimidating for users, Apple must implement over half-a-dozen changes. These include displaying the consent screens as full-page screens, rather than pop-ups; removing the term "track"; changing the choice buttons to "Allow" and "Reject" instead of "Allow" and "Ask App Not to Track"; and adjusting colors, formatting, and other elements. Moreover, developers can offer users more comprehensive details via a clickable link, explaining how their data will be used and why it's being requested.

Apple's compliance with these changes affects its software distributed in Germany, France, Italy, Poland, and Romania. Users are typically expected to reject tracking requests, which benefits ad-supported businesses like Meta while benefiting Apple's personalized advertising model. Apple argued that the consent screens protect consumer privacy, despite enabling its own apps to display personalized ads based on the data collected from its ecosystem.

The company now plans to allow app developers distributing to the EU to re-prompt their EU users one year after the user's previous decision in their ATT consent screen.