Italy’s antitrust agency AGCM said on Thursday it had opened a probe into Apple’s App Store for alleged abuse of its dominant position in the apps market, seemingly focused on Apple’s application of App Tracking Transparency to third party developers vs. its own in-house apps. Apple’s App Tracking Transparency Reuters,: The watchdog said Apple penalised third-party app developers by imposing “a more restrictive privacy policy” than it applies to itself, from April 2021. Furthermore, external app developers are disadvantaged “in terms of the quality of the data made available by Apple,” the AGCM said in its statement. In an emailed statement to Reuters, Apple said it applies privacy rules “equally to all developers, including Apple”. According to the Italian watchdog,…

Italian antitrust agency AGCM has opened an investigation into Apple, alleging that the company disadvantages third-party developers with restrictive policies.Apple is under another round of antitrust investigations, as Italy's antitrust watchdog has begun scrutinizing Apple's App Store policies concerning third-party developers.According to Reuters, the agency said that Apple imposes "a more restrictive privacy policy" on third-party developers than it does to itself. Read more...

Italian antitrust agency AGCM has opened an investigation into Apple, alleging that the company disadvantages third-party developers with restrictive policies.Apple is under another round of antitrust investigations, as Italy's antitrust watchdog has begun scrutinizing Apple's App Store policies concerning third-party developers.According to Reuters, the agency said that Apple imposes "a more restrictive privacy policy" on third-party developers than it does to itself. Read more...

Another day, another Apple antitrust probe. Just yesterday we learned that the European Union was ramping up its investigation into Apple Pay, and today Italy’s competition watchdog has announced an investigation into the company’s App Store privacy policies. This latest investigation may be new, but its topic is not: Italy is the third country to question the legality of Apple setting tougher privacy requirements for third-party apps than it does for its own apps … more… The post Latest Apple antitrust probe opens in Italy, over app privacy appeared first on 9to5Mac.

Macworld Google wrapped up another I/O keynote and we heard a lot of what we expected to: there are several new Pixel devices, a dig at Apple for not supporting RCS (can’t say we disagree there), and a massive focus on AI. It wasn’t just AI taking the stage at Google’s event, but generative AI. It’s an annoying name but an important distinction. Generative AI is that which creates new stuff, rather than simply analyzing and adjusting what already exists. DALL·E and Stable Diffusion create new artwork from a text prompt, they don’t just tweak the exposure and sharpen up an image you supply. Chatbots such as ChatGPT and Bard answer questions and perform tasks by making new text. There…

EU antitrust bureaucrats are seeking more information on Apple Pay, the company’s mobile payment system, the European Commission said on Wednesday. Reuters: The EU competition watchdog last year accused Apple of restricting rivals’ access to its tap-and-go technology, Near-Field Communication (NFC), used for mobile wallets, making it difficult for them to develop rival services on Apple devices. “We can confirm the sending of requests for information,” a commission spokesperson said, while declining to provide details. The commission’s request for information to rivals and retailers is unusual as it comes three months after Apple defended itself at a Feb. 14 hearing. The regulator, which can fine Apple up to 10% of its global turnover if found guilty of breaching antitrust rules,…