Apple fined $162.4 million by French regulators over privacy control tool

03-Apr-2025

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Apple was hit with a 150 million euro ($162.4 million) fine by French antitrust regulators on Mar 31 for abusing its dominant position in mobile app advertising on its devices via a privacy control tool. 

The fine: the first by any antitrust regulator over Apple's App Tracking Transparency tool: comes a year after the European Union hit the company with a 1.8 billion euro antitrust fine for thwarting rival music streaming services on its App Store.

The head of the French Competition Authority dismissed worries that the decision would prompt retaliation from US President Donald Trump who has threatened to slap fines on EU countries fining US companies. 

"We apply competition law in an apolitical manner," Benoit Coeure told a press conference. "But what we have heard ... is that they (US authorities) intend to apply antitrust law to the big digital platforms as strictly as their predecessors. So in terms of antitrust, I don't see any controversy between the United States and Europe on how we apply the law," he said.