Poland’s Office of Competition and Consumer Protection (UOKiK) has opened an investigation into Apple’s App Tracking Transparency characteristic. Introduced with , it is a immediate builders had so as to add to their apps to ask iOS customers for his or her permission to trace them throughout apps. Apple introduced the characteristic at . It was initially scheduled to launch alongside iOS 14, however the firm subsequently it to provide builders extra time for implementation.

The characteristic was nearly instantly controversial with advertisers. In specific, Meta, then generally known as Facebook, stated it could have probably dire results on its advert community. Now, Poland’s competitors watchdog is investigating ATT, partly because of antitrust considerations. The regulator contends it “does not mean that users’ information is no longer being collected and that they do not receive personalized ads.” At the identical time, it says it has considerations Apple could have launched the characteristic to advertise Apple Search Ads.

“During the course of our investigation, we want to examine whether Apple’s actions may be aimed at eliminating competitors in the market for personalized advertising services, the objective being to better sell their own service,” stated Tomasz Chróstny, the President of UOKiK.

We’ve reached out to Apple for remark.

As famous by , the probe follows a from adblocker Lockdown Privacy that questioned the effectiveness of the App Tracking Transparency characteristic. The examine claims the characteristic solely creates “the illusion of privacy.” While the overwhelming majority of iPhone homeowners have used the characteristic to decide out of app monitoring, researchers discovered ATT “made no difference” within the complete variety of energetic third-party trackers.