Romania’s competition watchdog is investigating Apple for possible abuse of its dominant position. The company does not allow the installation of any other app store except its own, which limits access to user data used for advertising purposes, the Competition Council says.

"Apple has developed a closed, vertically integrated system that includes various levels of hardware components, software, and online services, not allowing any other app distribution store to be installed on its devices, except for its own, the App Store," reads the Competition Council's press release, cited by Biziday.

The Competition Council is investigating a potential violation of competition rules in the mobile iOS advertising market.

"The authority has suspicions that, with the introduction of the ATT (App Tracking Transparency) policy, Apple encouraged users to limit other apps' access to the advertising IDFA (Identifier for Advertisers), which led to a restriction of competition in the mobile iOS application advertising market, affecting all parties involved, such as advertising agencies, app developers, attribution or performance service providers, and end consumers," the press release further states.

Apple may have benefited from this situation in the application distribution market on iOS, favoring its own technology services for displaying online advertisements in compatible iOS applications. 

The Romanian Competition Council notes that similar investigations against Apple are ongoing in other European Union countries, including France, Italy, Germany, and Poland. If it is determined that Apple has violated competition rules, the company could face fines of up to 10% of its turnover.

radu@romania-insider.com

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