Apple faces 2-billion-pound lawsuit in Britain on application tracking rules

LONDON - A 2-billion-pound ($2.7 billion) lawsuit against Apple was filed in Britain on Thursday over its application tracking rules that impose great restrictions on third parties, local media reported.

The lawsuit was brought on behalf of application developers over Apple's application tracking transparency framework implemented in 2021. It was accused of granting Apple's advertising ecosystem a competitive advantage by setting stricter requirements on third-party application developers than on its own services, according to the report.

Apple said its application tracking transparency was created to give users a simple way to control whether applications have permission to track their activity, and it is bound by the exact same requirements as all developers.

Regulators in several other European countries, including Germany, France and Italy, have also investigated on Apple's application tracking transparency framework.