• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, April 26, 2021

The German Advertising Federation on Monday filed a complaint with Germany's competition regulator over Apple's new privacy settings, which will require developers to seek iPhone and iPad users' consent before tracking them across apps.

The advertising federation alleges that the new settings, slated to roll out this week, will exclude competitors from "processing advertising-relevant data in the Apple ecosystem,” according to a translation of the group's statement.

The German Advertising Federation is an umbrella group of organizations that represent marketing and media companies, including Facebook and Axel Springer.

The complaint itself is unavailable because it contains confidential information, according to Hausfeld attorney Thomas Hoppner, who represents the German Advertising Federation.

He said Monday in a LinkedIn post that the complaint outlines how Apple's new framework “is eliminating competition within the Apple ecosystem.”

“Protecting consumers’ #data sovereignty must not be confused with protecting #gatekeepers’ data supremacy,” Hoppner wrote Monday. “Neither should #privacy serve as an excuse to deprive consumers of innovation and a choice between more and better products.”

Apple hasn't yet responded to a request for comment.

Business groups including the Interactive Advertising Bureau France filed a similar complaint against the company in France last year.

That country's competition regulator rejected the complaint last month, clearing the way for Apple to roll out the new settings.

Apple's updated mobile operating system only allows developers to access the “Identifier for Advertisers” -- alphanumeric strings, comparable to serial numbers -- if users consent on an app-by-app basis.

The company is also prohibiting developers from using workarounds, like device fingerprinting, to track users who say they don't want to be tracked. Device fingerprinting involves identifying users based on data about their computers, including operating systems, IP addresses, browser versions, installed fonts and plug-ins.

The major ad industry organizations oppose the new privacy configuration, arguing that requiring consumers to opt-in to tracking on an app-by-app basis will deprive companies of revenue.

Facebook has also opposed the planned settings, warning in an ad campaign that Apple will “change the internet as we know it -- for the worse.”