Apple to Tweak Ad Transparency After German Competition Scrutiny

By Edith Hancock

Apple agreed to make changes to how it displays prompts for tracking consent in apps to iPhone and iPad users in the European Union after Germany's competition watchdog raised concerns.

The Federal Cartel Office said on Monday it was concerned that Apple's prompts could give the tech giant an unfair advantage over third-party app developers and that the company would tweak its tools to remove certain symbols and wording in requests for competitors' apps.

Apple said it is changing some elements for third-party app access requests, such as graphic display color and allowing formatting changes.

"While we believe the current ATT [App Tracking Transparency] prompt provides a clear, easy-to-understand and effective way to keep users in control of their data--an opinion shared by the German data protection authorities--we have agreed to make changes to the text and formatting of the prompt at the FCO's request," an Apple spokesperson said in a statement.

The watchdog has been looking into Apple's so-called App Tracking Transparency Framework, which the company has said allows users to choose whether apps can track their activity for advertising across other apps and websites, since 2022. Apple had offered to make changes to the framework in December last year.

Write to Edith Hancock at edith.hancock@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

August 17, 2026 05:36 ET (09:36 GMT)