But that's not the story here. I hate ads as much as anyone, but this action is a matter of market competition, not privacy. They're completely different fights and intelligent people ought to be able to distinguish between the two. Anti-competitive behavior by Google, Apple, Meta, etc. is what got us into this mess with tracking and privacy violations in the first place.

It's the market for privacy violations. I'd go so far as to say that improving competitiveness in this market probably makes the world worse, by making privacy violations more profitable. If they had fined them for not allowing sideloading, or not allowing third-party payments, it would be a different story. Those are markets I want to see grow and thrive.

They received a complaint, they investigated and issued a fine. You're asking them to selectively enforce laws based on their subjective opinion of some industry, which would be highly illegal.

The entire advertising industry needs to die and I'll support every fight in pursuit of that goal, but this isn't about that. You don't dismantle an industry by picking a winner and letting them get away with crime.

And yes, there needs to be an EU-wide action over all of those other issues you mentioned too but that has nothing to do with this particular case.

I'm not asking them to do anything, I'm just saying I don't particularly find this enforcement action to be cause for celebration.

> this action is a matter of market competition, not privacy

Nope.

This is literally about apps having to ask the user for permission before they can track them.

Can you do me a favor and familiarize yourself with the executive summary document instead of just replying "nuh uh" out of ignorance? See paragraphs 5, 10, and 12 in particular.

They broke competition law. The fact that did so in the advertising industry as opposed to any other is irrelevant to this case.

When Apple introduced these changes, rates for Apple Search Ads tripled.

Because Apple Search Ads are offered by the same company that sold you the device, they are legally not a “third party” service. Apple still tracks your installs, your revenue, your retention period, etc, and uses it for Apple Search Ads. Developers can see these metrics for their own apps.

You can’t opt out of this.