Apple to offer alternative EU tracking consent screen under German settlement

The alternative screen will be available to developers distributing apps in the EU, but apps in Germany, France, Italy, Poland and Romania must use it because of legal requirements, Apple said. The changes are meant to make consent prompts for Apple's own services and outside developers more comparable, GuruFocus reported. Apple has four months from service of the German decision to implement them, and an independent trustee will monitor compliance for seven years.

What the new screen does

The prompt becomes a full-page screen rather than a pop-up, and the word 'track' comes out of the wording, TechCrunch reported. Buttons that read 'Allow' and 'Ask App Not to Track' become 'Allow' and 'Reject'. Colours and formatting change, and developers can attach a clickable link explaining what data they collect and why. The package includes more than half a dozen changes.

Third-party publishers also gain more flexibility to combine Apple's tracking prompt with separate data-protection consent requests, GuruFocus reported.

Developers may re-prompt EU users one year after their previous choice, whether that choice was to allow or to reject, Apple's developer documentation says. The re-prompt does not apply where a user has switched off the device-level setting that lets apps ask at all.

Why consent is worth arguing about

Apple's services business generated $30.7 billion in its fiscal third quarter, up 12% from a year earlier, with Apple saying advertising and cloud services were the main growth drivers. Services carry a 75.6% gross margin, far above the product business. Europe generated $29.4 billion of total quarterly sales in the same period, up 22%, GuruFocus reported.

Users typically respond to consent screens by asking apps not to track them, which hurts ad-supported businesses such as Meta while boosting Apple's own advertising, TechCrunch reported. Developers rely on that data for personalised advertising, so the wording and ease of the prompt feed straight into third-party app revenue, Medianama reported.

Apple has been barred from self-preferencing under Germany's abuse-control regime since April 2023, and the same principle sits in the EU Digital Markets Act, Medianama reported. The asymmetry at the centre of the case is that Apple's own apps did not show the prompt while third-party apps had to, which regulators called anticompetitive. Apple says the screens protect consumer privacy, even though it runs personalised ads from data its own apps collect, TechCrunch reported. Apple has disputed that its privacy policies unfairly favour its business and has argued that ATT protects against cross-company tracking, PYMNTS reported.

France and Italy had already fined Apple over ATT. France imposed a 150 million euro penalty in March 2025, and Italy added 98.6 million euros later that year, GuruFocus reported. Both authorities focused on how the rules affected third-party developers and advertising competition.

How the German case ended

Germany's Federal Cartel Office opened its investigation into ATT in June 2022, Medianama reported. In February 2025 it issued preliminary findings that Apple was not treating third-party developers equally and flagged potential self-preferencing. A formal market test of Apple's proposed remedies ran in December 2025. After that, the Federal Cartel Office made the commitments legally binding and closed the case.

The settlement also covers related actions in France and Italy, closing a broader regulatory challenge rather than an isolated case, Medianama reported.

What happens next

The alternative prompt will ship with iOS 27.2 and iPadOS 27.2, PYMNTS reported. Apple has said the changes will extend to almost all European Union countries. The agreements do not remove the consent requirement or change when developers must first ask, according to Apple's developer documentation.