Apple is facing a £2 billion lawsuit in the UK regarding App Tracking Transparency, initiated by a former official from the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA).

      Apple is facing a £2 billion lawsuit in London concerning the privacy prompt that changed mobile advertising. The case, brought to the Competition Appeal Tribunal on behalf of UK app developers, claims that App Tracking Transparency applies to everyone except Apple.

      Reuters reported the claim's value at $2.7 billion. Ann Pope, a former senior official from the Competition and Markets Authority, is leading the case, positioning an ex-regulator against Apple.

      The allegation centers on asymmetry rather than privacy itself. Developers contend that Apple mandates them to obtain explicit consent before tracking users across apps, while its own advertising business collects similar data without facing the same requirement.

      Pope has delineated the action into two objectives: “to ensure that the rules Apple applies are equitable and to compensate for the losses incurred by British companies,” she stated.

      Apple has maintained its stance, asserting that the framework provides "important privacy protections" for users, and has refrained from commenting further on the lawsuit.

      The controversial feature was introduced in 2021 and swiftly transformed the industry. The prompt asking users for permission to track them across other companies’ apps drastically reduced the flow of identifiers that mobile advertising relied on, affecting businesses that buy and sell that data.

      The harm reported by developers mainly pertains to measurement. Without a cross-app identifier, an app struggles to identify which advertisement led to a paying customer, resulting in advertisers increasing their spending to achieve sales without clear attribution.

      During this same timeframe, Apple’s own advertising business expanded. This trend is currently under scrutiny by regulators in four European nations, and it is now set to be evaluated by the tribunal.

      The Competition Appeal Tribunal operates an opt-out collective framework, which means that a certified group includes all developers who meet the definition unless they choose to opt-out, thereby enabling a claim of this magnitude to be formed by companies that typically wouldn't pursue litigation individually.

      Apple has previously lost in this venue. In October of last year, the tribunal determined that the company had abused its dominant position from 2015 to 2020 by inflating App Store commissions, in a case worth around £1.5 billion initiated by academic Rachael Kent, and Apple is appealing this decision.

      In contrast, its primary competitor opted not to contest. Google settled a UK class action regarding Play Store fees for £260 million instead of seeking a ruling.

      Developers are also pursuing another case regarding App Store fees that is currently before the tribunal. This new case focuses on the advertising aspect rather than the commission, representing a different revenue source and a distinct theory of harm.

      The App Store is facing legal challenges across multiple continents simultaneously. The US Supreme Court has agreed to hear Apple’s appeal against a contempt ruling in the Epic case, which concerns commissions rather than tracking but utilizes similar arguments about control over the platform.

      Evidence has been accumulating in Europe. France’s competition authority fined Apple €150 million in 2025 for issues related to the implementation of the framework, Italy’s regulator imposed a fine on the company in December, and Poland has an ongoing investigation.

      Germany opted for a remedy instead of a penalty; Apple revised its tracking-consent rules to resolve a self-preferencing inquiry by the Bundeskartellamt, marking the closest any authority has come to altering the design of the prompt.

      However, none of these findings are binding on a British tribunal. They do provide the claimants with references to four competition authorities that scrutinized the same behavior and did not merely accept the privacy rationale.

      No decisions have been made yet. The claim must gain certification before moving forward; Apple is expected to contest this phase, and both the class definition and the method for calculating developer losses still require discussion.