Nine industry associations, representing advertising, technology, and media across Germany, have filed an antitrust lawsuit against Apple, for their iOS 14.5 software’s controversial privacy features.

The organisations forecast a 60 per cent drop in profitability for targeted ads once the App Tracking Transparency feature is implemented, and fear it may upend the advertising industry.

The feature forces app developers to ask users if they mind being tracked for advertising purposes. Obviously, most people will decline such a privacy breach.

“Through these unilaterally imposed measures, Apple effectively excludes all competitors from processing commercially relevant data in the Apple ecosystem,” ZAW, the German Advertising Federation, wrote in a press release.

“At the same time, however, the group excludes its own (advertising) services from the planned changes and collects significant amounts of user data itself.”

Tech company association France Digitale filed a similar lawsuit last month.