France fines Apple €150M for “excessive” pop-ups that let users reject tracking

Actually Apple were fined because they don't apply the same standard to their own pop-ups that allow users to reject tracking. On Apple popups you seem to need one click, while on 3rd party popups you need to confirm twice.

So the fine seems to be for treating 3rd parties differently from their own stuff.

They could make their own popups require double confirmation instead...

I'm actually okay with the Apple Camera app asking me once and the Domino's Pizza app having to ask me twice. Who are the consumers being harmed here?

It's anti-competitive. Apple owns the platform and is giving preference to it's own apps on that platform. Every non-Apple app that competes with an Apple app is harmed.

This is not what this case is about.

Seems like it’s roughly what it is about. Apple has a mandatory consent, but won’t adapt it so that third party apps can integrate their own tracking consent into it. As a result third party apps are treated differently than first party because they have one fewer consent screen. That advantages entrenched incumbents with big, locked-in user bases and disadvantages new entrants. Since Apple owns the platform, it’s anticompetitive to pass regulations (which is what Apple is doing here) that discriminate against other participants in a way that acts as a competitive advantage.

Yes, but are consumers that knowingly bought into the Apple ecosystem harmed?