This is referring to Apple's first party apps so no they aren't third party. I can understand why someone would make that argument but the French regulator argument here is that in the spirit of competition, third-parties should have the same barrier to entry as Apple's first party apps and I can see the argument they are making.

I feel like if the apps have their own tracking then yes one click makes sense. If they include third party then multi consent also makes sense. They’re not contradictory points.

Yeah.

Not sure how you collect all the necessary consent clicks without at least two clicks if a third party is involved?

Do they get a pass on collecting a consent click for one of the parties?

Or do you only ever need the consent for the third party to track?

My understanding was you needed to get consent for every company in the chain. Is that untrue?

And most can't. It's an absurdly high barrier to interest and thus uncompetitive. That's what the ruling is based on. Most of us can't just whip up our own tracking network just to save on one click.