ROME Italy's antitrust agency AGCM said on Thursday it had opened a probe into U.S. technology giant Apple for alleged abuse of it dominant position in the apps market.

The watchdog said Apple has penalised third-party app developers by imposing "a more restrictive privacy policy" than it applies to itself.

Furthermore, external app developers are disadvantaged "in terms of the quality of the data made available by Apple," the AGCM said in its statement.

(Reporting by Alvise Armellini, editing by Gavin Jones)