EU Likely to Charge Apple With Anti-Competitive Behavior This Week

[MacRumors]

The European Commission will this week bring charges against Apple over concerns that its App Store rules break EU competition law, reports the Financial Times. The charges relate to a two-year-old antitrust dispute with Spotify.

Margrethe Vestager, the EU's competition chief, will late this week publicly issue charges against Apple over concerns that the rules it sets for developers on its App store break EU law, according to several people with direct knowledge of the announcement.

In 2019, Spotify filed a complaint with the European Commission, alleging that Apple enforces App Store rules that "purposely limit choice and stifle innovation at the expense of the user experience," accusing the company of "acting as both a player and referee to deliberately disadvantage other app developers."

Spotify highlighted that Apple's 30% commission on ‌App Store‌ purchases, including in-app subscriptions, forces the music streaming service to charge existing subscribers $12.99 per month for its Premium plan on the ‌App Store‌, just to collect the $9.99 per month it usually charges.

Spotify argues this gives Apple an unfair advantage because it's unable to compete with Apple Music's standard $9.99 per month price within the ‌‌App Store‌‌.

The Spotify antitrust case is one of several opened by the European Commission into Apple's business practices in June last year. It's not yet known what the EU's charges could involve, but Apple could be forced to pay a fine or make changes to its ‌App Store‌ business model in Europe to foster greater competition.

Last month, Reuters reported that EU regulators were in the process of finalizing a charge sheet against Apple in related to Spotify's antitrust complaint, while FT's sources warned that the timing of the charge could still slip. Apple has denied allegations of anti-competitive behavior, and said at the time of Spotify's complaint that its rival was using "its financial motivations in misleading rhetoric."

Article Link: EU Likely to Charge Apple With Anti-Competitive Behavior This Week

 

[farewelwilliams]

> Does what's best for the consumer and for developer
> Gets charged a fine for doing the right thing.

Pretty stupid, EU.

 

[RedTheReader]

I’m… actually quite surprised. Of course, the real question (and it’s a genuine, non-sarcastic one on my part) is whether or not this will translate to any real world change.

 

[Wildkraut]

> Does what's best for the consumer and for developer
> Gets charged a fine for doing the right thing.

Pretty stupid, EU.

How did Apple FanBoys used to say?
There are enough alternatives out there, I you don't like it, move along.

Same applies here, if Apple don't like the rules of EU market, move along.
Simply as that... hahaha

 

[ForkHandles]

The investigation looks at whether Apple’s market share in iOS leveraged an advantage to its market share in music streaming services.

It seems quite clear that it did as streaming is relatively new to Apple compared to a 14 year old OS.

No different to MS and Internet explorer decades ago as far as I can see.

 

[steggerwoof]

How did Apple FanBoys used to say?
There are enough alternatives out there, I you don't like it, move along.

Same applies here, if Apple don't like the rules of EU market, move along.
Simply as that... hahaha

And considering there are twice as many people in the EU than the US that's unlikely to happen ?

 

[Trenches]

Apple bullied the pants off of Spotify which would still be the de facto standard iOS music app were it not for the App Store getting in their way. They stifled Spotify out of business and undercut them like only an unscrupulous major retailer could do. (Here, we’ll put this store brand at eye level and charge the other brand 30% for nearby shelf space.)

The issue is that, due to the ubiquity of iPhone, the App Store is both a societal benefit and a proprietary marketplace. Those two objectives can often be in harmony but cannot always be. Maybe they just need to offer premium commissions to high volume apps and aim to match prices of competing services.

If the EU attempts to make Apple open up the iPhone to non-App Store installed apps, they’re going to deprive the globe of privacy, reliability, accountability, and security in favor of a seemingly free market maneuver. Apple’s responsible behavior ought to be commended instead of being viewed from the sole lens of the benefit it brings them. They’re advancing privacy and building and acting as a custodian of high standards for mobile software.

Removing the App Store’s hold jeopardizes everyone’s security, and most users do not have the technical sophistication to protect themselves in the wild west of software. It complicates the experience greatly too. It’ll be like unlocking the gates of Hades into iOS if the App Store’s protections and standards are removed. I want to double down on it, not weaken it.

 

[Harvey Zoltan]

What a waste of time, have these people nothing better to do with their lives.

 

[goobot]

The investigation looks at whether Apple’s market share in iOS leveraged an advantage to its market share in music streaming services.

It seems quite clear that it did as streaming is relatively new to Apple compared to a 14 year old OS.

No different to MS and Internet explorer decades ago as far as I can see.

Except Apple has iTunes

 

[ArPe]

Advert lobbyists working on behalf of FB.

They actually believe we need to be tracked and forced to watch ? ads otherwise we won’t known what to buy and where to buy it. Like we don’t know where shops are and what we need.

It’s really about forcing political ads down our throats. Don’t the EU already have a problem with companies like FB and Cambridge Anallickita ? helping fascist pigs spread lies?

 

[iPadified]

> Does what's best for the consumer and for developer
> Gets charged a fine for doing the right thing.

Pretty stupid, EU.

Stupidity has nothing to do with it. They need to test this in court. EC is the watchdog for fair market practice within EU and the must react to this accusation or they break the EU law.

 

[Wildkraut]

And considering there are twice as many people in the EU than the US that's unlikely to happen ?

Yep, and we know Apple is too greedy to give up a market.
They are even worse than Google at this, they love to spread Human Rights marketing blah blah, Privacy marketing blub blub, etc. At the same time they support China, and choose to stay in their market, despite knowing whats going on there.
Google (not better at many cases), at least has shown more moral at this one.

Confirmed: Google Terminated Project Dragonfly, Its Censored Chinese Search Engine

Atherton Research's Principal Analyst and Futurist Jeb Su reviews Google's recent admission that it canceled its secret project to launch a Chinese a censored search engine codenamed Dragonfly that filters out websites and search results about human rights, democracy, religion, and more.

www.forbes.com

Apple is a populist and plays the good privacy guy in the public, but they have many many other ways to use your data in an anti-competitive way to create new services, apps, devices, predict trends based on third party apps downloads and access, and kill competion that way, just to name a few.
It starts with webservice logs, appleid activity+login+logs, and goes over to *NOT* End2End encrypted iCloud backups, which they probably scrape though to join that data with other collected services data, data analytics at finest level.

Just to complete the image...

Apple's MacOS caught sending user data to Apple every time an app is opened

Apple's supposed commitment to privacy falls short.

reclaimthenet.org

Apple lets some Big Sur network traffic bypass firewalls

Firewalls are "100% blind" to ~50 Apple apps and processes under undocumented change.

arstechnica.com

Apple removes 39,000 game apps from China store to meet deadline

Apple removed 39,000 game apps on its China store Thursday, the biggest removal ever in a single day, as it set year-end as deadline for all game publishers to obtain a licence.

www.reuters.com

...and probably much more, uncovered yet.

 

[ForkHandles]

Technically

Except Apple has iTunes

Technically that platform was for selling music , that is a different market to streaming music. As it was installed early in iOS a challenge against iTunes would be difficult as it could be cited as a reason why people bought into the ecosystem in the first instance.

 

[@Brett]

Apple bullied the pants off of Spotify which would still be the de facto standard iOS music app were it not for the App Store getting in their way. They stifled Spotify out of business and undercut them like only an unscrupulous major retailer could do. (Here, we’ll put this store brand at eye level and charge the other brand 30% for nearby shelf space.)

The issue is that, due to the ubiquity of iPhone, the App Store is both a societal benefit and a proprietary marketplace. Those two objectives can often be in harmony but cannot always be. Maybe they just need to offer premium commissions to high volume apps and aim to match prices of competing services.

If the EU attempts to make Apple open up the iPhone to non-App Store installed apps, they’re going to deprive the globe of privacy, reliability, accountability, and security in favor of a seemingly free market maneuver. Apple’s responsible behavior ought to be commended instead of being viewed from the sole lens of the benefit it brings them. They’re advancing privacy and building and acting as a custodian of high standards for mobile software.

Removing the App Store’s hold jeopardizes everyone’s security, and most users do not have the technical sophistication to protect themselves in the wild west of software. It complicates the experience greatly too. It’ll be like unlocking the gates of Hades into iOS if the App Store’s protections and standards are removed. I want to double down on it, not weaken it.

Bullied? What a load of rubbish. Spotify has the market share. Spotify once again has a business model that is predicated on the work of others. eg ecosystems and devices. Fact is Apple own the store. And many are happy to sell there and many are happy to use it. You cannot force supermarkets to sell your products so as is the case with Tile and Epic and Spotify. You do not get your way and are too lazy to innovate you run to the governments. And the EU at this point in time seems to be the kings of the money grabbers. Perhaps they have other things to do like get COVID-19 under control. Or maybe investigate Spotify's artist payment practices.

 

[sdz]

Bravo Mrs Vestager.

 

[@Brett]

Yep, and we know Apple is too greedy to give up a market.
They are even worse than Google at this, they love to spread Human Rights marketing blah blah, Privacy marketing blub blub, etc. At the same time they support China, and choose to stay in their market, despite knowing whats going on there. Google (not better at many cases), at least has shown more moral at this one.

Apple is a populist and plays the good privacy guy in the public, but they have many many other ways to use your data in an anti-competitive way to create new services, apps, devices, predict trends based on third party apps downloads and access, and kill competion that way, just to name a few.
It starts with webservice logs, appleid activity+login+logs, and goes over to *NOT* End2End encrypted iCloud backups, which they probably scrape though to join that data with other collected services data, data analytics at finest level.

Just to complete the image...

Apple's MacOS caught sending user data to Apple every time an app is opened

Apple's supposed commitment to privacy falls short.

reclaimthenet.org

Apple lets some Big Sur network traffic bypass firewalls

Firewalls are "100% blind" to ~50 Apple apps and processes under undocumented change.

arstechnica.com

Apple removes 39,000 game apps from China store to meet deadline

Apple removed 39,000 game apps on its China store Thursday, the biggest removal ever in a single day, as it set year-end as deadline for all game publishers to obtain a licence.

www.reuters.com

...and probably much more, uncovered yet.

Tell me one tech company that does not in some way deal or support China. Where do you think the components are made? Apple cares more about privacy than others and they have not given me reason to doubt that. The fact that Facebook and others are pissed off lets me know they are on the right track. And Apple has never said they do not access your data they state they do not sell it. They use it to make their services better for the purposes of better products. And to that end. End to end encrypted iCloud backs could be good but you also may have a lot of people lose data for forgotten passwords and what not. And worse than Google. I think not. They are selling your data to companies you have not even heard of before and who knows if those companies are all legit.

 

[@Brett]

Stupidity has nothing to do with it. They need to test this in court. EC is the watchdog for fair market practice within EU and the must react to this accusation or they break the EU law.

Being that Apple is not the dominant platform I hardly call them anti competitive. Clearly sounds like EU is catering to the whinges who refuse to innovate and want to use someone else services for free.

 

[arvinsim]

What was that retort when people accuse Apple of working with China?

Apple needs to respect the laws of the countries they are working in.

Well.....here we are.

 

[Kabeyun]

Spotify highlighted that Apple's 30% commission on ‌App Store‌ purchases

Once again, Apple does not have a 30% App Store commission.

 

[Will Co]

I'm completely fed up with all these anti-trust suits. It's all noise, created by companies with ulterior motives, those motives largely being to scrape a few more cents out of each purchase. There is no higher principle at stake here. It's just greed.

 

[InGen]

The issue is that, due to the ubiquity of iPhone, the App Store is both a societal benefit and a proprietary marketplace. Those two objectives can often be in harmony but cannot always be. Maybe they just need to offer premium commissions to high volume apps and aim to match prices of competing services.

I agree with your post. And to add a further point for those out here who are adamant to see the break up of the Apple ecosystem so they can play with all the moving parts themselves, remember the App Store is not compulsory. Apple created the App Store to provide an open market of rule-abiding apps users can install on their devices. Apple is free to create a phone next year that no longer has an App Store or even “apps” if it wanted to, even opting for an entirely new type of OS if they decided to. My point here is that the more pressure this loud entitled minority put on Apple to break its own ecosystem up, the more they push Apple to use alternative methods for maintaining its rightful hold over its own creations.

Consumers are not just purchasing devices anymore they are purchasing into an ecosystem, and there are many out there to choose from. Don’t come into Apples ecosystem demanding entitlements and rights over its products. There are plenty other digital ecosystems out there the consumer can buy into and I hope legislative branches across the world recognise this fact and leave it to the consumer to use their individual purchasing choice to buy into what ecosystem suits and serves them and their lifestyle, instead of demanding 1 ecosystem be like the other.

 

[Ansath]

Microsoft have a 30% commission on their Xbox store (where you buy games, films, etc). Sony has the same on the PS store, as does Nintendo.

Spotify seem to only be going after Apple for being Anti competitive…. and Apple are the ones bullying? ?

 

[Wildkraut]

Microsoft have a 30% commission on their Xbox store (where you buy games, films, etc). Sony has the same on the PS store, as does Nintendo.

Spotify seem to only be going after Apple for being Anti competitive…. and Apple are the ones bullying? ?

These are toys, Phones are general purpose devices, deeply involved into social life and other market types. It’s a payment device, and in a few countries even holds your Personal ID, Driver License, or Social Number. Apple is diving into new territories, and they will have to obey the rules.

 

[Wildkraut]

Tell me one tech company that does not in some way deal or support China. Where do you think the components are made? Apple cares more about privacy than others and they have not given me reason to doubt that. The fact that Facebook and others are pissed off lets me know they are on the right track. And Apple has never said they do not access your data they state they do not sell it. They use it to make their services better for the purposes of better products. And to that end. End to end encrypted iCloud backs could be good but you also may have a lot of people lose data for forgotten passwords and what not. And worse than Google. I think not. They are selling your data to companies you have not even heard of before and who knows if those companies are all legit.

Google does not sell your data, they sell Ad “slots” based on your data, but not directly your data. They would be stupid to sell your data, and giving that precious database out of hands. In other words both companies Apple and Google use your data to improve their services the same way, but Apple plays the good guy in public.

 

[Coheebuzz]

> Does what's best for the consumer and for developer
> Gets charged a fine for doing the right thing.

Pretty stupid, EU.

They bribed our farmers to uproot trees and destroyed thousand-year old natural balances in order to create artificial dependancies to their state, dealing with the EU is dealing with the devil itself.