Andrew O'Hara
The European Union's antitrust body is set to launch a formal investigation into Apple on claims that the tech giant's App Store policies hinder competitors of its Apple Music service.
Earlier this year, Spotify lodged a complaint with the European Commission alleging Apple, through its App Store, puts Apple Music competitors at a disadvantage.
According to a report from the Financial Times, the EU is now preparing to kick off an official probe into the alleged anti-competitive behavior.
The commission considered Spotify's filing and customer sentiment in its decision to launch a probe, an investigation that could take years to complete, the report said.
In its complaint, Spotify points to supposed unfair treatment such as when Apple rejected multiple Apple Watch app submissions in 2015 and 2016. Apple later added third-party API for music streaming apps on Apple Watch with watchOS 5, which has been used by popular services like Pandora. Spotify has yet to re-submit its watchOS app for review.
Another bone of contention is Apple's 30% cut of App Store purchases, a fee levied on all third-party developers. For subscriptions, the rate drops down to 15% after one year of continual payments.
Apple collects this cut on any sales of any digital items. That could be premium in-game currencies, or in this case, a subscription to Spotify. This goes towards Apple's hosting fees, development of the platform and developer resources, payment infrastructure and other expenses. Spotify can optionally remove the in-app subscription option and allow users to sign up directly from its website — a route other subscription-based apps have gone.
The commission has yet to formally announce the probe.
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46 Comments
Spotify sucks
Good! I hope they rule in favor of Spotify. Not because of Spotify, but that the App Store model and monopoly needs to change. 70/30 is no longer sustainable to many developers as it was in 2007. Secondly it’s conceptually wrong to own an entire ecosystem - just one of two - and abuse that by taxing 30% and very specifically create exceptions to hurt competition (such as not allowing Siri to control Spotify)
ugh, no. it’s not a monopoly when android has far more marketshare and far more open than iOS
I don't trust anything EU related, what a bunch of sick clowns. Apple created and run their own App Store, and any developer signing up knows about and agreed to the rules regarding the cut, etc.