Apple is going through a tough time as it is facing a potential $500 million fine from the European Commission for reportedly having an anti-competitive App Store policy for music streaming services.
This fine is being decided by the EU investigation following a complaint from Spotify, which began back in 2013. As per the recent reports, it appears that Apple reiterated its belief that the complaint of Spotify is about it trying to get limitless access to all the tools of Apple without even paying anything for the value Apple provides.
Although the investigation was initially prompted by a complaint against Apple from Spotify filed with EU regulators, which first surfaced back in 2013 and was formally filed four years ago, Then the EU reached its initiatory decision in 2021, in which the App Store illegally favored Apple Music over Spotify and the rest of the other music streaming platforms.
This EU ruling will only make the central point of how the anti-steering rules affect music streaming services such as Spotify, not any other category of application. The reports of a $500 million fine for Apple were initially reported a couple of days ago.
However, the decision of $500 million by the EU commission has not been officially announced yet, so probably the amount could rise or fall. In addition to a $500 million fine, it is expected that the ruling of the EU will force Apple to permit Spotify and other streaming music services to direct users to outside payment schemes. This is usually referred to as the ‘anti-steering’ rules of Apple.
Noticeably, Apple has already made notable changes to the App Store Guidelines over the years since Spotify’s complaint was filed. Apple upgraded to the “Reader” application guideline to give Spotify and the rest of the other platforms permission to link out their website for managing the account.
Apart from this, Apple also permits developers such as Spotify to communicate directly with customers through methods, such as email, to share information about payment methods outside their iOS application. Also, as a reply to the complaint, Apple took a stand for itself and argued that Spotify pays nothing other than $99 per year for a developer account to Apple, and it’s not a big deal. Apple only charges developers a commission on paid applications and digital goods as well as subscriptions. Spotify is a free application to download and does not support the Apple In-App Purchase system, so it pays nothing to Apple.
Apple also points out that Spotify is not the only one in this, as 88% of active developers on the App Store pay zero commission.
