Dutch Watchdog Finds Apple App Store Payment Rules Anti-Competitive (reuters.com) 56
The Dutch antitrust authority has found that Apple's rules requiring software developers to use its in-app payment system are anti-competitive and ordered it to make changes, Reuters has reported, citing people familiar with the matter, in the latest regulatory setback for the iPhone maker. From the report: Apple's app-store payment policies, in particular its requirement that app developers exclusively use its payment system where commissions range between 15% and 30%, have long drawn complaints from developers. The Dutch investigation into whether Apple's practices amounted to an abuse of a dominant market position was launched in 2019 but later reduced in scope to focus primarily on dating market apps. They included a complaint from Match Group, owner of the popular dating service Tinder, which said Apple's rules were hindering it from direct communications with its customers about payments.
Walled Garden vrs Walled Payment (Score:4, Insightful)
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I agree in part. However here is the issue.
The App Store was meant initially for someone to buy the product at the App Store, and you "Owned" the app on your device. Apple didn't get paid for Free Apps, but they got a percentage from the paid Apps.
Running the App store isn't free for Apple, and their service in theory is about them reviewing the software to make sure it is safe for to run on their devices.
However the App makers got creative, and other than buying a full copy of the App, they found ways to c
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No, I just don't let a general outrage of an idea blind myself to exploring the actual complexity of the issues.
Apple devices should allow non-Apple stores and for the user to install stuff without going via the Apple Store with the express knowledge that Apple will not have much responsibility if their is an issue, if your devices crashes, or ends up being malware. Apps should be able to be coded cross compatibly so we don't need to prioritize Apple Apps over Android. A lot of the Apple Stores rules, exp
content censorship should also not be in the app s (Score:2)
content censorship should also not be in the app store as well.
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Re: content censorship should also not be in the a (Score:2)
Wrong and stupid.
Only governments can force others to censor, but nothing prevents them doing it.
Re:Walled Garden vrs Walled Payment (Score:4, Insightful)
If this was a real concern, the solution would be to not allow free apps in the apps store. They will not do that though as the app store is basically an extension of the iUniverse. They need things in it, whether free or paid, so they will never do that. They have already agreed to host free apps in the store for just the cost of the license, so they don't have a leg to stand on there. The percentage was supposed to be for providing the payment services. But then they saw they had people locked in since they could not get onto an iPhone without going through the app store (again, by Apple's design) so they decided to force them to only use their payment system as well. This is pretty much a textbook case of anticompetitive practices. For apps to use your store then force apps to use your payment system and make sure there is no alternatative.
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Firstly, there's no free way to publish an app on iPhone. You still have to pay for your developer account.
Secondly, the relationship is symbiotic. Steve Jobs was very clear from that, the iPhone is irrelevant, the singular benefit to getting the Apple device is that there's apps for that. Apple directly benefits from apps even ones which they don't make a cent from.
Thirdly, no there's no justification for a walled garden. There's justification for providing an easy payment method to consumers, and consumer
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It's like saying Walmart wanted Apple to give them 30% of everything bought on an iPhone because they sold the iPhone to the person.
Apple makes money from the sale of the iPhone, the $100 US
Re: Walled Garden vrs Walled Payment (Score:2)
Running the app store isn't free for Apple, but they get paid for doing it by fees paid by developers. Any additional profit is just that, profit. Running a web store is cheap.
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Add to it privacy issues because Apple will see all your transactions done through your account - a gold mine for tracking you. Then imagine what would happen if that data ends up in the hand of evil scammers.
So requiring paypal, for example, is also illegal? (Score:3)
I mean, if I offer a good or service online, and I only happen to accept payment through paypal, for example, am I being anticompetitive?
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If you are Paypal, and are charging 20% for that, then yes, you absofuckinglutely are.
Re:So requiring paypal, for example, is also illeg (Score:4, Informative)
It's European territory, it's Europe's rules. Don't like it? Too bad, because we've already established that Apple will do anything to keep access to customers (see China).
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Europe? This same ruling has been made in regulators in Korea, Japan, and Australia, and a judge in the USA where Apple are currently appealing the verdict against their practice of blocking 3rd party payments.
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The title being "Dutch Watchdog Finds Apple App Store Payment Rules Anti-Competitive," and the Netherlands being in Europe, yes, Europe.
This has been your daily lesson in reading comprehension and geography. Tune in tomorrow when we explain how different complaints before different regulators cannot produce "this same ruling."
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This has been your daily lesson in reading comprehension and geography.
Allow me to return the favour. My comment starting with "Europe?" followed by an expansion of your previous point was neither a question, nor a reference to the scope of the article, but rather a declaration that both you and the article haven't even begun to cover just how widespread across the world your point was.
Before "correcting" someone, it pays to actually have something to correct. In the future try and see if you maybe missed my point, you'll look like less of a tosser.
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What's that punctuation mark named again?
So it was a reference to the scope of the article?
See above.
Try *to* see if I missed your point. No, your inability to reason and
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What's that punctuation mark named again?
It's named: read a sentence within context. Kid you are going to have a tough life growing up if your entire understanding of a paragraph is determined by a a single punctuation mark. You'll do well to learn to parse language in context and understand full sentence structures within the context of replies made by other posters.
Leave your autism at home.
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So yet more evidence that you can't reason or write.
After working for several decades in a profession where the meaning of paragraphs is quite certainly dictated by punctuation, I'll rely upon my own more extensive experience, thank you.
As, yes, "context." The last refuge o
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Except it's not Apple's phones. It's a private company's 3rd party website, and telling them their users aren't allowed to use it because they have an Apple phone is anticompetitive in every country which has looked into the matter thus far, including the USA where Apple is currently appealing the verdict against them.
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Except it's not Apple's phones. It's a private company's 3rd party website, that required access through Apples store.
Fixed that for you. Apple has every right to charge rent for people uses theirs services.
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Yes and no. No one has the right to tell you how to do business with someone else. That's a fundamental tenant of anti-trust law. Apple can as a condition of using the app store require you to offer app store payments. Apple can charge you rent for using that service. Apple cannot ban you from offering another payment service nor charge you rent for that, that's anti-competitive.
But no need to take my word for it. Take the Dutch regulator's. And the EC's. And the South Korean regulator's. And the Japanese r
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The California ruling confirmed apples rights to dictate terms in their store.
The California ruling found this one term *we are currently discussing here* to be illegal. That ruling is currently under appeal by Apple.
Or do you think companies appeal rulings which go in their favour just for fun because they have nothing better to do and actually wanted to lose in court?
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Do you own paypal?
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Do you own Bank of America?
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This is not "I am a retailer and I get to decide how people pay for my stuff", this is "I am a platform where people can sell things and I am telling the people selling on my platform what payment methods people are allowed to use to buy their stuff"
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No one is suggesting that Apple don't deserve to be paid something, nor the currency or method to receive that payment. What is being objected to is dictating how the main value provider in the proposition gets to receive their payment.
They are also not simply providing a price for your value added services so that a bill can be paid. They are insisting on a high tax % of all my revenue, instead of being clear what you are doing fo
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No, but you are anticompetitive
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No, but if you are the only person that offers goods\services, and you start charging exorbitant rates for those things or use your power to force people to spend money the way you want to then it is anti-competitive and there are laws against that. So if you are a store owner, and you start raising your prices, and then someone opens up a store across the street and you buy them out and then raise your prices even more, that its anti-competitive. In many ways FANG companies do that. After a while it become
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I'd say that you're not being anticompetitive. But Apple wants you to stop using anything other than Apple for payments, and if you don't they'll ban all Apple users in the world from accessing your good or service. That's the rule that's being called anticompetitive.
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If you want to accept other payment methods, then write for other devices. Apple doesn't force anyone to write iOS software for them... the *ONLY* thing that does is one's own jealous desire for their own slice of the market share that Apple has.
If you wrote software for iOS and Apple said that you were not allowed to write software for other platforms when you develop for theirs, then *THAT* would be anticompetitive.
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Since you're changing the subject I trust that your earlier question is resolved. As for this new demand of yours, I don't write any software for iOS, so you're shouting at the wrong person.
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Of course it is. The question was rhetorical.
Apple forcing developers for its platform to only deal with Apple's own preferred method of payment for any in-app purchases is not actually anticompetitive because Apple is not requiring that they use Apple's payment system on non-iOS devices. The only reason it might "feel" like it is would be because developers are simply coveting Apple's non-trivial market share.
Last time I checked, it was not illegal to be successful.
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Clearly it does not cost 30% of all sales revenue to provide the service apple does, based on the revenues generated, based on knowns costs for running a website and equivalent content delivery network, based on known costs for managing payment services and customer support, based on the automation possibl