Antitrust fine of Apple over its App Store policies and Spotify: Spotify CEO Daniel Ek is a reluctant figurehead in Europe’s “introvert”
Apple has been hit with a fine of €1.84 billion (about $2 billion) by European Union antitrust regulators over its App Store rules, and has been told it cannot stop music services from advertising cheaper subscription deals outside of Apple’s store. The news of today’s fine is reported by the Financial Times, and is related to Apple’s plans to change app distribution rules.
The Commission took into account the seriousness of the violation, as well as Apple’s total turnover and market capital while setting the fine.
Apple restricts tap-top-pay to its own wallet and payment services as a result of the European Commissions investigation into the App Store policies. As a result of the investigation, Apple has offered to let third-party mobile wallet and payment providers use the iPhone’s NFC feature for payments.
Although Spotify CEO Daniel Ek has expressed disapproval of Apple’s business tactics, he’s also something of a reluctant figurehead in Europe’s fight against Apple. European app developers who are upset about big tech have found a new spokesman in the self-proclaimed ‘introvert’.
On Monday, Ek posted a video on X in which he described Apple as a threat to the open internet. “Apple has decided that they want to close down the internet and make it theirs and they view every single person using an iPhone to be their user, and that they should be able to dictate what that user experience should be,” he said. Ek also claimed Apple also wants to effectively levy a tax on Spotify while exempting its own music service, Apple Music.
It will not launch in-app purchases for the EU at this time. Instead, if Apple approves a newly submitted update, it’s going to try to do the next best thing: provide pricing information within the app and link users to its subscription options.
Apple allowed reader applications to include links to their websites in 2022. Apple still makes it difficult for the language reader apps to give out information about the cost of their subscription.
