For the first time, the European Commission is accusing a company of breaching digital market legislation (DMA). Apple, which is already the subject of two investigations for non-compliance (see EUROPE 13378/8), is now suspected by the Commission of directly infringing the DMA rules through its App Store.
According to the preliminary conclusions of the investigation, announced on Monday 24 June, none of Apple 's commercial conditions allow developers to freely direct their customers to other download options outside the App Store.
The US company only authorises this practice through external links: developers can include a link in their application that redirects the customer to an external web page. After installing the application via the App Store, that is.
Under the DMA, Apple is authorised, via its App Store, to charge a fee for its ‘match-making’ function between customers and developers. However, in the Commission's view, the fees charged by Apple “go beyond what is strictly necessary”.
At this stage, Apple is free to respond to the Commission's preliminary investigation in order to prove its compliance and avoid possible sanctions in the form of fines of up to 10% of the company's worldwide turnover.
Third non-compliance procedure. Second announcement on Monday 24 June: the Commission has declared that it has opened a new non-compliance procedure against Apple, concerning the new contractual requirements for the App Store.
The EU suspects that the new ‘basic technology fee’, which obliges developers to pay €0.50 per application installed after one million downloads, is also in breach of the DMA rules.
In a statement, Apple said that “all developers doing business in the EU on the AppStore will be able to use the features we have introduced, including the ability to direct app users to the web to make purchases at a very competitive rate. As we have always done, we will continue to listen to the Commission and engage in dialogue with it”.
The Commission's announcements come just a few months after Apple was fined €1.84 billion for preventing competing music streaming services from informing iPhone users that they could subscribe at a lower cost outside the AppStore (see EUROPE 13363/16). (Original version in French by Isalia Stieffatre)