Apple Antitrust

Spain's competition authority has launched an investigation into Apple's App Store over potential anti-competitive practices that could result in hefty fines (via Reuters). The National Commission of Markets and Competition (CNMC) this week announced a probe into the ‌App Store‌, citing concerns that the company might be imposing unfair trading conditions on developers who distribute their...

The European Commission has formally announced its preliminary view that Apple's App Store policies are in breach of the Digital Markets Act (DMA), specifically in relation to anti-steering rules. Under the DMA, developers distributing their apps via Apple's ‌App Store‌ should be able, free of charge, to inform their customers of alternative cheaper purchasing possibilities, steer them to...

Apple, Google, and Amazon are urging India to reconsider its proposed Digital Competition Bill, citing concerns over increased user costs and potential reductions in investment (via Reuters). A U.S. lobby group representing major technology companies has asked the Indian government to rethink the proposed legislation that closely mirrors the European Union's Digital Markets Act. The request...

Apple today filed a pre-motion letter seeking to dismiss the antitrust case that the United States Department of Justice (DoJ) levied against Apple back in March. In the pre-motion letter, Apple says that the government's lawsuit is flawed in multiple ways, and has not successfully alleged that Apple is a monopoly power in the relevant market, proven anticompetitive conduct, or demonstrated...

Apple is challenging a $1.95 billion fine imposed by the European Commission for thwarting fair competition from music-streaming rivals, including Spotify (via Bloomberg). The Commission fined Apple in March, saying that the company abused its dominant position in the market by forbidding music streaming apps to tell users about cheaper subscription prices outside the app. The EU...

With Apple soon to be required to bring the same EU changes that it made on the iPhone to the iPad, Epic Games today confirmed that it will release Fortnite for the ‌iPad‌ in the future. ‌Epic Games‌ is already working to release an ‌iPhone‌ version of Fortnite in the EU, with the game set to be available from the forthcoming ‌Epic Games‌ Store, an alternative app marketplace. The ‌iPhone‌...

A lawsuit targeting Apple's refusal to allow apps to support cryptocurrency transactions was today tossed out by a San Francisco judge, reports Reuters. The lawsuit, which was filed by Venmo and Cash App customers, claimed that Apple drove up the fees charged by Venmo and Cash App by not letting payment apps facilitate cryptocurrency transactions. The plaintiffs alleged that Apple curbed...

Apple's compliance with new EU laws designed to rein in the market power of big tech companies is set to be investigated by regulators, the European Commission has announced. The Commission said on Monday that non-compliance investigations have been opened against Apple, Google, and Meta, under the new Digital Markets Act (DMA). The probe into Apple will look at whether the company...

The U.S. Department of Justice today announced it has filed an antitrust lawsuit against Apple. The lawsuit alleges that Apple illegally maintains a monopoly in the smartphone market with the iPhone and the device's locked-down ecosystem. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos. In a statement shared with MacRumors, Apple said the lawsuit is "wrong on the facts and the...

The United States Justice Department is preparing to sue Apple for violating antitrust law as soon as Thursday, reports Bloomberg. The lawsuit will be the culmination of an investigation that initially started in 2019 as an antitrust review of major technology companies. U.S. regulators have already sued Google, Meta, and Amazon. Over the last several years, Apple officials have met with the ...

Key parts of Apple's compliance with the Digital Markets Act (DMA) are set to be investigated by European regulators based on developer feedback, the EU's antitrust chief warned on Tuesday. In an interview with Reuters, the European Commission's Executive Vice-President Margrethe Vestager said that Apple's introduction of new fees was already being looked at as a potential attempt to...

The European Commission today fined Apple €1.8 billion ($1.95 billion) for anti-competitive conduct against rival music streaming services. In a response published on its website, Apple fiercely attacked the Commission's decision, as well as Spotify's behavior. The fine comes as the conclusion to a long-running investigation by the EU, triggered by a complaint from Spotify, into Apple's...

Apple representatives met with the U.S. Justice Department last week in a last ditch effort to persuade the agency not to file an antitrust suit against the company, according to Bloomberg. Citing people familiar with the matter, the report states that Apple and its lawyers met with Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter, who will have the final say on whether to file a suit. Since...

The European Commission is considering investigating Apple's move to disable Home Screen web apps in the EU, the Financial Times reports. Following the release of the second beta version of iOS 17.4, it emerged that Apple had restricted the functionality of iOS web apps in the EU. Web apps can no longer launch from the ‌Home Screen‌ in their own top-level window that takes up the entire...

Apple is set to be hit with a €500 million ($538 million) fine for allegedly breaking EU law over access to music streaming services, according to a Financial Times report. The focus of the European Commission's investigation has been Apple's policy of preventing streaming music apps from informing iPhone and iPad users within the app that lower subscription prices are available when signing ...

Apple's iMessage will avoid regulation requiring interoperability with other messaging platforms under the EU's Digital Markets Act (DMA), following the conclusion of an investigation by the regulator (via Bloomberg). The probe concluded that the iMessage platform and Microsoft's Bing do not hold a dominant enough position to be brought under the DMA's strict rules for services provided by...

An antitrust lawsuit that AliveCor filed against Apple back in 2021 will not proceed, with the judge overseeing the case today filing a summary judgment in Apple's favor. The full ruling is under seal as of now due to confidentiality requests from Apple and AliveCor, but the filing makes it clear that the case went in Apple's favor and the Cupertino company was not found to have engaged in...

Apple has proposed opening its NFC payment technology to third-party developers in Europe, allowing direct rivals to Apple Pay to operate on the iPhone for the first time. Historically, the use of Apple's NFC chip in iPhones and Apple Watches for payments has been exclusively utilized by ‌Apple Pay‌, limiting the ability of banks and other financial services to offer their own contactless...

Apple is preparing to split the App Store "in two" in the coming weeks ahead of European Union requirements that will force Apple to enable app sideloading in the region, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reports. In the latest edition of his "Power On" newsletter, Gurman explained that Apple is gearing up to make changes to the ‌App Store‌ in the EU to comply with the region's impending Digital...

Apple CEO Tim Cook yesterday met the European Union's antitrust chief, Margrethe Vestager, at Apple Park amid a series of disputes between the organizations. The meeting focused on European competition policy and digital regulation. On X (formerly Twitter), Vestager explained that she stressed Apple's impending obligation to allow users to install third-party app stores and sideload apps...