Apple CEO Tim Cook recently agreed to testify before the House of Representatives’ antitrust committee, along with the top executives of other tech giants, but he appears to have already heard from the president of Microsoft, who he reportedly expressed your concern about the App Store.
The committee has a broad mandate to see if the tech giants are guilty of anti-competitive behavior, and Apple is under the most scrutiny for the way the App Store operates …
A payment report in Information He says the Microsoft interview took place a few weeks ago.
Several weeks ago, the subcommittee interviewed Brad Smith, Microsoft’s chairman and chief legal officer, by video conference, according to people with knowledge of the meeting. While the committee primarily invited Smith to provide Microsoft’s perspective as a large tech company that had previously faced antitrust regulation, during the session, the Microsoft executive also discussed his company’s concerns about how that Apple operates its App Store. That issue is at the center of the scrutiny of Apple regulators in the United States and Europe. […]
Smith expressed concern about what Microsoft and others have seen as Apple’s arbitrary practices around app approval, while criticizing Apple’s requirement that developers use the company’s payment mechanism through of your applications. Spotify and others have complained that Apple’s payment requirement allows the company to take a heavy cut in developer app revenue, up to 30%.
Cook was the last of the top four tech CEOs to agree to testify, with some suggesting he only agreed when it was clear he couldn’t afford to be the only one unwilling to do so.
Smith previously avoided attacking Apple by name, but his references to app stores clearly refer to both the Cupertino company and Google.
“I think the time has come, whether we are talking about Washington, DC or Brussels, for a much more focused conversation about the nature of app stores, the rules that are being implemented, the prices and the tolls that are being extracting and if there really is a justification in the antitrust law for everything that has been created, “Smith said during an interview with POLITICO Live […]
“If you look at the industry today, I think what you will find is that more and more you see app stores that have created higher walls and much more formidable doors … than anything that existed in the industry 20 years ago,” Smith said. […]
“They impose requirements that increasingly say that there is only one way to access our platform, and that is to go through the door that we ourselves have created. In some cases, they create a very high price or toll. “
The House of Representatives’ antitrust committee is just one of the entities that conducts research on app store practices, as noted above.
There were two other European Union antitrust investigations, which are just the latest in a long line of investigations into Apple’s alleged anti-competitive behavior. As a non-exhaustive list, there is Congress, the Department of Justice, several US states, the EU, France, Japan, South Korea, and Russia.
I have argued that Apple’s antitrust issues are not going to go away, and that the company needs to take control by acting voluntarily before being forced to do so.
Once upon a time, Apple might have said “We are just a company, this is how we operate, go somewhere else if you don’t like it.” But that’s not a reasonable stance now that he’s the keeper of a billion and a half iOS devices. We don’t know how many people own those devices, but let’s say ‘about a billion people’ in round numbers. You cannot control access to a billion people and say that it is nobody’s business but yourself what rules you invent and how you choose to interpret and enforce them.
Sooner or later, Apple is going to lose this battle. It will have to be more equitable in the way it competes with third-party services. You will need to review your commission rates to make sure they are fair to all concerned. And you will have to find a method of establishing and enforcing rules that are fair and apply equally to everyone.
However, the company has a choice: You can either wait for the law to step in and be seen as the bad guy who only does the right thing when forced to do so, or you can take voluntary action and be seen as the good guy. I urge you to take the last course while there is still time.
Apple took some steps in this direction by quietly addressing five antitrust issues in the changes introduced by iOS 14.
Photo: Alex Brandon / AP Photo
FTC: We use automatic affiliate links that generate income. Plus.
Check out 9to5Mac on YouTube for more Apple news:
