The European Union has fined Apple 1.84 billion euros for violating antitrust rules in the market for streaming music services on its mobile platform, iOS.
The sanction focuses on Apple’s application of anti-steering provisions, which impose restrictions on the ability of music streaming apps to inform consumers about cheaper offers outside of Apple’s App Store.
The iPhone maker has its own music streaming service, Apple Music, and rivals such as Spotify have argued that the restrictions put them at a disadvantage compared to the platform operator.
Today the The Commission said The restriction had prevented European consumers from choosing freely.
“Apple’s rules ended up harming consumers,” EU competition chief Margrethe Vestager said during a Commission news conference announcing the decision. “Critical information was withheld so that the consumer could not use it or make informed decisions effectively.
“Some consumers may have paid more because they didn’t know they could pay less by subscribing outside of the app. And other consumers may have failed to subscribe to their preferred music streaming provider because they simply couldn’t find it.”
“The Commission concluded that Apple’s rules result in hiding key information about prices and features of services from consumers. Therefore, they are neither necessary nor proportionate for the provision of the App Store on Apple mobile devices,” he added. “Therefore, we consider them unfair trading conditions as they were unilaterally imposed by a dominant company.”
The sanction follows a month of March 2019. antitrust complaint by Spotify – which argued that Apple’s App Store rules “intentionally limit choice and stifle innovation at the expense of user experience,” and accused the iPhone maker of deliberately harming other app developers by being both “ player and referee.”
Again in June 2020The EU announced a formal antitrust investigation of the App Store, saying then that it was concerned about the conditions and restrictions applied by the tech giant, such as anti-steering provisions that prevent developers from informing users about cheaper ways to pay for content outside the Apple store. may be distorting competition.
A formal statement of objections from the EU followed, in April 2021, when the Commission accused Apple of operating its App Store in a way that distorts competition in the market for streaming music services. Three years on the block have confirmed the conclusion that Apple violated its antitrust rules.
Last month, heist reported that Apple was facing a €500 million antitrust fine for music streaming. But the fine announced today by the Commission is considerably higher.
This story is developing…refresh for updates