Meta, Microsoft, X and other giants form the
On Wednesday Eastern Time, four tech giants including Microsoft, Meta, X, and Match Group joined the ranks of Epic Games, the developer of the game Fortnite, to protest Apple's failure to comply with court injunctions and guide consumers to pay for digital content in a cheaper way.
These four companies jointly submitted documents to the court, stating that Apple has "clearly violated" previous court injunctions, deliberately evading the spirit of the injunction and making it difficult to guide consumers to pay for digital content in a cheaper way. Apple must formally respond to these lawsuits before April 3rd.
Apple's injunction against the court goes against the rules?
The origin of the matter can be traced back to three years ago. In 2021, Epic filed a lawsuit against Apple, claiming that Apple had violated antitrust laws by requiring consumers to obtain applications through the App Store and charging developers up to 30% purchase commissions.
Subsequently, in September 2021, a US court filed an injunction against Apple, requesting that Apple allow developers to provide consumers with links, buttons, and other guidance to guide consumers in choosing payment methods other than the Apple App Store.
In January of this year, Apple announced to the court that it would change its App Store terms so that app developers "guide customers to pay for in-app content in a way that is not under Apple's control."
However, according to Meta, Microsoft, X, and Match Group, the results of Apple's revised terms and details are not significantly different from the previous situation.
For example, Apple's new terms require app developers to apply for a license to link to other payment systems, and still impose restrictions on "various aspects" of how apps communicate with users. In addition, although Apple agreed to reduce app store commissions, it only reduced the original 30% commission rate to 27%.
Last week, Epic once again sued Apple for contempt of court, stating that Apple's new regulations effectively circumvented the court's injunction. This document states:
Apple restricts developers from choosing where and how to communicate with users to purchase app content, which poses a significant obstacle to competition and artificially raises prices.
The collective team of giants such as Meta and Microsoft Epic
In the documents submitted this Wednesday, Microsoft, Meta, X, and Match, four technology companies, also joined the ranks of supporting Epic. They stated that Apple's actions were "for all practical purposes", further strengthening the anti manipulation rules deemed illegal by the court, supporting Apple's "excessive" commissions, and harming the interests of consumers and developers.
In the submitted document, Meta emphasized that it should be allowed to pay through within the Apple app and outside of the system, informing users of the method of paying for "push posts" on their platform. Meta states that push posts are often used by small businesses to promote their products on Meta and Instagram platforms. In February this year, Meta announced that it would pass on the fees charged by Apple to users, effectively increasing the price of pushed content by 30%.
Microsoft stated that Apple's plan prevented it from directing users to Microsoft owned payment platforms, "where it can offer better promotions, discounts, or ways to manage subscriptions."
X and Match Group, on the other hand, stated that Apple's newly proposed commission structure will erode the revenue of independent content creators, "affecting thousands of other developers and their millions of users, undermining the purpose of the ban."
Apple refused to comment specifically on this accusation and only forwarded a document it submitted to the Northern District Court of California in January to the media. In this January document, Apple claims to have fully complied with the ban and stated that it will protect consumers and "the integrity of the Apple ecosystem," while ensuring that developers are not completely unprofitable.
