The EU Commission accuses Apple of unfair competition in its App Store

The EU Commission accuses Apple of unfair competition in its App Store on iPhones and iPads. Apple discriminates against other providers of music streaming apps, said competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager after a complaint from the market leader Spotify. The notification is a preliminary stage to an antitrust fine by the EU. Among other things, the Brussels authority is taking action against the fact that the sales of subscriptions in the apps must be processed via Apple's payment platform. The group retains 30 or 15 percent of the income. If the EU Commission prevails, this would call Apple's business model for the App Store into question for other services as well. The competition watchdog expressed concern that users of Apple devices would have to pay higher prices for music streaming subscriptions or that some subscriptions could not buy in their apps. In their preliminary findings, they also concluded that Apple had a dominant market position in the distribution of music streaming applications in the App Store. Vestager emphasized that the company was at the same time "gatekeeper" and competitor with its own Apple Music service. Since the launch of the download platform in 2008, Apple has generally levied a 30 percent levy on income from digital items or services such as subscriptions. For subscriptions that run for more than a year, the commission drops to 15 percent - and recently also for developers who earn less than a million dollars a year. The Commission's investigation was triggered by a complaint from music streaming market leader Spotify, which competes with Apple Music. Spotify finds it unfair that Apple would have more money left over for the same subscription price because of the App Store levy.