NEWSLETTER
Apple will reportedly have to pay around 500 million euros (about $539 million) in the EU for stifling competition against Apple Music on the iPhone. Financial times reported this morning that the fine comes after regulators in Brussels, Belgium, investigated a complaint from Spotify that Apple was preventing apps from telling users about cheaper alternatives to Apple's music service.
The problem boils down to Apple's efforts to keep apps and users corralled within its App Store payments system. Spotify complained in 2019 that Apple's policies silenced competition against Apple Music, launching an EU investigation the following year. The EU lowered its objections to oppose Apple's refusal to allow developers to even link to their own subscription records within their apps, a policy Apple changed in 2022 following regulatory pressure in Japan.
$500 million may seem like a lot, but a much larger fine, close to $40 billion (or 10 percent of Apple's annual global revenue), was on the table when the E.U. updated his objections last year. Apple was charged more than $1 billion in 2020, but French authorities reduced that figure to about $366 million after the company appealed.
Apple representative Emma Wilson said The edge via email that the company “does not comment on speculation” and referred us to earlier statements made by another Apple spokesperson, Hannah Smith, who he said in February of last year that the company hoped the Commission would stop pursuing the case, which Smith said “has no merit.” European Commission spokeswoman Lea Zuber declined to comment.
Spotify did not respond by press time.
