Unreservedly accusing the Apple firm “to stifle competitionthrough the rules in force in the App Store, Spotify has asked the British competition watchdog to open an investigation. The Swedish firm wants to obtain justice, after recalling that it had launched the same procedure with the European Commission – for almost four years, without any reaction since.
With 450 million users, according to its data, Spotify will have had to make multiple changes to its app to avoid paying the 30% levied by Apple for each transaction. In an earlier version, yet validated by the App Store, sales were made by email, sent to customers.
“Apple has once again demonstrated how willing it is to modulate the rules of its App Store, constantly changing the way it works to disadvantage its competitors.“says Daniel Ek, CEO of Spotify.
According to the Telegraph, Spotify executives have met with the CMA (Competition and Markets Authority) to raise their concerns and expedite the investigation process. However, the timing is good, since the latter has opened an investigation into the fees charged by Apple on in-app purchases.
For its part, Apple continues to play the watch, ensuring that the application had been rejected because of its non-compliance – although the operators of the App Store have largely communicated to developers the procedures to be followed.
Tesla, or are you not there?
And here comes a completely unexpected player to lend his support to the music, podcast and audiobook streaming service: in two tweets, Elon Musk expressed his concerns about Apple’s business practices, and at the same time brought his full support for Spotify’s situation, deemed “worrying”.
Three, four words will have been enough to ignite the planet of the blue bird – especially since on several occasions, the question of the 30% tax levied has been the subject of attacks from the billionaire.
“It’s literally 10 times higher than it should be“, he assured last May…
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