Apple DMA compliance may not satisfy regulators
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The Digital Markets Act forced companies like Apple , opened up opportunities for more competition, but the law led to new monetization and security concerns.
Apple's troubles with the Digital Markets Act have just begun as regulators scrutinize the company's every move to comply with the law. There seems to be some concern that Apple is trying to discourage developers from new contract options.
A Reuters interview with EU competition chief Margrethe Vestager showed that key aspects of the company's compliance with the DMA would be investigated. Apple in particular can be problematic with its fees and security warnings.
“There are things that we're very interested in, like whether Apple's new fee structure will actually somehow make it unattractive to take advantage of DMA,” Vestager said in an interview. “Those are the kinds of things we will investigate.”
The fee structure in question is Apple's core technology fee, which requires developers with more than 1 million app downloads to pay half a euro annually for each new download. This structure has caused concern among developers creating free apps who could be financially ruined by such fees.
Vestager is also unhappy with how Apple may discourage users from interacting with external app stores. Warnings alert users to security risks associated with using apps outside of the App Store.
“I think it's unreasonable to say that the services are unsafe to use because it has nothing to do with DMA,” Vestager said of the warnings. “The DMA exists to open up the market for other service providers to contact you, and as your service provider for your operating system, how they will keep it secure is up to them.”
Feedback from developers also helps the head of the EU competition authority decide what to investigate. Apparently, there has been a lot of feedback received from companies like Spotify and Epic in addition to loud complaints.
