It was announced since March: American justice, which is after the App Store,chose to call the thinking heads of his editor to the stand. Objective: better understand the practices which govern the service, increasingly criticized for its positioning which some consideranti-competitive. But Cupertino had - at first - refused to send a member of its teams to the senators, asking for more time to prepare.
However, according to the magazine's journalistBloombergMark Gurman, Apple just changed its mind. Indeed, the firm finally agreed to provide the testimony of its vice-presidentKyle Andeer, also dubbed CCO (chief compliance officer). He had already been summoned to Capitol Hill in July 2019, again to answer questions related to an alleged monopoly. This time, however, it is on April 21 that he will speak to the senators.
What do we blame Apple for?
Concretely, if we base ourselves on the previous statements of Amy Klobuchar in charge of the opposition file,it is indeed the conditions of acceptance of applications on iOS which are in question. Moreover, even theGooglePlay Store on Android is singled out, so much so that Mountain View executives are also in the viewfinder. However, we still do not know what precise questions animate the accusation.
Assuming that the latest news has something to do with it, we can still estimate that the public clash between Apple and Epic Games will be taken as an example during the hearings. As a reminder, the video game studio behind the global success of Fortnite saw its flagship titlebanned from the App Storefor trying to circumvent thethirty percent commissioncharged by Apple on each in-app purchase.
Possible consequences
The aim of these interviews is therefore to carefully study the functioning of the App Store, but not to legislate accordingly, at least for the moment. So much so that we will probably still have to wait many months before seeing potential sanctions applied against GAFAM.
Only then could officials opt for a heavyfine, of the order of several hundred million to a few billion dollars. On the other hand, new regulations, whether or not based on case law, would then be able to better regulate the market, perhaps favoring the work of independent developers.
i-nfo.fr - Official iPhon.fr app
By : Keleops AG
