Brazil's antitrust regulator is set to fine Apple if in-app purchase restrictions aren't l...

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Apple has only 20 days to open up in-app purchases, or it could face $43k in fines per day if it fails to comply with the Brazil antitrust regulator's ruling.

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In 2022, e-commerce merchant MercadoLibre filed an antitrust complaint with Brazilian regulators. The complaint was picked up in 2023 by antitrust regulator Conselho Administrativo de Defesa Economica (CADE), and a ruling has been handed out on Monday.

According to a report from Reuters, CADE has ruled that Apple must lift restrictions on in-app payment methods and steering customers to external websites. The company has 20 days to comply or face a fine of about $43,000 per day.

Apple's anti-steering practices have been under fire for years from multiple countries. The most prominent lawsuit was handled in the United States in Epic vs Apple, but the EU antitrust laws forced Apple to develop an entirely new commission system.

The EU's success and the slow erosion of Apple's rules in the US have sparked more antitrust regulators to attempt to achieve similar results. Now that Apple has a system for removing anti-steering rules or changing the in-app purchase system, it could adapt them to other countries.

The Coalition for App Fairness congratulated Brazil's CADE for its decision, calling it a pivotal moment.

"This is a pivotal moment in the global effort to create a more competitive mobile app ecosystem," a press release read. "Brazil joins a long list of brave jurisdictions eager to reform app store practices to the benefit of consumers and developers. CADE's decision reflects a growing global consensus that essential government intervention can create fair and competitive digital marketplaces."

Apple may have to rethink how it monetizes the App Store entirely if more global regulators ask it to remove rules from its guidelines. Regulators hope these measures against Apple will help promote competition and provide users with choice, while Apple argues it increases consumer risk and gives developers free access to Apple's user base.




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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 6
    JamesCudeJamesCude Posts: 74member
    All of these regulators should prove how companies other than Apple built this ecosystem in the first place and invested all the money to make it so popular. Yet they expect it to be a free and open market that they didn’t do anything to make exist.
    Cesar Battistini Mazierodewme
  • Reply 2 of 6
    Cesar Battistini MazieroCesar Battistini Maziero Posts: 406member
    I live in Brazil. Our country is ruled by thieves. No wonder they want free money.
  • Reply 3 of 6
    nubusnubus Posts: 618member
    Cesar Battistini Maziero said:
    I live in Brazil. Our country is ruled by thieves. No wonder they want free money.
    Apple is "we sold you an iPhone so you can only buy apps from us and we have placed a 43% tax on developers". Imagine if you had to use a LG shop to buy Netflix or a Ford shop to buy gas for your car "for your safety". We would never accept any of it.
  • Reply 4 of 6
    PERockwellPERockwell Posts: 38member
     nubus said:
    Apple is "we sold you an iPhone so you can only buy apps from us and we have placed a 43% tax on developers". 
    Nice use of how to use numbers to fit a narrative.  Take the markup and use that as a percentage of the developer's proceeds and use that to inflate the percentage and call it a tax. I guess that any markup by a retailer over the wholesale transaction cost would be considered by your calculations to be  a "tax" on the wholesale price..  

    dewme
  • Reply 5 of 6
    aijwsaijws Posts: 16member
    It's less than $15 Million a Year at that rate. Pay the Fine and Ignore them. 
  • Reply 6 of 6
    davidwdavidw Posts: 2,115member
    nubus said:
    I live in Brazil. Our country is ruled by thieves. No wonder they want free money.
    Apple is "we sold you an iPhone so you can only buy apps from us and we have placed a 43% tax on developers". Imagine if you had to use a LG shop to buy Netflix or a Ford shop to buy gas for your car "for your safety". We would never accept any of it.

    What a bunch of BS EU thinking.

    Imagine if you had to buy a Costco membership to buy Kirkland brand products. Wait a minute, that's the way it is.

    I have two Mercedes and there are many parts on them that are only available from the dealer. Even if I have the work done at an independent auto shop, they have to go to the dealer to get the part and then they will mark it up. See if you can buy a key(fob) for a Mercedes from anywhere else except a dealer.  You can't even buy a blank fob and have it programed at a locksmith, like many Japanese autos. This in order  to save on Mercedes $350 programing fee.

    If Fords ran on a special blend of gas that only Ford makes, then there's nothing at all wrong with buying a Ford and only being able to buy gas at a Ford station. So long as no one is forcing you to buy a Ford and Ford don't have a monopoly in the auto market. That's the iPhone and iOS. But if the iPhone can run on other  OS's (and this is a selling point) and Apple only allow you to buy iOS apps from the Apple App Store for it, then you would have the case where Ford forced you to buy gas at their Ford gas stations. That is not at all like the Apple, iOS, their iPhones and the Apple App Store. The iPhone that only runs on Apple iOS is not at all like a Ford that can run on any brand of gas. 

    Why don't you tell us one sale system where the owner of the products that they sell in stores that they don't own, get to keep 70% of the selling price.

    You think Sony get 70% of the sale price when their TV's are sold at BestBuy? You think the artist get to keep 70% of the sale price of their CD's sold at Target? Or authors get to keep 70% of the price of their hardbound books sold on Amazon? Or Coca Cola get 70% of the price of their soda sold in a supermarket? You think the concert performers get 70% of the price of the tickets for their show? LOL

    So far, your analogies are worst that your fuzzy math.

    The bottom line is that with app stores (both Apple and Google), the developers get to set the price of their apps. And if the developer is not making a profit selling apps in the apps stores, it's because they are not charging enough to pay for the cost of the commission, the cost of their rent, the cost of their computers, the cost of their electrical bill, the cost of hiring help and all the other cost of running a profitable business.  As a rule, no business pays taxes. The amount of tax is passed on to their customers. It's the app stores customers that ultimately pays for the developer commission, rent, electrical bill, any hired help and all the developers business expenses. It would be different if the developer can not set the price of their apps in order to take all their business expenses into consideration.


    And do a little research. 90% of the developer that have an App in the Apple App Store, do not pay any commission to Apple because their apps are free. 7% of the developers only pay a 15% commission. Only 3% of the developers pays a 30% commission and these 3% of developers are more often than not, making 10's of millions on dollars with their apps in the Apple App Store. You sticking up for these 3% would be like sticking up for the multi- millionaires that complains about paying 37% income tax on their AGI, to the US Federal government.

    90% of the apps being free is good for the customers (both iOS and Android) and one of the main reason why Apple and Google can afford to have this is because the 3% of developers subsidizes the cost of hosting the free apps.


    edited November 29
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