Apple faces Mexican competition probe over App Store fees
Apple, along with Google, may face yet another competition probe from regulators in Mexico, after a former telecommunications chief filed a complaint against tech giants on Friday.
The complaint, brought to Mexico's telecoms regulator IFT on Thursday, has Mony de Swaan Addati accusing Apple and Google of "completely inhibiting competition, by abusing their App Store monopoly to force the use of their own payment services for in-app payments.
The complaint, seen by Reuters claims the Google Play Store and Apple's App Store charge between 15% and 20% commission, which in turn forces price inflation.
Addati was previously the head of the telecommunications federation that existed before being replaced by the IFT.
He claims Mexico's competition regulator declined to open an investigation into the matter, therefore prompting a turn toward the IFT over the matter.
"I have full confidence that (the IFT) will investigate and exercise its powers, in line with international best practices, so that these companies stop abusing their market power to the detriment of developers and consumers," said Addati.
If the complaint turns into an investigation, it would be the latest Apple and other tech companies would face, with a number of other regulators around the world also casting an eye on Apple's various activities within the app ecosystem.
For example, in the UK, the Competition and Markets Authority said in June it would investigate Apple and Google's App Store duopoly. In Europe, EU antitrust regulators believe Apple is in violation of competition laws for giving Apple Music an unfair advantage, among other claims.
In August, developers in France launched a class action lawsuit against Apple over App Store fees and policies.
Read on AppleInsider
The complaint, brought to Mexico's telecoms regulator IFT on Thursday, has Mony de Swaan Addati accusing Apple and Google of "completely inhibiting competition, by abusing their App Store monopoly to force the use of their own payment services for in-app payments.
The complaint, seen by Reuters claims the Google Play Store and Apple's App Store charge between 15% and 20% commission, which in turn forces price inflation.
Addati was previously the head of the telecommunications federation that existed before being replaced by the IFT.
He claims Mexico's competition regulator declined to open an investigation into the matter, therefore prompting a turn toward the IFT over the matter.
"I have full confidence that (the IFT) will investigate and exercise its powers, in line with international best practices, so that these companies stop abusing their market power to the detriment of developers and consumers," said Addati.
If the complaint turns into an investigation, it would be the latest Apple and other tech companies would face, with a number of other regulators around the world also casting an eye on Apple's various activities within the app ecosystem.
For example, in the UK, the Competition and Markets Authority said in June it would investigate Apple and Google's App Store duopoly. In Europe, EU antitrust regulators believe Apple is in violation of competition laws for giving Apple Music an unfair advantage, among other claims.
In August, developers in France launched a class action lawsuit against Apple over App Store fees and policies.
Read on AppleInsider
Comments
The Mexico government wants to take more money?
Just following the EU.
Sheesh. If there's a government, no matter. how well or poorly run, they all want a bite of the Apple.
People here mix “the economy” with “hardware/software ecosystem”.
The only hypocrisy is that XBOX/PS5 seem to be skipped in these probes, but it’s easy to see that will change once anti-trust probes into Apple/Google lead to successful outcomes forcing ecosystems to open up stores, payment systems, etc.
It takes a legal verdict that finds that it’s a monopoly.
Monopoly means there is no CHOICE.
I am not a lawyer, but I did take a class in business law in college. And I remember I was awake that day they discussed the ATT&T case.
https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/06/16/321819185/on-the-census-who-checks-hispanic-who-checks-white-and-why
I think the word you want to use is "Xenophobic". That could be your new word of the day.
Plus, the article stated that the Mexico competition regulator declined to investigate the matter. So the complaint was brought forth to Mexico IFT (Federal Institute of Telecommunication) . Right now, there is no indication that this government branch in charge of Mexico's telecommunication industries, will not be interested in investigating this complaint. Mony Swaan Addatti, the person bringing forth this complaint, seems to think they will. He was once in charge of this branch of Mexico government, before they changed the name to IFT.
Hardware wise, Apple don't even come close to "dominating" the "hardware economy", in the entire mobile phone economy.
https://www.counterpointresearch.com/global-smartphone-share/
And in the entire mobile phone economy, the Google Pixel barely registers and falls under "Other". And all the hardware makers in "Other" when combined, sells more hardware than Apple. In fact, if you were to add Apple iPhone with that of Google Pixel, the total would still be less than that of Samsung.
If by "software" you mean the mobile OS, then there is no "economy" when it comes to mobile OS. This is not like Windows and the original Mac OS where both were sold independent of the hardware. Here, neither Google or Apple makes money selling Android or iOS. Both are for free. Google having Android available as Open Source and Apple giving iOS licenses for free to iPhone users. (you don't even have to be the original purchaser of an iPhone to get multiple iOS versions for free.)
This is why we don't have anyone else developing another OS for mobile phones. You can't compete with free. There's no money to be made developing another mobile OS, unless you also make your own hardware. And that hardware will have to compete with all the other mobile phones hardware makers, that don't have to pay to develop an OS because they're using Android (for free).
If the likes of Microsoft, Facebook and Amazon couldn't come up with a competing mobile phone (and all three tried, even though Amazon and Facebook were Android), then there's very little hope that anyone else can or will. Microsoft teaming up with Nokia had the best chance and some had predicted that Microsoft Windows phones would over take Apple and Google by 2018. But that didn't happen. This was a team consisting of one of the biggest software company and a mobile phone company that once had over 50% of the market and it didn't even amount to a speed bump, in Android and iOS eventually becoming the dominate two OSes in the mobile phone market.
And think outside the box for once. You think developers want more than two mobile OSes? Or that consumers wants more than two mobile OSes to choose from? Think again. Right now, developers only have to develop for two mobile OSes in order to reach over 95% of mobile device users (and that includes China) What if there were 5 mobile OSes and developers might end up needing to develop for 4 of them, to even reach 85% of the mobile users? Would that make developers happy? And what if you're a consumer that prefer the mobile OS that have less than 10% of the market. Good luck getting all the developers to develop for your mobile OS of choice. (That's the same scenario Mac users were facing when they were less than 5% of the World desktop computers.)
Remember, at one time (about 2012-2013), consumers had the choice of 5 mobile phone OSes. iOS, Android, Symbian, Blackberry OS and Windows. If all five OSes were around today, you think developers or consumers, would be better off?
Apple and Google have done little to make it impossible for a third or more competitors to emerge, indeed they have set standards that competitors could greatly benefit from (20 percent store commission as an example), except that said competitors will need to a) be well-funded from startup and b) come up with products and technologies that are superior. That’s it, that’ll all you have to do. David Pogue said it best: “we’re not Apple fans, we’re elegance fans. The moment a company comes along that does what Apple does better and cheaper than Apple does it, we’re gone.”
So far, the biggest threat I’ve seen was from Nothing, whose big idea was to take a pretty average, underpowered Android phone and add blinky lights to the back. Despite oddly massive amounts of press (I’ll save my suspicions on that for later), guess what happened? The inevitable happened, that’s what. The last viable competitors to Apple and Android on the phones front, BlackBerry and Windows Phone, died their own deaths in the market with absolutely no nefarious schemes from either Google or Apple.
thats called success.