Apple insists to EU antitrust regulators that it runs five App Stores, not one
Apple's November challenge against the EU's Digital Markets Act says the European Commission got it wrong by saying there's only one App Store, when there's actually five.
The Digital Markets Act is the European Union's attempt to level the playing field and increase competition by reducing the dominance of major tech firms. With Apple in the crosshairs, the iPhone maker has taken multiple actions to try and reduce the impact the rules has against its business.
In the latest report about Apple's challenges, it appears that it has taken offense to the European Commission's treatment of Apple's digital marketplaces, and is treating them all as one single platform.
Apple filed its legal challenge in November, but details of the filing were not made public at the time. On January 8, some details of the legal challenge were revealed.
The Commission made "material factual errors," Apple claims in its European General Court plea, reports Reuters. These errors include a conclusion "that the applicant's five App Stores are a single core platform service."
Apple's five stores cover iPhones, iPad, Mac, Apple TV, and the Apple Watch, the argument states, with each servicing a particular platform and device.
Under the DMA, Apple would be required to allow third parties to open their own app marketplaces on Apple's hardware, a potential pain point to Apple's future financials. By insisting each App Store is separate, it would give Apple a greater chance to reduce the user counts for each and to have more of its storefront empire free of DMA intervention.
This is not the first time Apple has tried to divide and conquer to beat the DMA. In November, it attempted to tell the EU that it has three separate browsers named Safari, though it found more solid ground in declaring it ran five distinct operating systems.
Apple also complained about the Commission designating iMessage as a number-independent interpersonal communications service (NIICS), which led to an investigation as to whether iMessage should have to deal with DMA rules too.
The iPhone maker argues that the NIICS designation doesn't apply, since it doesn't charge fees for the service, nor does Apple monetize it through hardware sales, no marketing, and not through processing personal data.
Apple did get an initial reprieve from the DMA in September, arguing that iMessage wasn't big enough to be classified as a gatekeeper service. EU officials have since attempted to determine whether the rules do actually apply to the messaging platform.
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Comments
I wonder what the EU's attitude is towards such lawyer-speak.
As for anything the EU does, it's time they quit trying to run another country's product line. I'm sorry but anything related to current computers and operating systems rarely is created in EU countries anymore. Sure, you can find a few high tech companies in the EU but not as many as before and nowhere near as many as in the USA.
Some in this forum seems to believe the Constitution reads "We the corporations". It doesn't.
* one in the EU where only EU developers could upload code, and
* one for the rest of the world where the rest of the world could sell there software.
Nobody from the EU could sell apps in the worldwide store, and nobody from outside the EU could sell apps in the EU store.
They are a pharmacy, a sporting goods store, eye glass store, clothing store, and a grocery store. So they're not really one Walmart store then?
I don't know. Stranger things have happened and some group of legal experts at Apple obviously thought it was worth a try.
That said, to the non expert, it does seem a bit silly. What's to stop them from making 'stores' for every category of app?
The games App Store
The sports App Store
The news App Store
The shopping App Store
...
They all run 'iOS' of sorts. They are all tied to AppleIDs. They are all subject to the same policy decisions. They all probably run off the same back end processing tools run by the same engineers.
To all intents and purposes it's the same 'App Store' with different branding.
But technicalities are technicalities.
As for the "European Union's attempt to level the playing field and increase competition by reducing the dominance of major tech firms" I find this just another attempt by a non-American company to force a successful American company to open their system for control by foreign country companies. I'm trying to think of one foreign country company that the USA forces the opening of their product so the US Government can access it. This is what the Digital Markets Act is all about and members of the EU simply refuse to acknowledge it. Apple makes one of the most secure and compatible computer operating system environments, something no EU company can match, so the only way to break into this environment is to force them to open it up. Once it's been opened up, it will no longer be secure. This is why Apple fights to stay closed, even fighting the US government, which I totally agree with.
Think about AAA games that are available on Windows, Playstation, Xbox and Switch.
Hell, Apple gift cards work across all their stores, it's very clear that they're a network.
This is a silly and transparent attempt to worm out on a manufactured technicality. This attempted avoidance of the issue does Apple no favours legally, just makes them look slimy.
It's not like GameStop. The Mac App Store only sells Mac versions of games. The iPhone App Store only sells iPhone versions of games. Etc.
And if you buy a Mac, Apple doesn't give you an iPhone/iPad/ATV/Watch along with it. You buy all those things separately.
So like Walmart...
-Walmart builds a store and sellers use its store shelves to sell their products with Walmart's permission, and with Walmart making a profit on every item sold.
-Apple builds a virtual store, and developers use its virtual shelves to sell their products with Apple's permission, and with Apple making a profit on every item sold.
The difference? Most of the Walmart store products, outside of the first-party ones, can be purchased at another big store, either virtual or physical, ones such as Target or Amazon.