A non-profit organisation has filed an antitrust case against Apple over in-app payment concerns.
The petitioner says that the 30% commission rate harms customers and app developers, creating barriers to entry and increasing costs. The iPhone-maker has been the subject of similar lawsuits in other markets like the European Union, while regulators in South Korea and Japan have used the law to force the company to concede.
According to a report, the antitrust case against Apple was filed by a relatively less known non-profit group, “Together We Fight Society”, based in Rajasthan. "The existence of the 30% commission means that some app developers will never make it to the market. This could also result in consumer harm,” the group was quoted as saying. The case has been filed with the Competition Commission of India, a statutory body of the Indian government set up to promote competition and prevent activities that have an adverse effect on competition.
The group that filed the case suggests that Apple’s 30% commission acts as a barrier for app developers while also hurting customers. "These payments and policies act as a hindrance for many developers due to which they never make it to the market," said Rakesh Deshmukh, co-founder of Indus App Bazaar, an Indian alternative app store.
Apple has already buckled under pressure and conceded to some extent when it comes to in-app payments in Japan, allowing apps and services like Netflix, Spotify and Kindle link to their web pages to accept payments from their respective subscribers. This means that Apple will not be able to take a cut of the payments that these services receive from their subscribers in Japan. However, the concession is only limited to “reader apps” such as these, so there’s still a long way to go as far as in-app payments across the App Store are concerned.
