Meta, Microsoft, X and Match Group challenge Apple over app store terms

WASHINGTON CNN —

Apple is ignoring a court order aimed at restructuring the U.S. iPhone maker's app store, according to court filings by rival tech giants including Meta, Microsoft, X and dating app company Match Group. ing.

The filing says Apple deliberately sidestepped the spirit of its original order, which was meant to unleash competition by forcing app makers to communicate with users about sales and promotions in a specific way. It is criticized as such.

The order was effectively upheld by the Supreme Court earlier this year when the justices refused to hear a case involving Apple and Epic Games, the maker of the hit video game Fortnite. But Epic and four other technology companies argue that Apple's plans to comply with the order are a sham.

According to a friend of the court Wednesday, Apple's plan still includes rules that the court has explicitly found to be anticompetitive, ensuring that the price competition the injunction was intended to encourage will never occur. It imposes new restrictions on app developers that guarantee that this will not happen.

In the lawsuit accompanying the filing, the companies argued that Apple's proposed app store rule changes would have far-reaching real-world implications for all app developers and their users, not just gaming apps.

The filing follows the tech company behind Epic Games, which sued Microsoft in 2021 after its flagship game Fortnite was banned from Apple's app store over a dispute over Fortnite's billing methods. This was done to provide support to the Epic alleges that Apple is violating a court order requiring it to review app store practices deemed anti-competitive.

Asked for comment, Apple referred CNN to documents it filed in January in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. That document proves Apple complied with the court order.

Some of the world's most prominent technology companies are jumping into this debate, even after the Supreme Court declined to intervene and repealed landmark regulations affecting Apple in Europe. It highlights that the long-running high-stakes battle over app stores is far from over. It takes effect.

It also reflects growing criticism of Apple that efforts to regulate the company have led to a kind of begrudging compliance, with Apple declaring it has met its legal obligations but others. It's just a method designed to irritate people.

Meta argued in its filing that it should be allowed to inform users about how to pay for boosted posts on its platform through means other than Apple's in-app purchase system. Mehta said boosted posts are typically used by small businesses to promote their products on Facebook and Instagram. In February, Metaannouncedit planned to pass on Apple's fees, effectively increasing the price of boosted posts by 30%.

Microsoft said Apple's plan would prevent it from driving users to Microsoft-owned payment platforms, which can offer better promotions, discounts and ways to manage subscriptions.

X said Apple's new fee structure would eat into the income of independent content creators. Match Group also said Apple's proposal would affect thousands of other developers and their millions of users and frustrate the purpose of the injunction.

In January, Apple announced changes to its App Store terms to allow apps to include call-to-action buttons or links that direct customers to payment methods for in-app content other than those controlled by Apple.

But Meta, Microsoft, X, and Match Group say the details of Apple's plan lead to an outcome not much different from the current situation.

For example, Wednesday's brief said Apple's proposal to require app developers to apply for permission to link to other payment systems still imposes restrictions governing every aspect of how apps communicate with users. Ta. As part of the plan, Apple also agreed to reduce app store fees by 30%, but the new fees are still 27%.

This alone renders external links functionally ineffective as a means of directing customers to alternative payment options, and directly undermines the court's goal of creating price competition, the filing states.

Apple's new terms also continue to prohibit app makers from directing customers to third-party websites like PayPal to complete transactions, the companies added.

On Wednesday, Apple suggested there was nothing in the court order prohibiting it from designing the proposal that way.

Apple referred to CNN some of the January filings it pointed to. The court said it did not intend to micromanage the new framework and that Apple would build new terms to protect the security and privacy of its users.

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