EU Fines Apple €1.8 Billion for Limiting Music Streaming
spotify filed a complain
The European Union fined Apple €1.8 billion for unfairly hurting competitors in the music streaming industry. This is the first time the EU has penalized the tech giant.
The trouble started when Spotify complained to regulators in 2019. Spotify, a popular music streaming service from Sweden, said Apple’s rules for its App Store were bad for customers and violated competition laws. After a long investigation, the EU agreed with Spotify.
Brussels, the capital of Belgium and the administrative center of the European Union, announced on Monday that Apple had unfairly stopped app makers from telling iPhone and iPad users about cheaper music subscription options available outside the App Store. These rules, called “anti-steering” provisions, are against EU rules meant to promote fair competition.
Margrethe Vestager, the EU’s top official in charge of competition, said, “For ten years, Apple misused its powerful position in the market for distributing music streaming apps through the App Store.
They did this by stopping developers from telling people about other, cheaper music services that aren’t part of Apple’s system. This breaks the EU’s rules against unfair competition, so today we fined Apple more than €1.8 billion.
This big fine is the third-largest ever given by the European Commission, which is the EU’s executive branch. It’s much bigger than what was expected. Some reports thought the fine would be around €500 million.
Along with the fine, the commission told Apple to let other music services advertise cheaper deals outside of the App Store.
But this isn’t the end of the argument. Apple says they’ll appeal the decision.
