CUPERTINO (dpa-AFX) - According to a court filing, Meta Platforms (META), Microsoft (MSFT), social networking site X, and dating app Match Group have accused Apple (AAPL) of planning to charge an extra fee on third-party payments.
Apple used to charge 30 percent commission on App Store purchases, but later due to a court ruling in the U.S. and Digital Markets Act in the European Union, it was forced to allow third-party payments. The tech giant now intends to take a commission of upto 27 percent for purchases from outside the App Store.
The filing claimed that Apple's new rule still contains elements that the previous court ruling had found 'to be anti-competitive and imposes new restrictions on app developers that ensure the price competition that the injunction was designed to promote will never materialize.'
The four corporations alleged that Apple's proposed plan 'will have broad real-world impacts on all app developers and their users - not just gaming apps.'
In the filing, Meta said that Apple should provide a third-party payment option for the company's users to pay for the 'ad-free plans' and 'boosted posts', which promote small business products on Facebook and Instagram.
Microsoft criticized Apple's move by stating that it prevents the company from directing the customers toward Microsoft-owned payment platforms 'where it could offer better promotions, discounts, or ways to manage their subscriptions.'
X, formerly Twitter, argued that the 27 percent commission would eat into most of the revenue of developers, whereas Match Group commented that Apple's proposal 'will impact many thousands of other developers and their millions of users, frustrating the injunction's purpose.'
Overall, the four firms agreed that Apple's newly proposed rules are not much different than the existing ones.
The filing comes a day after Apple was warned by the EU regulators regarding new fees it's charging from developers.
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