Apple loosens App Store grip on outside offers and fee structure after Rs 5007.35 crore EU fine

India Today

a day ago

Apple has eased its App Store rules in the European Union after being fined 500 million (which is around Rs 5,007 crore) by EU antitrust regulators. The company was also ordered to stop blocking developers from directing users to alternative payment systems. The changes, which were announced on Thursday, are Apple's attempt to comply with the EU's stritct Digital Markets Act (DMA) that aims to curb the power of large tech companies and promote fairer competition in digital markets. advertisementAccording to a report by Reuters, Apple said it will now allow developers in the EU to add as many links as they want in their apps, directing users to external websites to complete purchases. Developers who make sales this way will be charged a fee ranging from 5 per cent to 15 per cent, depending on the developer's size and the service used. For those continuing to use Apple's in-app purchase system, the fee will remain at 20 per cent, with small developers paying as low as 13 per cent under Apple's small business programme.The move comes as the European Commission warned Apple it had 60 days to comply with the DMA or face daily penalties of up to 5 per cent of its average global daily revenue – roughly 50 million per day.advertisement
'The European Commission is requiring Apple to make a series of additional changes to the App Store. We disagree with this outcome and plan to appeal,' Apple reportedly said in a statement. The company has already paid the 500 million fine imposed earlier this year.The Commission said it will now examine Apple's updated rules to assess whether they fully comply with the DMA. It also invited other market players and developers to share feedback on Apple's new terms. 'As part of this assessment the Commission considers it particularly important to obtain the views of market operators and interested third parties before deciding on next steps,' it said in a statement.However, not everyone is pleased with Apple's response. Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney, whose company had sued Apple in 2020 over antitrust issues, criticised the changes in a post on X. He described Apple's move as 'a mockery of fair competition,' claiming that apps using their own payment methods are still 'taxed and commercially crippled' within the App Store.
Sweeney also claims that Apple deliberately makes it difficult to use third-party apps by blocking auto-updates, weakening search, and disabling features like customer support and family sharing. He argues that this creates a poor user experience and hurts developers. As a solution, he proposes that all developers should have equal access to App Store features, be free to use any payment system, and only pay for Apple's actual payment services -- not additional fees.
In April 2025, a US federal judge delivered a major win for Sweeney's Epic Games in its long-running legal clash with Apple. After nearly five years, the court found that Apple had wilfully violated a 2021 injunction intended to make the App Store more open to competition. The judge said Apple's decision to enforce a 27 per cent fee on external purchases was driven by profit rather than user safety or innovation – the two arguments Apple has often used to defend its commission structure. As a result, the court referred the matter to federal prosecutors for a potential criminal contempt investigation. Apple has said it plans to appeal the decision.advertisementApple has also filed a separate legal challenge against the EU's broader demands to open up its tightly controlled ecosystem. The company argues that the Commission's rules are unreasonable, costly, and could undermine user privacy and security.'These deeply flawed rules that only target Apple – and no other company – will severely limit our ability to deliver innovative products and features to Europe,' the company said earlier this month.While Apple prepares to fight the EU in court, it will still have to comply with the Commission's order. That includes allowing competitors like Google, Meta, Spotify and Garmin to request access to key Apple technologies, and laying out a timeline for how Apple must respond to those interoperability requests. - Ends