At the moment, IT giants Apple and Google own the largest stores of games and applications for mobile devices. Having monopolized this market, companies use this status to their advantage, however, they increasingly face opposition from the authorities and smaller corporations.
New law could force Apple to allow third-party stores
So, recently, a bill was introduced to the US Congress to eliminate the dominance of companies promoting their services and goods. The law is intended to regulate some relationships, in particular:
• remove restrictions on applications for publishing in stores in case the program uses a third-party system for internal transactions;
• allow installation not only from official sites;
• enable software authors to advertise discounted service fees through third-party platforms.
At the same time, the bill gives permission to store owners to use their own payment systems inside programs, if security requires it.
Discussion about the document is taking place in parallel with the study of several cases on lawsuits against Apple and Google in the States and the European Union.
Epic vs. Apple
The highly successful Fortnite Battle Royale was removed from the App Store and Google Play in the summer of 2020. This happened due to the fact that the publisher of the Epic Games project introduced its own transaction system into the game, which allowed platforms to not pay a commission of 30%. And if for Android users the action was still available in the form of an APK file, then for owners of Apple devices this was not possible. As a result, Epic filed a lawsuit against the Cupertinians and called on other major video game developers to join.
At the moment, the court has just heard the arguments of the parties, the final decision has not yet been made. The likelihood of breaking a corporate monopoly is extremely small, since antitrust laws in their current form do not allow this.
Situation in Russia
The trial between Yandex and Google also became a rather remarkable event, although it did not directly concern the app store. The domestic company accused the American corporation of banning the replacement of its services on Android devices with third-party software, since in case of a violation, Google closes access to its own trading platform.
FAS obliged the American company not to prohibit the installation of competitors' programs by manufacturers wishing to use Google Play. Also, it is no longer possible to place google search on the main desktop screen by default. In addition, it is necessary to provide access to the store for smartphones and tablets that do not have the Google Mobile Services package.
Since 2019, Russia has a law that prescribes the installation of domestic software on all smartphones. It does not work at full capacity yet, but soon Apple will have to deal with it, since their devices do not provide for the expansion of the software package.
New law could force Apple to allow third-party stores
So, recently, a bill was introduced to the US Congress to eliminate the dominance of companies promoting their services and goods. The law is intended to regulate some relationships, in particular:
• remove restrictions on applications for publishing in stores in case the program uses a third-party system for internal transactions;
• allow installation not only from official sites;
• enable software authors to advertise discounted service fees through third-party platforms.
At the same time, the bill gives permission to store owners to use their own payment systems inside programs, if security requires it.
Discussion about the document is taking place in parallel with the study of several cases on lawsuits against Apple and Google in the States and the European Union.
Epic vs. Apple
The highly successful Fortnite Battle Royale was removed from the App Store and Google Play in the summer of 2020. This happened due to the fact that the publisher of the Epic Games project introduced its own transaction system into the game, which allowed platforms to not pay a commission of 30%. And if for Android users the action was still available in the form of an APK file, then for owners of Apple devices this was not possible. As a result, Epic filed a lawsuit against the Cupertinians and called on other major video game developers to join.
At the moment, the court has just heard the arguments of the parties, the final decision has not yet been made. The likelihood of breaking a corporate monopoly is extremely small, since antitrust laws in their current form do not allow this.
Situation in Russia
The trial between Yandex and Google also became a rather remarkable event, although it did not directly concern the app store. The domestic company accused the American corporation of banning the replacement of its services on Android devices with third-party software, since in case of a violation, Google closes access to its own trading platform.
FAS obliged the American company not to prohibit the installation of competitors' programs by manufacturers wishing to use Google Play. Also, it is no longer possible to place google search on the main desktop screen by default. In addition, it is necessary to provide access to the store for smartphones and tablets that do not have the Google Mobile Services package.
Since 2019, Russia has a law that prescribes the installation of domestic software on all smartphones. It does not work at full capacity yet, but soon Apple will have to deal with it, since their devices do not provide for the expansion of the software package.
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