A federal judge on Friday said Apple could no longer force developers to use its payment system in their apps, a ruling that will allow companies to avoid Apple’s commission of up to 30 percent on some app sales.
The decision could upend the economics of a $100 billion online market and is a major setback for Apple, which counts on revenue from its App Store to fuel its expansive profits. It is the latest but potentially most damaging loss for the company, which is facing increasingly pointed questions from regulators and politicians around the world about its business.
The order came as part of the ruling in a prominent legal case between Apple and Epic Games, the maker of the popular game Fortnite that sued Apple last year over its App Store policies.
In the ruling, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers of U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California said that Apple violated California’s laws against unfair competition by banning app developers from directing customers to other ways to pay for their services. She ordered that Apple must start letting developers include links in their apps to other payment methods within 90 days. Apple could seek to block the order before then.
But Judge Gonzalez Rogers ruled in favor of Apple on other counts, including that Apple did not have a monopoly in the market of mobile games. She also said that Epic breached its contract with Apple when it allowed Fortnite users to pay it directly, instead of via Apple, inside of its iPhone...
Read Full Story: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/10/technology/epic-apple-app-developers.html
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