Amsterdam, February 21: Apple was fined again for 5 million euros, which comes to about $5.7 million. The Dutch antitrust watchdog gave another fine to Apple Inc. over the App-store dispute. This acts as the fifth penalty in a row in consecutive weeks and was levied on Monday February 21. The penalties were over a row regarding access to non-Apple payment methods for users to subscribe to dating apps.
The iPhone maker was accused by the Authority for Consumers and Markets of exploiting its market position. Apple is said to be abusing its dominant position in the market by not granting permission to software application makers in the Netherlands. The application makers are not getting access to the use of other payment methods for dating apps which are available on Apple’s app store.
The ACM (Authority for Consumers and Markets) has been giving Apple weekly fines of about 5 million euros. This was since the tech giant missed the deadline of January 15 to update the changes which were requested.
The Dutch watchdog had mandated these changes to be made on the payment options. However, reports specify that the US tech company had not come up with any new proposal to adequately comply with the ruling from the previous week.
“We have clearly explained to Apple how they can comply…,” the watchdog said in a statement. “So far, however, they have refused to put forward any serious proposals.” Apple declined comment on Monday.
However, it appeared as if Apple had complied with the ruling from the Dutch watchdog from certain blog posts. It indicated that Apple had finally made the change of granting access to dating app makers to submit a new application. This new app would have the option of an alternative payment method enabled for users.
Apple clarified that despite the compliance, it has the intention to levy a 27% commission on any sort of in-app payments which it does not process. Comparatively, this is only a little below what Apple charges on those payments which they process, which is 30%. Apple’s moves had faced rejection from the ACM for being inconvenient. They resulted in putting an unreasonable pressure on software developers by not budging towards compliance.
With the controversy still not been settled, we still wait to see whether Apple actually brings suitable updates. On enquiry of whether these weekly fines were paid, both Apple and ACM have denied to comment. Insiders are now assuming that the fines are still outstanding.
