Apple changes App Store rules in EU to comply with antitrust order
FILE PHOTO: An Apple logo is seen at the entrance of an Apple Store in downtown Brussels, Belgium March 10, 2016. REUTERS/Yves Herman/File Photo
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) -Apple on Thursday changed rules and fees in its App Store in the European Union after the bloc's antitrust regulators ordered it to remove commercial barriers to sending customers outside the store.
Apple said developers will pay a 20% processing fee for purchases made via the App Store, though the fees could go as low as 13% for Apple's small-business program.
Developers who send customers outside the App Store for payment will pay a minimum fee of 5% and at most 15%. Developers will also be able to use as many links as they wish to send users to outside forms of payment.
The changes are aimed at trying to help Apple avoid a 500 million euro ($570 million) fine threatened by EU antitrust regulatorsin April.
'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 said in a statement.
In a statement, the European Commission said it will now review Apple's changes for compliance with the Digital Markets Act.
"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," the Commission said in a statement.
In a statement posted on social media site X, Tim Sweeney, CEO of Epic Games, which fought a protracted antitrust lawsuit with Apple, called Apple's changes "a mockery of fair competition in digital markets. Apps with competing payments are not only taxed but commercially crippled in the App Store."
Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Sweeney's remarks.
(Reporting by Stephen Nellis in San Francisco and Foo Yun Chee in Brussels; Editing by Leslie Adler and Diane Craft)
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