Arizona bill may force Apple to allow third-party in-app purchase payments

Recently, a number of application or game developers filed anti-monopoly lawsuits against Apple, believing that Apple’s distribution of applications through the exclusive Apple App Store and commissions are suspected of being a monopoly.

We know that applications can only be downloaded through the Apple App Store on Apple mobile devices, and Apple has stipulated that developers must provide Apple with a 30% discount.

Therefore, developers cannot bypass Apple’s high commission, which is exactly the case, such as Epic and Spotify have filed antitrust complaints in the United States and the European Union.

In the United States also has developers are fighting the order earlier in the North Dakota Senate has proposed to the local legislative bodies for Apple to open up its application store.

In the end, the bill failed to pass. It is worth noting that although it failed in North Dakota, Arizona is also preparing a similar bill.

“The App Store” by Glen Bledsoe is licensed under CC BY 2.0

The bill discussed in Arizona does not force Apple to allow other app stores to be installed, but rather requires Apple to allow developers to use third-party payments.

That is, Arizona believes that it does not matter if Apple uses its own app store as an exclusive app distribution platform, but it cannot restrict developers from choosing other payment methods.

At present, Apple mandates that developers must use Apple’s in-app purchase system. Using Apple’s in-app purchase system requires a high commission. If you don’t want it, you can’t put it on the shelves.

It is also true that developers actually have no choice but to adopt Apple’s in-app purchase system, and the high commission problem harms the interests of developers and consumers at the same time.

The bill proposed by Arizona applies to all smartphone platforms and developers, including but not limited to Apple and Google, which will change the current situation.

For developers, which app store to distribute the app is not the most critical, as long as they can reduce the commission and increase their income, it is acceptable.

Therefore, this new bill is actually helping developers and consumers resist the technology giants and helping to combat the use of market advantages by technology giants to conduct monopolistic behavior.

At present, the bill is still under discussion and has not yet taken effect, and then local hearings and the local legislature may be required to vote for approval.

Via: appleinsider