Apple this week updated its App Store rules to comply with a court order after the Supreme Court refused to hear an antitrust case brought by Epic Games against Apple over commissions. As a result, developers can now promote alternative payment methods for in-app purchases and subscriptions through links or buttons within their iOS apps. But Apple’s compliance comes with several caveats, including technical requirements, an application process, and even what kind of apps will be allowed to direct customers to their websites. In court filingApple details its new rules for developers noting, among other things, that apps participating in the existing Video Partners and News Partners program are not eligible to use the Link Right.
This appears to violate a court order requiring Apple to remove the “anti-directive” clause from its agreement with App Store developers. This clause previously prevented developers from directing customers to a link, button or other call to action within their app that offered them another way to pay for in-app purchases, subscriptions or other virtual goods beyond the in-app Apple’s purchase mechanism.
But in its place is a complicated process that requires app developers to apply for permission to include the link or button they want, through something called Right to connect StoreKit external marketplace.
Apple has used permissions to create exceptions to its App Store rules — for example, last year when it allowed “reader” apps (apps that provide access to digital content such as audio, music, video, books and more) to show on an external website where customers could manage their accounts with app developers. It also used the right to make an exception for dating apps in the Netherlands when it was ordered to allow developers to direct users to other purchase options if they choose.
In the case of the new US-based Link Right, Apple again requires that it first review which apps can include external links and review how they have been implemented. Apple can do this because the court said it didn’t plan to “micro-manage” Apple’s new framework. He also said that Apple was still allowed to require developers to use IAP (Apple’s payment platform) for in-app transactions and could “take steps to protect users” from new threats arising from sending consumers to websites to process their payments.
The latter has led to what Epic Games calls “intimidation screens” intended to discourage users from transacting outside of the App Store.
Someone should add this to the Wikipedia entry: “malicious compliance”
— Snazzy Labs (@SnazzyLabs) January 17, 2024
But the new Link Entitlement also includes several other rules, including that Apple can approve which apps are eligible and which aren’t.
Developers seeking to add links to other purchase options in their app must provide Apple with details about the app, the app’s unique identifier (package ID), the link they want to include, and the domain to which users will be directed of the website domain.
The site would have to be one that “the developer owns or responsibly maintains,” Apple explains in the court filing, which seems to mean that a developer wouldn’t be able to drop a customer directly to a PayPal payment screen, for example. Instead, whatever mechanism they chose to provide for payments would have to be on their own website. This is also mentioned in detail the support page for the new right where developers are instructed that links must go to their site “without redirect or intermediate links or landing page”.
The page also can’t mimic Apple’s in-app purchases system — nor, in case Apple polices what developers post on their own sites — “discourage users from using it.”
In addition, payment processors must meet “certain industry standards,” Apple says, and must provide users with processes to dispute unauthorized transactions, manage subscriptions and request refunds. This part looks good as it is more in line with Apple’s goal of protecting users from potential subscription scams.
One interesting tidbit, however, is that Apple notes in the filing that “apps participating in the Apple Video Partner Program or the News Partner Program are not eligible for the Link Right — an exception also documented in support page for the US StoreKit Link Right
Apple Video Partners they already pay a 15% commission rate to Apple when customers sign up through IAP and their customers are allowed to make in-app transactions for things like rentals and purchases using the payment method registered with the company if the customer was already signed up with an out-of-app payment method.
News Partners, meanwhile, too qualify for a 15% commission rate from day oneinstead of the second year as with other subscription offers.
It is interesting to note that participating in these programs means that developers must continue to follow the rules of these programs rather than being offered the ability to trade their paid links in-app as others can.
Apple’s rights rules also require developers to display the link to the alternative payment mechanism “on no more than one application page to which the end user navigates (not an interstitial, modal or pop-up page), in a single, exclusive location on such page and may not remain beyond that page,” Apple wrote.
Additionally, Apple provides developers with compliant templates where they can tell their users that clicking the link will give them “X% discount” or that a “lower price” is being offered through the link. But Apple warns developers that the standards are not being used to make “subjective claims” about its competitive purchasing mechanism — again, an example of Apple’s policing of how developers are allowed to talk to their own customers.
Since the court ruled that Apple was entitled to commissions even if the IAP was optional, Apple was able to set its own rate for purchases of goods and services outside the app store. Specifically, it will claim a 27% commission on what happens on a developer’s website within 7 days of a user clicking on an external link. This is the most notable caveat of the set of options offered by Apple because it leaves developers in a better position does not include any link in their application. The developer would only save money if they could get users to subscribe to their sites without by clicking an in-app link, as the cost of doing their own payment processing could push the total even higher than Apple’s standard 30% commission.
Epic, Spotify and a related app developer lobby group, the Coalition for App Fairness, have challenged how Apple has complied with the court order, with Epic calling its compliance “in bad faith” and Spotify calling it “outrageous” and “abusive.”
That might be, but knowing Apple’s lawyers, it’s possible and legal.
