Music streaming service Deezer He joins Spotify in cheering the European Union’s €1.84 billion fine imposed on Apple for violating antitrust rules in the music streaming market. However, the company is urging the EU Commission to assess Apple’s response to the Digital Marketing Act (DMA), which it says is “misleading” and “an attempt to circumvent European regulations”.
In a announcement issued todayDeezer CEO Jeronimo Folgueira only cautiously praised the incoming fine, noting: “It’s very positive to see that the EU is taking action against Apple and showing a readiness to impose severe sanctions on anti-competitive practices.”
However, the music streaming executive also pushed the EU Commission to review Apple’s DMA terms in light of this new fine to make clear that what Apple has proposed is not enough to comply with the new regulation.
Apple’s new DMA rules, introduced in January, are a complex means of providing a path for app developers to distribute apps from alternative app markets. Along with changes to Apple’s rules and procurement structure, the company introduced new business terms for developers who choose to opt out of Apple’s App Store. If developers choose the DMA terms, they will have to pay a new “Basic Technology Fee”, which charges them €0.50 for each first annual app install per year, above the 1 million threshold. Rather than leveling the playing field for developers, as the DMA intended, this fee ensures that Apple can still tap the revenue of larger businesses that operate outside of its App Store.
Deezer is among those developers who wrote an open letter to the EC last week, claiming that Apple was “ridiculing” DMA. Other signatories include Epic Games, 37signals, Proton, Spotify and others, who collectively urged the EC to take “swift, timely and decisive action against Apple” to protect developers.
The streaming company reiterated its complaints in a company blog post, which was updated to comment on the new fine, saying that Apple’s DMA rules are an “attempt to circumvent the new regulation with an alternative to the current business term.” He points out that although Apple has reduced its commission, it has introduced a new fee – the basic technology fee – which is “excessive” and “makes it prohibitively expensive for any app business to scale profitably”.
As a result, Deezer said it saw no benefit from moving to Apple’s DMA rules.
Few developers have publicly said they will switch to Apple’s new terms.
So far, we’ve only heard from MacPaw, the maker of a subscription service for apps, Setapp, which announced it was switching to Apple’s DMA terms last week. Today, Germany-based mobivention said it will also introduce an alternative app market for B2B and B2C iOS apps. However, larger developers such as Apple critics Spotify and Epic Games, as well as tech companies such as Meta, Mozilla and Microsoft criticized Apple’s new rules.
