SSince March 7th, the EU has been implementing its new Digital Markets Act (DMA – short for Digital Markets Act) – and on the first day the iPhone company Apple was targeted by the EU Commission: “Under the DMA “There is no room for threats from gatekeepers to silence developers,” EU Commissioner Thierry Breton wrote on X on Thursday evening. “I have asked our services to give priority to Apple’s termination of the Epic developer account.”
Breton took up a current dispute between the computer game studio Epic Games and Apple – and made it clear whose side he was on. Apple has been arguing with Epic Games and various other app developers for years about rules and compensation for access to its app store and thus to iOS devices.
The new Digital Markets Act regulates exactly which requirements so-called gatekeeper companies, i.e. companies with particularly high market shares and user numbers, must meet online. Among other things, Apple was ordered to allow alternative app stores on its iPhones through which users can install apps without Apple’s involvement.
“The gatekeeper must technically enable the installation and effective use of third-party software applications or software application stores that use or interact with its operating system,” the EU stipulates.
Now Epic Games, as one of the largest software developers for games in the world, wants to use the new rules to bring its own “Epic Games Store” to iOS devices in Europe.
“Untrustworthy” – Apple terminates Epic’s developer account in Europe
For this purpose, Epic registered a European developer account with Apple in Sweden. Apple then terminated the account on March 2nd in a letter from a New York law firm, citing Epic Games as the reason that the company was “not trustworthy”.
But after Breton commented on the matter, Apple backtracked: “After discussions with Epic, the company is committed to complying with the rules, including our policies on DMA. This means that Epic Sweden AB can sign the Developer Agreement again and will be included in the Apple Developer Program,” an Apple spokesman told the “heise online” platform on Friday evening.
The dispute between Apple and Epic has been taking place in various courts around the world for years. The background is that Epic rejects the revenue shares demanded by Apple as too high and is looking for ways to break through the strict rules of the App Store.
The fact that Apple is now terminating Epic’s European user account and then reopening it fits in with the bitter dispute between the two companies. In 2020, Apple had already banned Epic from iOS devices because Epic was looking for ways to sell players digital items in its blockbuster game “Fortnite” without Apple’s involvement.
In addition, Epic boss Tim Sweeney had recently criticized Apple’s implementation of the DMA rules as “hot garbage” and a “horror show”, as Apple also charges a so-called “technology fee” for successful developers in alternative app stores if you want to collect money from the installed app.
Epic had the email exchange between Sweeney and the manager responsible for the app store, Phil Schiller made public. Schiller explicitly cites Sweeney’s open criticism as a reason for refusing Epic the developer account. The fact that he now has to publicly backtrack shows how much Apple initially underestimated the EU’s determination to enforce the DMA.
EU Commissioner urges software developers to complain about gatekeepers
When it comes to enforcing the DMA rules, it doesn’t matter whether Epic has criticized Apple in the past or whether Epic has previously failed to comply with Apple’s house rules in the App Store.
The DMA requires gatekeeper companies in the EU to open access to their operating systems to other developers. From Breton’s point of view, combining this access with new rules is already a violation of the law.
“To all developers in Europe and worldwide: now is the time to comment on the gatekeepers’ compliance solutions!” writes the commissioner. He wants to collect complaints from developers for new proceedings against Apple.
At the same time, there were in one Write to Breton 34 large and small developers, including Spotify and Epic, have already complained about Apple’s overly arrogant implementation of the DMA rules: Apple would be making the EU rules “ridiculous” with its new fees and maliciously misinterpreting them. Apple is trying to comply with the rules formally, but not in the spirit of the EU legislators, according to the letter.
According to the DMA, Apple could face a fine of up to ten percent of its global annual turnover if it violates the law in the EU. That would currently correspond to a sum of around 40 billion euros, a penalty that would even hit Apple hard.
A decision from the beginning of the week shows that the EU has no inhibitions about imposing billions in fines on Apple: Based on a complaint from the streaming provider Spotify, the EU had already imposed a fine of 1.8 billion euros for abuse of market power at the beginning of the month was significantly higher than expected.
The responsible commissioner, Margrethe Vestager, explained the amount of the fine that the penalty should deter Apple from violating the rules in the future. She further said that the amount included a “lump sum” as a “deterrent.”
The message to Apple was more than clear: The EU wants to limit the market power of the large Internet companies. Anyone who tries to circumvent the new rules will face harsh consequences.
This article has been updated after Apple reinstated Epic’s European developer account.