Apple and Google face new rules governing how they run their smartphone software and app stores in the UK, as Britain’s antitrust agency looks to impose new European-style controls on the Big Tech companies.
The proposed interventions could trim fees of up to 30 percent that Apple and Google charge for digital transactions through their mobile app stores, as well as prevent them from designing their systems to favor their own apps and services.
The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority on Wednesday said it expected to designate the two Silicon Valley groups with “strategic market status” under the UK’s new digital markets regime, allowing the agency to impose conduct rules on the companies.
A final decision on this designation will be made in October, after which it will begin consulting on potential interventions.
Sarah Cardell, CMA chief executive, said the agency’s investigation had “identified opportunities for more innovation and choice” on smartphones.
These include allowing developers to direct customers to pay or subscribe to digital services outside the app stores and ensuring greater “interoperability” between Apple’s services and those of third parties, for instance in digital wallets and smartwatches.
The CMA will also examine smartphone-based artificial intelligence services, such as Apple’s Siri voice assistant and Google’s Gemini, “to ensure a level playing field in this rapidly advancing sector.”
However, the agency will delay until next year a key decision on whether to require Apple to allow apps to be distributed without going through its App Store at all, prompting criticism from some developer campaign groups.
Tim Sweeney, head of Fortnite developer Epic Games, which has had a long-running dispute with Apple over its payments system, said the CMA’s planned interventions were “surprisingly weak” and called the delayed decision on alternative app stores a “missed opportunity.”