US: House Judiciary Committee asks Spotify to detail complaint against Apple

The US House of Representatives has requested Spotify to detail any allegations of anti-competitive behavior from Apple, Reuters reported on Friday, October 4. The firm had filed a complaint with the European Union earlier this year, but there were no reports of stateside investigations until now.

Spotify’s service directly competes with Apple’s own built-in Music service, something which has served to rankle the company especially with Apple Music’s advantages over Spotify on iPhones and Macs.

According to Reuters, Spotify and other developers have alleged that Apple engages in anticompetitive behavior by imposing rules that hamper distribution via its App Store, the only way for third-party developers to reach more than 900 million iPhone users. 

At the same time, Apple sometimes copies the features of their apps for its own offerings, developers have claimedsaid. Multiple apps in the App Store offered female cycle tracking before Apple added the same feature to its own health tracking app this fall, for example.

Apple has stated it acts in the best interests of its users and treats all developers equally. It has denied Spotify’s claims and claims its streaming music rival is seeking to pay it nothing and play by a different set of rules than the millions of other apps on its App Store.

Apple has stated Spotify pays a revenue share on about half a percent of its 108 million premium users, paying 15% fees on roughly 680,000 customers that Spotify acquired between 2014 and 2016 when it used Apple’s payment systems. 

“Even now, only a tiny fraction of their subscriptions fall under Apple’s revenue-sharing model. Spotify is asking for that number to be zero,” Apple stated said in response to Spotify’s claims published in March.

Full Content: Reuters

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