Amy Klobuchar, the top Senate Democrat on antitrust issues,
said Apple and Google can use their power to "exclude or suppress apps
that compete with their own products" and "charge excessive fees that
affect competition."
App makers like music streaming service Spotify Technology
SA and dating services giant Match Group, which owns the Tinder app, have long
complained that mandatory revenue sharing for sales of digital goods and strict
inclusion rules set by Apple's App Store for iPhones and iPads, along with
Google's Play store for Android devices, amount to anticompetitive behavior.
Representatives for Apple and Google told senators the
companies' tight control over their stores and the associated revenue-sharing
requirements are needed to enforce and pay for security measures to protect
consumers from harmful apps and practices.
But when asked by Senator Josh Hawley, Apple's Chief
Compliance Officer Kyle Andeer would not commit to spending all of the
mandatory fees on security.
Explanations from Andeer and Google's Wilson White, senior
director for government affairs, about why the companies' fees do not apply to
Uber Technologies Inc and apps that sell physical goods also failed to satisfy
senators.
"I feel like unfrozen caveman lawyer," Senator Mike
Lee said. "I'm not grasping it."
Senator Richard Blumenthal expressed concern about a call
Match said it received late on Tuesday from its business counterpart at Google.
Match's Chief Legal Officer Jared Sine said Google wanted to
know why Sine's planned testimony, which had just been released, deviated from
previous comments the dating company had made.
"It looks like a threat, it talks like a threat, it's a
threat," Blumenthal said of the call, vowing to investigate Google's
action further.
Google's White said the call reflected an effort to ask an
honest question and the company would never threaten partners.
In his testimony, Match's Sine argued that Google and Apple
both exact an onerous 30% of any digital transaction, raising prices for
consumers.
Match pays nearly $500 million in fees to the app stores
annually, the company's single largest expense, Sine said.
Spotify and Match said Apple's app review process was
opaque. Sine said Apple blocked a safety update to the Tinder app meant to warn
LGBTQ+ users if they were traveling to a country where it might be dangerous to
expose their identity because Apple said the update violated the
"spirit" of a new rule.
But Apple would not explain how to fix the issue, Sine said.
He said that Apple approved the update two months later only after senior
leaders at Match's parent company at the time, IAC/Interactivecorp, raised the
issue with Apple's senior leaders.
The hearing came a day after Apple said it would begin
selling AirTags - which can be attached to items like car keys to help users
find them when they are lost - in direct competition with Tile, which has sold
a similar tracking device for more than a decade.
Apple said its AirTags were an outgrowth of its
"FindMy" app, which is used for locating lost Apple devices and to
share user locations and was introduced in 2010, before Tile's founding. Apple
last month opened its operating system up to alternative item trackers and said
that Chipolo, a startup competing with Tile and AirTags, is using the system.
Tile General Counsel Kirsten Daru testified Apple's FindMy
program is installed by default on Apple phones and cannot be deleted.
"Apple has once again exploited its market power and
dominance to condition our customers’ access to data on effectively breaking
our user experience and directing our users to FindMy," she said. -Reuters.
0 comments:
Post a Comment