Apple Under Antitrust Investigation in the UK

Apple is facing a probe over its App Store rules. The company’s dominance reinforces — and further necessitates — its strict grip on iOS developers.

The UK’s antitrust regulator is investigating Apple over its app store terms. We need big tech firms to strictly regulate content on their platforms. But we only “need” this because these platforms are so dominant.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) says it is concerned that Apple’s Terms and Conditions for app developers are “unfair and anti-competitive”.

The CMA’s investigation will consider whether developers should have to agree to certain terms before launching their apps in the App Store, and Apple’s rules on in-app payments.

The CMA cites the fact that App Store apps are subject to pre-approval by Apple as a matter that is pertinent to the investigation.

These rules benefit Apple. But they also, to some extent, benefit consumers. Many iPhone users like the fact that App Store apps tend to be of reasonable quality and tend to have strong security.

The CMA is also investigating Google’s phasing out of third-party cookies. I’m all for this change — third-party cookies are bad for privacy (although I have my reservations about Google’s new advertising method).

But Google is so huge that many thousands of its competitors are dependent on its policies, making this an antitrust issue.

If Apple and Google weren’t such dominant market players, this stuff wouldn’t matter so much. Developers could find another app store. Advertisers could use other networks.

But regulators have let these companies get so huge that everything they do matters disproportionately.