Apple’s compliance with the European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) will be investigated by EU regulators, the EU’s antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager warned on Tuesday. The plans to investigate were spurred by developer feedback.
In an interview with Reuters, Vestager said that Apple’s introduction of new fees was already being looked at as an attempt by Apple to dissuade developers from using alternative app stores.
“There are things that we take a keen interest in, for instance, if the new Apple fee structure will de facto not make it in any way attractive to use the benefits of the DMA. That kind of thing is what we will be investigating,” she told Reuters.
Apple turned on alternative app stores in the EU earlier this month, which allows third-party app stores to offer a catalog of apps outside of the official Apple App Store. Apple has set a new fee structure as part of the change. Those changes have come under fire from several developers and EU associations.
Vestageer warned Apple against discouraging users from using outside app stores. Apple has claimed that some of the DMA-required changes could expose users to security risks they wouldn’t normally face if they stayed in the App Store safe haven.
“I would think of it as unwise to say that the services are not safe to use, because that has nothing to do with the DMA,” said Vestager. “The DMA is there to open the market for other service providers to get to you and how your service provider of your operating system, how they will make sure that it is safe is for them to decide.”
“And of course, if we see or get the suspicion that this is in order to say that someone else are not doing their job of course, we might take initiatives to look into that,” she added.
Vestager said she had received “quite a lot” of feedback from developers, which would be key in deciding whether or not she would launch an investigation into companies like Apple.