Spotify files antitrust complaint against Apple in the EU

Spotify, the popular music streaming service from Sweden, has filed an official antitrust complaint against Apple at the European Commission. In a blog post announcing the move, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek writes: It's why, after careful consideration, Spotify has filed a complaint against Apple with the European Commission (EC), the regulatory body responsible for keeping competition fair and nondiscriminatory. In recent years, Apple has introduced rules to the App Store that purposely limit choice and stifle innovation at the expense of the user experience-essentially acting as both a player and referee to deliberately disadvantage other app developers. After trying unsuccessfully to resolve the issues directly with Apple, we're now requesting that the EC take action to ensure fair competition. Apple operates a platform that, for over a billion people around the world, is the gateway to the internet. Apple is both the owner of the iOS platform and the App Store-and a competitor to services like Spotify. In theory, this is fine. But in Apple's case, they continue to give themselves an unfair advantage at every turn. I don't think I have to explain to anyone here why Spotify's CEO is right. In the App Store, Spotify can only make use of Apple's payment system, and for every Spotify subscription purchased through the iOS application, the company is forced to hand over 30% to Apple. To make matters worse, Spotify is not allowed to include a link to, say, a website where users can sign up for Spotify, nor can the company include any language even hinting at where users can sign up. On top of this, Spotify also states that Apple has blocked new features Spotify wanted to introduce including "locking Spotify and other competitors out of Apple services such as Siri, HomePod, and Apple Watch". Furthermore, Apple limits the ways in which Spotify and other App Store developers can communicate with their users. This seems like the perfect moment to go after the big technology giants, and I hope something comes of this complaint. Any handle we can use to limit the power of megacorporations is a handle we should grab with both hands.