The European Commission, the European Union's executive arm, on Monday hit Apple with a 1.8 billion euro antitrust fine.
The commission said it found that Apple had applied restrictions on app developers that prevented them from informing iOS users about alternative and cheaper music subscription services available outside of the app. Apple's conduct lasted almost 10 years, according to the commission, and "may have led many iOS users to pay significantly higher prices for music streaming subscriptions because of the high commission fee imposed by Apple on developers and passed on to consumers in the form of higher subscription prices for the same service on the Apple App Store."In a fiery response to the fine, Apple said Spotify would stand to gain the most from the EU pronouncement.
Apple said that a "large part" of Spotify's success is thanks to the Cupertino, California-based giant's App Store, "along with all the tools and technology that Spotify uses to build, update, and share their app with Apple users around the world." The commission said Apple prevented developers of music streaming apps from informing their iOS users within their apps about prices of subscriptions or offers available elsewhere.
In a press briefing, EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager qualified the basic amount of the fine for Apple, excluding the 1.8 billion euro lump sum, as "quite small" and likened it to a "speeding ticket, or a parking ticket" relative to the company's scale.