On May 13, the Supreme Court issued a decision holding that Apple users can sue the company for antitrust violations. The 5–4 decision allows a lower court case, alleging that Apple’s 30 percent commission on its iPhone App Store sales is an antitrust violation that inflates consumer prices, to proceed. The decision follows complaints from both users and app developers about Apple’s App Store commissions. In Europe, Spotify earlier filed an antitrust action against Apple for the same issue. The decision comes at a time when Apple is increasingly developing new services to compete with third-party apps, including Apple News+, Apple’s new subscription service which requires participating news publishers to share a substantial portion of revenue generated through the service with Apple. Read the Supreme Court’s full decision here.
Members of the News/Media Alliance staff have contributed to this post.
