Things are moving in the United States on the antitrust regulatory front. The Senate Judiciary Committee voted on February 3 for a second major antitrust bill in 2022, the Open App Markets Act. It is intended to limit the consequences of Apple and Google’s domination of application stores.
In the Senate, it’s cordial agreement around antitrust
Republican and Democratic senators were even more united than during the vote on the American Innovation and Choice Online Act in early January. They approved this new bill by 21 votes to one, reports the wall street journal.
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This bill aims to prevent Apple and Google from imposing their own rules on their platforms and charging app developers on the App Store and Play Store. According to Republican Mike Lee ” we have two companies that wield excessive market power “.
At the heart of the concerns of American elected officials, the commission received by the shops for any purchase or in-app subscription, which can reach 30%. These commissions, inevitable in the case of Apple, are criticized by content-creating companies. Epic Games, already on trial against this practice by Apple, Spotify and others are campaigning for an update of American antitrust legislation, which is ill-suited to digital issues.
According to them, these commissions increase their costs, which prevents them from innovating, and harms their business in general. An argument taken up in an interpellation by Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal, “ Consumers, if you look, you pay more because of the monopoly rental fees that are charged to you because of their monopoly power “.
The new antitrust law, intended for application stores with more than 50 million American users (the App Store and the Play Store therefore), must authorize application developers to offer their payment systems, to inform users of an alternative.
The text also prohibits Apple and Google from promoting their own services in the search results of their stores or using nonpublic commercial information from other companies’ applications to compete with them. An antitrust measure also present in other texts proposed by the Senate.
The legislative path remains long, strewn with lobbyists from Apple and Google
The arguments of Apple and Google are known. They are bludgeoned by lobbyists from Washington DC to Brussels, where the DMA is planning similar measures. On the one hand, by controlling the in-app payment, they explain to ensure its safety and the confidentiality of the users. An amendment is planned for Apple and Google to retain this control capacity, but it should appear insufficient to the two companies.
Apple is particularly concerned about being forced to open its system. According to Cupertino, the bill will allow “sideloading”, the downloading of applications by bypassing the App Store. Tim Cook spoke in person to denounce the security risks that this change would induce. However, sideloading exists on Android and… on Mac.
The second argument of Apple and Google is more commercial. He spoke through the mouth of Republican Senator John Cornyn, the only one to vote against the law. He believes that the two Silicon Valley giants have the right to be paid for access to their platform.
Google and Apple have failed to convince the senators of the Judiciary Committee, the war is not lost for all that. The two laws will have to be voted in plenary and it is not easy to do.
The example of the House of Representatives is eloquent. Antitrust measures were voted on in committee, but have yet to be submitted to the full House. Politico reports that a Democrat must meet a coalition of his camp to unblock the situation. It is made up of elected officials from California and Washington, reluctant to praise measures that could harm companies established on their territory. There is still work to do, but the Senate is leading the way.