Complying with the Dutch Consumer regulator, Apple will let the local dating apps set third-party payment options within their apps.
This comes after the company was levied a fine of more than €50 million, for not complying with the order. Yet, Apple stated specific rules on how these alternative payment options can be displayed and the on-banner content. Also, it continues to charge a fixed fee for all alternative transactions.
Apple Partially Surrenders in the Netherlands
In December last year, the Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) has ordered Apple to let dating apps in the country use third-party payment options. This is after dictating that Apple’s 30% revenue cut from Appstore transactions is deemed anti-competitive and unreasonable.
The order also stated that Apple will be slashed a €5 million penalty every week it delays the compliance, which now summed up to over €50 million.
Apple even tried soothing the regulator with an amended plan early this year, which asks app developers to submit a separate app binary for the Dutch App Store and ask them to choose between using Apple’s in-app payment system or a third-party one, rather than offering both of them.
This also included a mandate that Apple will collect 27% of every transaction made through the third-party payment option. And since it didn’t satisfy the regulator, it kept on penalizing Apple until now. Now the new plan of letting Dutch dating apps have their own payment method in-app, without any binary strings as before, may soothe the regulator.
But, Apple said it’d still collect the 27% fees anyway, and also dictated terms on what should be displayed on the alternative payment banner. The Dutch regulator will present the new Apple policy to “market participants for consultation,” and have Their opinion before proceeding.
