- A US judge has ruled that Apple has violated a part of its 2021 Epic Games v. Apple injunction.
- The court has ordered Apple to refrain from collecting any form of commission from developers for off-App Store purchases, without delay.
- In an official response, Apple says it disagrees with the decision but it will comply with the court's order before appealing again.
Apple has been in a legal battle against Epic Games for a long time. Last year, the company was forced to revise its App Store guidelines in the US and allow third party payment options for app purchases. However, developers were compelled to pay up to 27% in commissions to display alternate payment links. This changes now, as a US federal judge has ordered Apple to stop collecting commissions for purchases made outside the App Store.
In an 80-page order [PDF], the US Northern District of California Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers ruled that Apple has violated its 2021 injunction. This order required the company to allow developers to add third-party payment solutions via in-app links. Apple has now been ordered to stop collecting commissions for purchases outside the App Store, effective immediately.
The judge also said that Apple cannot obstruct developers from communicating with users directly for alternate payment solutions. Because of this, Apple will have to avoid imposing new forms of commissions or fees for purchases outside App Store. In addition, Apple has also been ordered to bear the full cost of Epic’s attorney fees until May 2025.
What Apple Needs to Do
To sum up, the court has urged Apple to permanently refrain from:
- Imposing any commission or any fee on purchases that consumers make outside an app, and as a consequence thereof, no reason exists to audit, monitor, track or require developers to report purchases or any other activity that consumers make outside an app.
- Restricting or conditioning developers’ style, language, formatting, quantity, flow or placement of links for purchases outside an app.
- Prohibiting or limiting the use of buttons or other calls to action, or otherwise conditioning the content, style, language, formatting, flow or placement of these devices for purchases outside an app.
- Excluding certain categories of apps and developers from obtaining link access.
- Interfering with consumers’ choice to proceed in or out of an app by using anything other than a neutral message apprising users that they are going to a third-party site.
- Restricting a developer’s use of dynamic links that bring consumers to a specific product page in a logged-in state rather than to a statically defined page, including restricting apps from passing on product details, user details or other information that refers to the user intending to make a purchase.
In an official statement, Apple responded by saying “We strongly disagree with the decision. We will comply with the court’s order, and we will appeal”. The latest ruling should encourage developers to add new forms of payment solutions to apps. It gives users a glimmer of hope for lower prices, since developers will no longer have to pay Apple commissions.
What do you think about the latest ruling against Apple? Do you think the decision to prevent it from collecting App Store commissions is justified? Let us know in the comments.
