Complaint filed against Apple by Spotify for 'unfair' App Store rules -

Spotify, the famed music streaming online service has recently filed a complaint against the technology behemoth Apple. The complaint had been filed for Apple with European Commission for the rules of Apple’s App Store. According to the statement of the Spotify’s CEO; Daniel Ek, these rules of Apple’s app store gave the company an unfair advantage at nearly every turn.

The complaint was filed by Spotify on Wednesday.

The news of this complaint was made public by Ek in a blog post in which he says that the rules of Apple App Store are making the competition hard for Spotify against Apple’s very own ‘Apple Music’.

Ek wrote in his blog post as follows,

“Apple requires that Spotify and other digital services pay a 30% tax on purchases made through Apple’s payment system, including upgrading from our Free to our Premium service. If we pay this tax, it would force us to artificially inflate the price of our Premium membership well above the price of Apple Music.”

The 30 percent cut mentioned by Ek is actually the thing which is known to be Apple Tax for which Apple had been sued in the past. While the case has been in view but it is the first time that any company has filed such complaint openly in the European Commission.

He further stated that if the user does not choose Apple’s payment methods in order to avoid this charge, then Apple performs a series of other technical restrictions for Spotify. One of these restrictions is that Apple locks out the proper customer support for Spotify to be carried out from Apple’s services like Siri as well as their Apple Watch and Home Pod.

According to Ek, they have tried to resolve this issue with Apple multiple times before they were finally forced to file a complaint with the European Commission.

Even a website by Spotify has been launched for promoting their cause against Apple’s unfair advantages and means. The site is named as “Time To Play Fair” which is listing the facts about all of Apple’s unfair anti-competitive means.