The North Dakota state Senate is entering a rivalry between Apple and iOS software developers with a bill that would make it illegal for device manufacturers to require the use of their app stores and payment systems.
The account (PDF) has two main ends. First, it would be illegal for companies like Google and Apple to make their app stores the “exclusive” way of distributing apps on their platforms. Second, it would prohibit these providers from requiring third parties to use their digital transactions or in-app payment systems in their applications.
The proposed law applies to app stores for which gross sales revenues for North Dakota residents exceed $ 10 million in a calendar year. It applies to any “general purpose hardware”, including tablets and smartphones, but explicitly excludes “special use digital application delivery platforms” such as game consoles, music players and “other special use devices connected to the Internet “. Pass this needle and you will have a very firm arrow pointing directly to the Google and Apple mobile application platforms. (It can also apply to Mac OS and Windows app stores for laptops and desktops, but these platforms are already less restrictive.)
“The purpose of the bill is to level the playing field for app developers in North Dakota and protect customers from devastating and monopolistic fees imposed by major technology companies,” Republican state senator Kyle Davison told local reporters when he presented the project, the Bismarck Tribune Reports.
The targets
Google allows users to browse the built-in Android app store to load parallel apps, which would likely leave everything open with respect to that part of the account. Apple, however, notoriously does not, and is facing antitrust complaints about this restriction from manufacturers of various applications, including Telegram.
Even more threatened, however, is the 30 percent cut in sales that Apple and Google make by requiring applications on their respective platforms to use their own payment platforms. ProtonMail’s founder and CEO last year called Apple’s cut “virtually indistinguishable from a safety net.” ProtonMail in this is in agreement with several other developers, such as Spotify, who have publicly complained that the fee amounts to a tax on non-Apple software that makes it more difficult to compete with native Apple apps, because they have to take a 30 percent hit revenue or pass the cost on to consumers and seem more expensive in comparison.
If you are thinking that this sounds familiar, you are right. The proposal is closely linked to the fierce fight between Epic and Apple that is now taking place in federal court.
It all happened before right now…
In August, Epic Games, creator of Fifteen days, fought a fight with Apple and Google by launching an alternative payment system for in-game in-app purchases. Apple launched it from the iOS app store in a few hours, as scheduled, and Epic immediately filed an antitrust lawsuit against the company in a federal court. This case is still ongoing at the moment.
Last fall, in the midst of this dispute, Epic brought in 12 other companies to launch a lobbying group, Coalition for App Fairness, to fight Apple. Spotify, Bandcamp and Protonmail, all of whom publicly criticized Apple for its App Store policies, were among the founders, along with Epic; the group now has more than 45 member companies.
According to the New York Times, the lobbyist who proposed the bill to the state senator who sponsored it was working on behalf of Epic Games and the Coalition.
North Dakota may be just a low-population state (it has less than 1 million residents), but it is not the only state where lawmakers are seeking to take action against large international technology companies on their own. Arizona also has an extremely similar bill under consideration in the state legislature at the moment.
In the absence of federal regulation, states also operate in other facets of the digital economy. Last week, Virginia became the second state, after California, to pass a comprehensive digital privacy law, and Maryland, last week, became the first in the country to impose a tax on digital advertising revenue.