News

Developers form ‘Coalition for App Fairness’ to fight against Apple

The coalition is joined by companies like Epic Games, Spotify, Blix, and Title among many others.

Published

3 years ago

September 24, 2020

Epic Games and other companies including Spotify, Blix, Tile, Match, and News Media Europe among many others have formed a new organization to highlight developer issues with Apple.

Named “Coalition for App Fairness,” it introduces itself as “an independent nonprofit organization founded by industry leading companies to see for freedom of choice for consumers and a level playing field for businesses.” The coalition’s motive is to “fight back against the monopolist control of the app ecosystem by Apple.” It puts out ten points it wants to be addressed about the App Store including:

No developer should be required to use an app store exclusively, or to use ancillary services of the app store owner, including payment systems, or to accept other supplementary obligations in order to have access to the app store.
No developer should be blocked from the platform or discriminated against based on a developer’s business model, how it delivers content and services, or whether it competes in any way with the app store owner.
Every developer should have timely access to the same interoperability interfaces and technical information as the app store owner makes available to its own developers.
Every developer should always have access to app stores as long as its app meets fair, objective and nondiscriminatory standards for security, privacy, quality, content, and digital safety.
A developer’s data should not be used to compete with the developer.
Every developer should always have the right to communicate directly with its users through its app for legitimate business purposes.
No app store owner or its platform should engage in self-preferencing its own apps or services, or interfere with users’ choice of preferences or defaults.
No developer should be required to pay unfair, unreasonable or discriminatory fees or revenue shares, nor be required to sell within its app anything it doesn’t wish to sell, as a condition to gain access to the app store.
No app store owner should prohibit third parties from offering competing app stores on the app store owner’s platform, or discourage developers or consumers from using them.
All app stores will be transparent about their rules and policies and opportunities for promotion and marketing, apply these consistently and objectively, provide notice of changes, and make available a quick, simple and fair process to resolve disputes.

Based in Washington D.C. and Brussels, the group of organizations includes companies who have had disagreements with Apple over its policies. It aims to lead legal and regulatory changes for three key issues: “anti-competitive policies,” “30 percent app tax,” and “no consumer freedom.”