EU To Impose Its First Ever Fine on Apple Inc, of About €500 Mn

A recent report by the Financial Times (FT) said that European Union (EU) is to impose its first ever fine on Apple Inc. for allegedly breaking EU law over access to its music streaming services. EU started investigating Apple Inc in 2020, after Swedish streaming platform Spotify complained, in 2019, that Apple’s policies muted competition against Apple Music.

Citing five people with direct knowledge of this long-running investigation, the FT report said that the fine is in the region of €500 million ( ~ US$ 539 million) and is expected to be announced early next month. The fine, which is yet to be announced officially, is the culmination of a European Commission antitrust probe into whether Apple has used its own platform to favour its services over those of competitors.

The probe is investigating whether Apple blocked apps from informing iPhone users of cheaper alternatives to access music subscriptions outside the App Store. It was launched after music-streaming app Spotify made a formal complaint to EU regulators in 2019.

The FT report further said that the EU commission will ban Apple's practice of blocking music services from letting users outside its App Store switch to cheaper alternatives. Brussels will accuse Apple of abusing its powerful position and imposing anti-competitive trading practices on rivals.

Apple has never been fined for antitrust infringements by Brussels, the administrative centre of the EU. Though in March 2020, France’s competition authority, the Autorité de la Concurrence, has fined Apple €1.1 billion (around $1.2 billion) for illegally restricting how wholesalers sell Apple products. However later in 2022, French authorities dropped that to about $366 million after Apple made an appeal.

In 2021, Brussels formally charged Apple in the anti-competitive probe but last year the commission narrowed the scope of the investigation and abandoned the charge wherein Apple was allegedly pushing developers to use its own in-app payment system.

The tiff between Apple and Spotify isn't new as earlier in July 2015, Spotify launched an email campaign to urge its App Store subscribers to cancel their subscriptions and start new ones through its website, bypassing the 30% transaction fee for in-app purchases required for iOS applications by Apple Inc. Later, Apple responded to this by rejecting Spotify app update on iOS. In the following months, Spotify joined several other companies in filing a letter with the EU's antitrust body indirectly accusing Apple and Google of "abusing their 'privileged position' at the top of the market".

Moreover, Spotify was one of the first companies to support Epic Games in their lawsuit against Apple, which was filed after Epic also tried to bypass Apple's 30% fee for microtransactions in Fortnite. In September 2020, Spotify, Epic, and other companies founded The Coalition for App Fairness, which aims for better conditions for the inclusion of apps in app stores

Google Facing onslaught of Antitrust Cases in US - Report

Federal and state regulators in the U.S. are preparing to file antitrust lawsuits alleging Google has abused its dominance of online search and advertising to stifle competition and and boost its profits, according to a report published Friday.

The Wall Street Journal cited unidentified people familiar with the probes in a story about the upcoming offensive by the U.S. Justice Department and the attorneys general from several states.

The Justice Department may file its case as early as this summer while Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton may take action in the fall, along with his peers in other states, according to the Journal.

U.S. Attorney General William Barr has previously said he hoped to decide whether to pursue an antitrust case against Google by the summer. Texas and other states announced they were looking into Google's business practices last September.

Google acknowledged it has ongoing discussions with the Justice Department and Paxton without elaborating on the nature of the talks.

"Our focus is firmly on providing services that help consumers, support thousands of businesses, and enable increased choice and competition," the company said in a statement.

This isn't the first time Google has been thrust under the microscope of antitrust in the US. The Federal Trade Commission closed an extensive investigation into Google's alleged abuses in 2013 without taking any action because it concluded the Mountain View, California, company wasn't hurting consumers.

Since then, Google has grown even more powerful under the umbrella of the corporate parent, Alphabet, that it spawned in five years ago. When the FTC closed its case, Google was generating annual revenue of $50 billion. Last year, earned Alphabet raked in $162 billion in revenue.

Most of the money comes from a digital ad market that Google dominates along with social networking rival Facebook — another potential target of antitrust regulators. There has been no word, though, whether Facebook might be sued.

Google is the bigger of the two online ad giants, thanks mostly to a search engine that has become synonymous with looking things up. The company also owns the leading web browser in Chrome, the world's largest mobile operating system in Android, the top video site in YouTube and the most popular digital mapping system.

Google has consistently maintained its services face ample competition and have unleashed innovations that help people manage their lives. Most of the services are offered for free in exchange for personal information that helps Google sell its ads.

Antitrust regulators in Europe have attempted to crack down on Google by imposing multi-billion dollar fines and ordering changes to its practices.

But the company's critics say those penalties haven't been severe enough and contend more extreme measures will be required to for Google to change its ways. Those might include a government attempt to force Google to spin off its various services into separate businesses, an effort the company would be likely to fiercely oppose. (AP)

India Imposes $21.1 Mn Fine on Google For Biased Search Results

India's Competition Commission has imposed a fine of Rs 136 crore (~$21.1 million) on internet giant Google for unfair business practices in the Indian market for online search, reported Times of India.

After a detailed probe on the complaints filed back in 2012, Competition Commission of India (CCI) found that Google is abusing its dominant position in the local search market for online general web search and web search advertising services. CCI, through a majority order, said the penalty is being imposed on Google for "infringing anti-trust conduct".

“Google was leveraging its dominance in the market for online general web search, to strengthen its position in the market for online syndicate search services. The competitors were denied access to the online search syndication services market due to such a conduct, writes the CCI in a press release.

On the CCI ruling, a Google spokesperson said the company is "reviewing the narrow concerns identified by the Commission and will assess our next steps".

The CCI said it has given thoughtful consideration on the submissions made by Google on issue of penalty and found it appropriate to impose a fine.

The ruling has come on complaints filed in 2012 by Matrimony.com, an Indian matchmaking website, and Consumer Unity & Trust Society (CUTS) against Google LLC, Google India Pvt Ltd and Google Ireland Ltd.

The penalty amount of Rs 135.86 crore was calculated based on Google’s revenue from its operations in India only, and equates to around 5% of its turnover in the market.

Interestingly, out of four members of CCI committee, who ruled this fine imposement orders on Google, two members have showed disagreement saying that they don't find Google in violation of Section 4 of the Competition Act. The section 4 pertains to abuse of dominant position.

Notably, this is one of the rare cases globally where Google has been penalised for unfair business ways, even though it has been under probe in several countries.

To recall, in June 2017, European Union’s Competition Commission had slapped Google with a record breaking $2.7 billion antitrust fine relating to the Google Shopping search comparison service and manipulating search results.

In India, in one more case -- back in 2009 -- Indian politician and Rajya Sabha member Brinda Karat demanded to Ban “Google India” and arrest of the chief of Google India over showing the advertisements of prenatal gender determination or preconception sex selection and thus violating laws of India under the Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (PNDT) Act.