Many horses, including Spotify and Amazon’s Kindle Store, have already left the barn. But Apple is moving quickly to shut the external payments door opened by last week’s ruling that the company willfully failed to comply with court orders regarding anticompetitive behavior.
In an emergency motion filing late Wednesday (PDF), Apple described US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers’ “extraordinary Order” as including an injunction that “permanently precludes Apple from exercising control over core aspects of its business operations, including charging for use of its property and protecting the integrity of its platform and in-app purchase mechanism.” A certificate (PDF) accompanying the emergency filing states that the order “fundamentally changes Apple’s business and creates destabilizing effects” for App Store customers.
The restrictions, “which will cost Apple substantial sums annually,” are not based on the company’s conduct, Apple claims, but “were imposed to punish Apple for purported non-compliance” with the 2021 injunction. In her ruling (PDF), Gonzalez Rogers described Apple as conducting an “obvious cover-up” and said that Apple “at every turn chose the most anticompetitive option.”
Apple had already altered its App Review Guidelines to comply with Gonzalez Rogers’ ruling. Under the updated rules, developers have been able to include buttons, links, and calls to action to consider purchasing subscriptions and in-app payments through external sites and vendors. Apps like Spotify and Amazon’s Kindle have already placed buttons and had their updates approved by Apple, and vendors like Stripe have been providing guidance on taking payments without Apple’s commission. Before this, under a 2021 injunction at issue in recent filings, Apple charged a 12 to 27 percent commission on external payments, with significant filing and auditing requirements.