Apple recently delivered a not-so-coded attack on Spotify in a letter to artists about streaming royalties, but the latter company may be having the next (if not last) laugh in the ongoing rivalry.
The Financial Times reports that European Union competition chief Margrethe Vestager “will later this week issue charges against Apple stating that its App Store rules break EU law” after an investigation into the complaint that Spotify filed against Apple in 2019. Full details of the charges have not yet been announced or leaked.
In related news, US senator Amy Klobuchar – Joe Biden’s “antitrust enforcer” in The Verge’s words – is also training her sights on the App Store. In an interview for the tech site’s podcast to promote her new book (‘Antitrust: Taking On Monopoly Power From The Gilded Age to the Digital Age’) Klobuchar talked about Apple. “We have gotten to this point when they control this whole app market,” she said. “You could still have a successful Apple, but still demand more consumer protections to make it easier for people to compete.”
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