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A federal judge spent on Wednesday that Apple must reduce its grip on its application store and stop collecting a commission on some application sales, which prevents the anti -monopoly issue for a period of five years raised by the epic games that aim to change the power of Apple on a large segment of the digital economy.
Judge, Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers of the American District Court in the Northern County in California, reprimanded Apple to thwart a previous ruling in the lawsuit and said that the company needs to stop more disobedience to the court. Tim Cook, Apple CEO, and accused other executives of the lying company.
In its previous ruling, Judge Gonzalez Rogers ordered the applications to provide users with external links to pay the developers directly to the services. Applications can then avoid a 30 percent commission to impose Apple in the application store and may impose lower fees on services.
Instead, Judge Gonzalez Rogers said on Wednesday, Apple has created a new system that forced applications on external sales to pay 27 percent commission for the company. Apple also created popup screens that led to customers from paying elsewhere, as they told them that payments outside the application store may not be safe.
Judge Gonzalez Rogers wrote: “Apple has sought to maintain the flow of billions of dollars in the direct challenge of members of this court,” Judge Gonzalez Rogers wrote.
In response, she said that Apple is no longer able to take commissions from sales outside the application store. It also restricted the company from writing rules that would prevent developers from creating buttons or bonds to pay outside the store and said that it could not create messages to discourage users from performing purchases. In addition, Judge Gonzalez Rogers asked the American lawyer from the Northern County in California to investigate the company for criminal contempt.
The ruling – the great victory of the epic and a striking defeat for Apple – has the ability to change the application economy by increasing the money that developers collect while reducing the fees that flow to Apple. This strikes in one of the main companies in Apple, with its most prominent app store for people to download mobile games, productivity tools and other programs.
“There will be a lot of length lines for developers to get better deals and consumers for better deals,” said Tim Sweeney, EPIC CEO. “This is a wonderful and wonderful day for everyone.”
Apple can appeal the decision. The company did not respond to suspension requests. Her shares sank 1.5 percent in trading after working hours.
EPIC, the Fortnite game maker, brought Apple’s anti -monopoly suit in 2020. Epic Apple accused of forcing application makers to use their payment system in exchange for access to the application store, which is the only way to distribute applications to iPhone. Apple bases allowed up to 30 percent of the commission in many transactions.
The App Store is a large part of the annual service revenues that Apple collects about $ 100 billion.
In two years later, Judge Gonzales Rogers stopped announcing that Apple had laughed in the mobile game market, as it argued. This means that Apple avoids the worst possible result of the issue. But it found that the company had violated the California laws against unfair competition by preventing developers from providing alternative ways for users to pay in exchange for applications.
Last year, EPIC complained to the court that Apple was not compatible with the ruling because it created a new set of fees and rules for developers. The judge ordered Apple to provide documents that explain how you have reached its new system.
Apple documents have shown that they tried to inhibit alternative payments and maintain the largest possible 30 percent commission. At a meeting in July 2023, Phil Schiller, who oversees the application store, called for not taking Apple, but Luca Maestri, Apple’s head of finance at the time, invited a fee of 27 percent. Mr. Cook stood with Mr. Maestri, according to the documents.
Mr. Cook also asked that when people click on links to pay the price of applications outside the application store, a “intimidation” screen says that “Apple and safety standards do not apply to the purchases made on the web.”
Judge Gonzalez Rogers said: “Apple knew exactly what she was doing, and at every turn she chose the most competitive option,” said Judge Gonzalez Rogers.
She said that Apple’s executives were “explicitly lied under the department” and added, “chose a bad cook.”