A number of consumer groups have raised concerns around Treasury’s push to extend the open banking regime to non-bank lenders, claiming it will support predatory behaviour.
(AP Photo/Andy Wong)
OAKLAND, Calif (CN) Epic Games and Apple squared off for the last time Monday before U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, with Apple predicting “absolute mayhem” if the judge orders it to open up its App Store.
Apple stands accused of abusing its power over developers who rely on its App Store by extracting a 30% cut of all purchases of digital content, and forcing them to only use its in-app payment system for those transactions.
In an act simultaneously portrayed as both deception and protest, Fortnite maker Epic Games decided to bypass those rules last summer by launching its own digital storefront on the App Store that allowed users to pay Epic directly for in-app purchases.
A man leaves an Apple store in Beijing, Thursday, Jan. 3, 2019. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)
OAKLAND, Calif. (CN) With much of the antitrust fight between Apple and Fortnite maker Epic Games centering on consumer choice and convenience, the warring tech giants trotted out dueling experts Thursday to quibble over whether computers and consoles are meaningful substitutes for iOS gaming and digital transactions.
The dispute started when Epic Games introduced a “hotfix” to the iOS version of Fortnite, allowing users to pay it directly for in-app purchases instead of going through Apple and getting Epic banned from the App Store. Epic answered with a federal antitrust lawsuit that seeks no monetary damages, but aims to get Apple to change the way it runs its store.
A man leaves an Apple store in Beijing in 2019. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)
OAKLAND, Calif. (CN) A federal judge continued to press a prominent economist on his theory that Apple forecloses competition in the iOS app distribution market as he took the stand for a second day of questioning in Fortnite game maker Epic’s antitrust battle with the tech titan.
David Evans, chairman of Global Economics Group and Epic’s main economic expert, struggled at times to relay his granular points, even to U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers.
Evans testified that the App Store provides two products: app distribution services and an iOS in-app payment solutions. And he said that Apple is a monopolist that “has been able to increase the price for payment solutions by a significant amount.”