The Coalition for App Fairness, a group formed earlier this year by aggrieved developers including Epic Games, Spotify, and Tile, has gained the support of major US news publishers in its fight against the alleged "Apple tax."
Among the publishers are giants like The New York Times, Bloomberg, The Washington Post, The Financial Times, NPR, ESPN, and others. They are represented in the Coalition for App Fairness by publishing trade association Digital Content Next (DCN).
Together, DCN’s member organizations reach 100 percent of the US online population, it claims.
Fighting Apple to Build a Competitive Digital Landscape
The big complaint leveled at Apple is that, in essence, it forces publishers to offer in-app payments for services such as subscriptions. This means that Apple gets to take a cut of money that customers want to pay for these services, which Apple hosts via the App Store, but does not directly contribute toward.
"DCN is pleased to join the Coalition for App Fairness working to establish a fair and competitive digital landscape," said DCN CEO Jason Kint, in a statement, published by TechCrunch. "The premium publisher members of DCN enjoy trusted, direct relationships with consumers, who don’t expect intermediaries to impose arbitrary fees and rules which limit their ability to consume the news and entertainment they love."
The publishers want Apple to offer a better deal than the one it currently offers, more in line with the 15 percent deal it offers Amazon Prime Video subscribers.
Apple has adjusted its own App Store commission policy this year, reducing it from 30 percent to 15 percent for developers making under $1 million per year. However, while this covers the majority of developers, it doesn’t cover major publishers that are making considerably more.
"Having DCN join the Coalition for App Fairness is a landmark moment for our campaign, and their insight into core issues with the App Store that top outlets face will only make our voice stronger," Sarah Maxwell, a spokesperson for the Coalition for App Fairness, said in a statement. "We’re excited to work with them to advocate for App Store policies that are fair, hold Apple accountable, and give consumers freedom of choice."
Apple's Control of the App Store
Apple offers its own news subscription service in Apple News+, along with its aggregator service Apple News. It has yet to publish figures on how successful the premium Apple News+ service is.
Apple’s control of the App Store is one of the big issues that was brought up at the Congressional big tech antitrust hearing this summer, which Apple CEO Tim Cook testified at.
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