The Commission found that Apple’s ‘anti-steering provisions’ effectively banned music streaming app developers from fully informing iOS users about alternative and cheaper music subscription services available outside the app and from providing any instructions about how to subscribe to such offers. The Commission ordered Apple to remove the anti-steering provisions and to refrain from adopting practices that would circumvent such a prohibition. The Commission adopted its decision 3 days before Apple was due to submit its compliance proposal in the context of its obligations under Article 8 of the Digital Markets Act.
Relying exclusively on the contestability of digital markets need not guarantee that business users of gatekeeper platforms are treated fairly. The Commission may not be able to avoid regulating how surplus is divided between the gatekeeper and its business users, hoping that market forces will address the problem indirectly. The pie should be divided so that the gatekeeper is remunerated in proportion to the net incremental value of the gatekeeper’s platform relative to its next best alternative. This means that it is able to appropriate the full value of its superior technology but not the value associated with the network effects that characterize the core platform services regulated by the DMA.
