New York ( Business) — Spotify wants to give Apple a good hit in the press.
The streaming music company is going public with its grievances with the Silicon Valley goliath, openly lashing out at the company over a dispute that centers on the 30% fee Apple charges on the App Store for in-app digital service transactions. the application.
“We’re talking about this because it reflects Apple’s anti-competitive practices across the board,” Harry Clarke, associate general counsel and lead antitrust attorney for Spotify, said in an interview with on Tuesday.
Here’s the story: Spotify simply refuses to give up 30% of its business to Apple. That means the company can’t sell audiobooks, a business it’s trying to break into, within its iOS app.
Spotify, instead, proposed three solutions that it considered consistent with Apple’s policies. However, all of them were rejected after undergoing App Store reviews, forcing the company to give up offering its customers a way to purchase audiobooks on its iOS app.
iOS users who scroll through Spotify’s audiobook library and tap a selection receive a message: “Want to listen? You can’t buy audiobooks in the app. We know it’s not ideal.” (Apple, of course, also sells audiobooks through its pre-installed Apple Books app.)
Although Spotify has no real recourse to force Apple to accept its app with its audiobook solution, it is using the dispute to attack Apple in the media and focus attention on the 30% tax on the app. company, which has long been criticized by the streamer and others. In recent days, Spotify issued a press release and participated in a lengthy report on the matter with The New York Times.
“We think it’s critical that users, legislators and competition authorities really understand what’s going on,” Clarke explained when asked why Spotify is creating so much buzz around this issue. “Because we’ve found that once they understand what’s going on, there’s almost unanimous agreement that it’s unfair.”
Clarke said it’s important for the company to raise the issue in the press because Spotify users might not understand why the audiobook experience in the iOS app is so cumbersome. “One of the problems with Apple’s rules is that they put us under a gag order to talk about this in the app,” Clarke said, adding that many users are “unaware” of discussions the company has had with Apple. .
Apple, for its part, isn’t directly addressing Spotify’s PR campaign against it. The company provided with a general statement about the dispute, saying it had “no problem with reading apps that aggregate audiobook content,” but that Spotify’s solution, its in-app purchase method, broke their rules.
Spotify’s public war against Apple is part of a broader trend, in which other big tech companies have singled out the iPhone maker. Mark Zuckerberg recently attacked Apple’s iMessage security features, arguing that his WhatsApp is more secure. And Google has attacked Apple for refusing to cooperate with Android in the realm of text messaging.
And these kinds of pressure campaigns are unlikely to go away anytime soon. Spotify said it plans to continue to publicly pressure Apple on the matter. “We’re going to continue to amplify this topic,” Clarke said, “to help people understand the negative impact Apple’s policies are having.”
