The executive arm of the EU has just hit iPhone maker Apple with a new fine worth a staggering $1.95 billion.

The EU’s most executive arm mentioned yesterday how the company was found guilty of abusing its leading position in the world of music stream app distribution. Therefore, it would now pay the heavy costs associated with this act.

The commission explained how Apple set out a long list of restrictions on all kinds of app developers that stopped them from making iOS users aware of better options available in the market today.

This meant not highlighting which subscription offers for music services were available outside that app and therefore could be used as an alternative.

In the same manner, the iPhone maker barred developers of a long list of music streaming platforms from giving instructions regarding how any user could avail of the cheaper offers and that again went against the law.

This is marked as the Cupertino firm’s first fine in regards to antitrust that’s arisen from Brussels and is said to be one of the largest to be offered to a tech firm supported by the EU.

The company’s shares went down by nearly 2.5% by the morning trading hours across the US due to this. Meanwhile, the EC also rolled out a new investigation for the firm after a complaint was generated through Spotify.

In the year 2019, there was another probe that was narrowed down to shed light on some more restrictions that the tech giant rolled out for app developers. This stopped them from keeping iOS users aware of any alternatives in the world of music subscriptions that were up for grabs at lower costs from external locations.

The behavior of Apple has been taking place for the past many years as confirmed by the EC today and that has caused several iOS users to jet out huge prices to attain a music subscription service due to the high fees added by Apple for developers in this regard.

But Apple is not remaining silent on this front. The company just rolled out a very fiery reply including how Spotify would be standing out to gain the greatest from the act of the EU.

They feel that a huge reason for this decision to come in the first place is Spotify which it dubbed as the largest beneficiary. They have the greatest app in the world of music streaming today and during this particular case’s investigation, it’s reported that they met with officials nearly 65 times, the iPhone boldly declared in its response.

Today, the company has a whopping 56% share of the entire EU’s music streaming sector and that’s nearly double what any other close competitor could imagine. Shockingly, they give nothing to Apple for any of its services, and that has assisted them greatly in reaching the top of the industry and making them one of the world’s greatest brands today, Apple mentioned.

A huge part of the firm’s success is due to Apple’s App Store, alongside all the innovative tools and technology it makes use of to create, modify, and share its platform with people located all over the globe.

Apple mentioned how Spotify does not pay a penny and most of this has to do with its lack of sales on Apple’s apps. Instead, they’re now interested in selling across its own personal online page. Therefore, Apple doesn’t get any commission fee for such purchases done online.

Image: DIW-Aigen

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