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A federal judge on Tuesday ruled that Apple cannot delay making changes to the App Store.
Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California called Apple’s postponement request “fundamentally flawed”, warning that the company’s strict App Store rules are geared towards “antitrust behavior”.
The judge wrote that Apple will not allow changes to the App Store, where many developers are prohibited from redirecting customers. He wrote that Apple enforced this rule “to hurt competition” and collects fees from developers’ sales.
Apple is trying to blunt Judge Gonzalez Rogers’ September verdict in a year-long lawsuit against Fortnite video game creator Epic Games. Now Apple may have to rewrite its policies to allow app developers to direct users to alternative payment methods as soon as December.
In its original lawsuit, Epic wanted Apple to be labeled as a monopolist. Epic argued that strict App Store rules and Apple’s fees for developers distributing apps in the store harmed customers and developers and undermined competition.
After a lawsuit concluded in May, Judge Gonzalez Rogers ruled in favor of Apple mostly in September. But he said the company violated California’s anti-competition law by preventing app developers from communicating directly with customers about ways to pay for services outside the App Store. This will allow developers to avoid paying Apple’s standard fee of up to 30 percent of its sales.
The judge banned these so-called anti-steering rules from December. In October, Apple appealed the decision and requested that the injunction be lifted pending the appeal process.
Judge Gonzalez Rogers denied Apple’s request after a hearing on Tuesday. From the outset of the videoconferencing hearing, he was skeptical of Apple’s request.
When Apple attorney Mark Perry argued that allowing developers to include links to external websites in their apps would take months to realize this, the judge interrupted him, noting that the company wasn’t asking for a short delay. logistics.
“You haven’t asked in a few months,” he said. “You didn’t ask for six months. You didn’t ask for a limited time. You wanted a comprehensive stay that could last three, four, five years.”
His written decision created loopholes in Apple’s arguments that allowing app developers to link to their websites would be difficult, time-consuming, and potentially dangerous.
“Apart from perhaps needing time to establish guidelines, Apple has given no credible reason for the court to believe the injunction would cause the alleged destruction,” said Judge Gonzalez Rogers. “Users can open browsers and rewrite links for the same effect; it’s just inconvenient, then it only works for Apple’s benefit.”
Tuesday’s decision is not the final word. Apple said it would seek to have the judge’s decision reversed by a federal appeals court.
“Apple believes that no additional business changes are necessary to take effect until all objections in this case are resolved,” a company spokesperson said in a statement.
The details of what Apple would have to change if an injunction were approved are unclear. Some claimed that developers could offer their own competing payment methods in the App Store, but Apple disagreed with these comments of the judge’s decision.
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