The House Antitrust Subcommittee has submitted an email proof on Wednesday, where the deal between Apple and Amazon was illegally struck over onboarding the Prime Video Player. The committee alleges the two companies have breached the pledge of Tim Cook, where he said they’re looking at all developers equally.
Apple and Amazon Breaches Equality Code
On Wednesday, the House Antitrust Subcommittee had called the four big tech companies of US, namely Google, Amazon, Apple and Facebook to testify for antitrust allegations. In this, Apple’s Tim Cook informed the committee that, “We apply the rules to all developers evenly.” But the email proof provided by the committee showed otherwise!
An email conversation from 2016 between Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos and Eddy Cue, Senior Vice President of Apple revealed both the companies may have a deal that’s contrary to the law. The email, as per Antitrust Subcommittee’s provision, states the Eddy Cue making an offer to Jeff Bezos to on-board the Amazon’s Prime Video Player with a benefit of slashing its charges to half.
According to Apple’s Appstore policy, app developers will be charged about 30% of their first-year subscriptions and in-app purchases made through the iOS store. While this will be reduced to 15% from second year onwards, some feel it’s way too much paying for Apple! This even made Spotify and Telegram file a complaint in the EU.
Related: Apple and Amazon being investigated by Italian regulator over alleged price fixing
Back to the allegation, Eddy offered Bezos a cut to 15% whenever someone subscribes to its app through their store. Further, the same 15% for users purchasing in-app movies. This was subjected to 30% to all developers publishing their apps through Appstore for the first year. But Amazon was given a special offer to onboard the Prime Video Player to Apple TV.
This led the House Antitrust Subcommittee to allege Apple and Amazon over the unfair practice. While it’s not known what had happened next, Amazon’s Prime Video Player has shown up in Apple TV in December 2017 finally. It’s available in the iOS store since 2012 anyway.
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