Apple Pay, in the USA the complaint is triggered: monopoly of 1 billion dollars a year

0
14
1049784.jpeg
1049784.jpeg

It is a delicate moment for Apple’s history: on several fronts, in fact, a fragmented and complex game is being played to determine whether its policies on the App Store (see clash with Epic Games as a highlight) and Apple Pay are legitimate or not. . And in the United States, as reported by Bloomberglaw firms Hagens Berman And Sperling & Slater have advanced one class action claiming that Cupertino is earning at least $ 1 billion a year thanks to the adoption of practices that are harmful to competition.

The reference, in particular, is to Apple Pay, and arises in the wake of the perplexities already formalized by PayPal and the European Union on the issue between May and June.

BLIND ALLEY: THERE IS ONLY APPLE PAY

Apple’s choice of prevent competition from accessing NFC technology integrated into iPhones and functional to payments: there is only one option, and that is Apple Pay. This way the bitten apple makes sure that card issuers pay a 0.15% fee for credit cards and half a cent for debit cards.

The class action, to unmask themonopoly attitude of Apple, among other things it refers to the landscape outlined by Google instead. In fact, on Android there are several wallets available in addition to Google Pay (Samsung Pay is mentioned in the document), and although the functions and purposes are the same, the simple existence of alternatives allows card issuers to pay nothing to Mountain View – where instead Apple, as mentioned, from this closure of its system derives an estimated figure of around one billion dollars per year.

SEE ALSO  Apple will allow Safari to be completely uninstalled on the iPhone, another historic change for the company

The thesis is that Apple would not be able to keep its commissions if it decided to open iPhone to other wallets other than the proprietary one: the behavior of the Cupertino giant would therefore constitute multiple violations of the Sherman Act. This class-action in itself it is not that element that shifts the inertia of the speech against Apple, and yet it belongs to a broader picture of tensions and questioning of the company’s way of operating which in the coming years will necessarily lead to an outcome.