Apple reconciles with class-prosecuting developer to establish $100 million fund

Apple announced on August 26 (local time) that it had reached an agreement with several developers who had been charged with class action in the United States. As part of the reconciliation, it will set up a $100 million fund for small developers in the US and make changes to App Store policies.

The class indictment has argued that it is a violation of antitrust laws for Apple to mandate its own payments and collect high fees without acknowledging links to external purchases. The prosecution has reached a settlement, but as a condition, Apple is implementing seven important priorities. The most influential of these is allowing users to be notified of payment methods other than the App Store. Until now, such content was not allowed. Accordingly, we also allow the use of the information used to register the app for notification purposes. However, the user has a choice whether to allow notifications or not.

In addition, it will maintain the App Store Small Business Program for the next three years, which provides a 15% discount on developer fees of less than $1 million in annual app revenue. In addition, it is said that the search results of the App Store will be checked whether they are based on objective characteristics and that this system will be maintained for the next three years. To allow finer granularity of subscription app purchases and paid app prices, currently below 100 and above 500. Keeping the option for developers to object to app registration denials and adding easy-to-understand content to this structure. To create an annual transparency report showing objective data such as number of rejected apps, number of accounts removed, and search terms. As mentioned earlier, the establishment of a $100 million now to support small US developers.

While the app didn’t accept other payment methods, just being able to contact users outside of the app might be a big step forward. Regarding the violation of Apple’s antitrust law, a bill was submitted in the United States to ban standard app deletion restrictions or to make it mandatory to permit third-party app stores and sideloads. It remains to be seen how the agreement will affect these bills and ongoing litigation. Related information can be found here.