New Delhi: There may be regulatory issues for Apple in India for its dominant position in the application market, with the Watchdog Water-Trade of India (CCI) competition commission who looks into the complaint that the company forces developers to use the exclusive in-app purchasing system.
Complaints with CCI has been proposed by Rajasthan-based nonprofits ‘together we fight the community’, which has accused that the cost of technology giant up to 30% hurts competition by increasing costs for application developers and customers, while also acting as a barrier to enter the market.
CCI has received a complaint, although it has not made a decision whether the petition requires an investigation with an investigation arm, or whether it does not deserve action.
“The existence of a 30% commission means that some application developers will never get to the market …
this can also lead to consumer damage,” said the submission, which was first reported by Reuters.
The accusation was similar to the Apple case in the European Union, where the regulator last year began an investigation of the company’s imposition in 30% application for paid digital content distribution and other restrictions.
Apple refused to comment on this problem.
Nonprofit said it was pursuing cases of consumer interests and startup.
The Apple case in India came the same as the South Korean parliament this week approved a bill that prohibited the main application store operators such as Google and Apple from forcing their software developers to use their payment system.
Companies like Apple and Google say their costs include security and marketing benefits, their application stores, but many companies don’t agree.
Last year, after Startup India voiced concern for payment fees in the same application charged by Google, CCI ordered an investigation into it as part of a wider antitrust probe into the company.
The investigation is still active.
The antitrust case against Apple also accused the restrictions on how developers communicate with users to offer impotitive payment solutions and also injure the state payment processor that offers services at a lower cost in the range of 1-5%.
Rakesh Deshmukh, CEO and one of the founders of the Mobile HomeGrown Indus App Bazaar platform, said that payments in applications charged by Big Tech Giants acted as a barrier for innovation.
“This payment and policy acts as a barrier for many developers because they have never made it to the market,” Dishmukh said.
In recent weeks, Apple has loosened several restrictions for developers globally.
Apple May Faces CCI Probe for Payment Problems in Applications
