“Tech giants including Google, Apple and Amazon will for the first time face rules governing their commercial relations with smaller businesses under a law proposed by the European Union on Thursday,” Julia Fioretti reports for Reuters. “The new rules will specifically target app stores, search engines, e-commerce sites and hotel booking websites such as Expedia, requiring them to be more transparent about how they rank search results and why they delist some services.”
“Music streaming services such as Spotify have been pushing for Brussels to address relations between platforms and businesses, saying the former have an incentive to disadvantage competitors’ services,” Fioretti reports. “Apple’s entry into the music streaming field with Apple Music sparked concerns from other companies, such as Spotify, which have argued that the 30 percent cut Apple takes of subscriptions in its App Store gives its own service an unfair advantage. Under the EU’s proposal, which will have to be approved by the European Parliament and member states before becoming law, online platforms will have to appoint mediators to deal with complaints and bear at least half the costs.”
“CCIA, which represents Google, Amazon and eBay, said online platforms go to great lengths to maintain good relations with their business users because it was in their own interest,” Fioretti reports. “‘There is no evidence of a systemic problem that would justify regulation through the strongest legislative instrument available to the EU. A more flexible approach, rather than an outsized, one-size-fits-all regulation, would be more conducive to the growth of Europe’s digital economy,’ said Jakob Kucharczyk, Vice President, Competition & EU Regulatory Policy at CCIA.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: The EU wants to over-regulate something? Shocking.
Apple Music’s advantage over Spotify is not the App Store terms, it’s the 15 million more tracks it contains for the same price vs. Spotify.
You’d have to be stupid to subscribe to Spotify when it has 33% fewer tracks than Apple Music for the same price. Apple Music boasts a catalog of 45 million songs; Spotify has a mere subset of just 30 million. Don’t be stupid. If you’re still subscribing to Spotify, it’s past time for you to cancel it and upgrade to Apple Music. (See also: How to move your Spotify playlists to Apple Music.) – MacDailyNews, February 6, 2017
SEE ALSO:
Analyst: Apple Music will average 40% annual growth over the next three years – April 18, 2018
Apple needs to reconsider its HomePod strategy – April 18, 2018
Apple Music hits 40 million paid subscribers milestone – April 4, 2018
Apple Music hits 38 million paid subscribers – March 12, 2018
Apple Music expands student membership pricing to 82 new countries – February 13, 2018
Apple Music poised to knock off Spotify – February 12, 2018
Apple Music was always going to win – February 6, 2018
Apple Music on track to overtake Spotify, become No. 1 streaming service in U.S. this summer – February 4, 2018
Apple Music and Spotify now account for the majority of music consumption in the UK – January 3, 2018
Spotify files for its IPO – January 3, 2018
Spotify hit with $1.6 billion lawsuit from music publisher – January 2, 2018
Apple Music passes Pandora and Spotify in mobile usage – March 29, 2017
Spotify hits 50 million paid subscribers – March 3, 2017
Apple Music surpasses 20 million paid members 17 months after launch – December 6, 2016
Oh ok, Spotify listeners are upgrading to Apple Music – July 19, 2015
Spotify CEO claims to be ‘ok’ with Apple Music – June 9, 2015
And yet Spotify is the only music service that Waze (currently) integrates with. If you use Waze, send a suggestion that they give us a choice to use Apple Music as an alternative to Spotify.
Wouldn’t that represent a possible leverage point for Google to negotiate other dealings with Apple? (e.g. Default Search engine for Apple products at lower to no cost)
Interesting that Spotify is a European company.
Swedish. Mostly owned by record companies. So merry go round.
Regulatory overreach is in the eye of the public. What the Commission can pull off, and what the EU public expect are not the same as in the US or Singapore. The EU is also such a huge market so as to be impossible to ignore.