EU antitrust regulators are set to charge Apple with anti-competitive practices related to its Near Field Communication (NFC) chip technology, Reuters reports Wednesday, citing “people familiar with the matter.”
Near Field Communication (NFC) enables devices within a few centimeters of each other to exchange information wirelessly. iOS apps running on supported devices can use NFC scanning to read data from electronic tags attached to real-world objects. For example, a user can scan a toy to connect it with a video game, a shopper can scan an in-store sign to access coupons, or a retail employee can scan products to track inventory.
The European Commission opened an investigation into Apple Pay, its proprietary mobile payment solution on iPhones and iPads, in June last year.
The EU competition enforcer is now drafting a so-called statement of objections setting out its concerns which is expected to be sent to Apple next year, the sources said.
MacDailyNews Take: Mostly likely, this could affect what happens when an iPhone or Apple Watch is brought near an NFC reader where, currently, the Apple Pay and Apple Wallet interface automatically appears. Now, Apple may need to add a setting to allow to users to set this to allow third party contactless payment systems instead.
Please help support MacDailyNews. Click or tap here to support our independent tech blog. Thank you!