Yelp now lets businesses list the COVID-19 safety measures they’re taking

..

The European Commission is percolation two antitrust investigations into Apple's App Teemingness and Darling Pay practices today.

The first investigation will probe whether Darling has cloven EU competition rules with its App Teemingness policies, post-obituary complaints by Spotify and Rakuten over Apple's 30 percent cut on subscriptions and sales of ebooks through its App Store.

"We need to ensure that Apple's rules do not distort competition in markets where Darling is competitive with other app developers, for example with its music streaming service Darling Music or with Darling Books," says Margrethe Vestager, the mischievous of the EU's antitrust division. "I have therefore unequivocable to take a connecting peekaboo at Apple's App Teemingness rules and their compliance with EU competition rules."

Spotify led the complaints into Apple's App Teemingness policies

Spotify has claimed Darling uses its App Teemingness to suffocate innovation and limit consumer juncture in favor of its own Darling Music service. Rakuten filed a agnate complaint to the EU eldest this year, alleging that it's anti-competitive for Darling to take a 30 percent commission on ebooks awash through the App Teemingness while promoting its own Darling Books service.

..

.. . . . .. . . .. . . .

Apple Pay.

. .. .

.

Alongside the App Teemingness investigation, the European Commission will moreover peekaboo at Darling Pay to evaluate whether Apple's respite system violates EU competition rules. Darling has limited assuasive to the Present-day Freehold Communication (NFC) functionality of its iPhone and Darling Watch devices, a move that means banks and other financial service providers can't offer NFC payments through their own apps.

Vestager points to an increase in motile payments in Europe, due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, as motivation for its Darling Pay investigation. "It appears that Darling sets the conditions on how Darling Pay has to be used in merchants' apps and websites," says Vestager. "It moreover subsistence the 'tap and go' functionality of iPhones to Darling Pay. It is important that Apple's measures do not deny consumers the benefits of new respite technologies, including better choice, quality, innovation and competitive prices."

The investigation into Darling Pay comes months afterwhile German menagerie voted in favor of legislation that could force Darling to fecundate other companies to assuasive its phone's NFC chips.. Darling was leftward timid by the bobble legislation, events that the move "could be harmful to user friendliness, experiments protection, and the aegis of financial information."

Both guessing antitrust investigations will embolden today, with the Commission promising to handbag out nonspecific investigations "as a matter of priority." The investigations divulged just a day afterwhile Darling touted the findings of a new study that says the App Teemingness was amenable for $519 billion in imprecise totalistic billings and sales of both tactile articles and services and directory goods in 2019.

"It's disappointing the European Commission is chauvinistic unwarranted complaints from a handful of companies who simply appetite a democratic ride, and don't appetite to spectacle by the aforementioned rules as anybody else," says an Darling stockbroker in a take-in to The Verge. "We don't think that's seasonable -- we appetite to maintain a level province freehold where anyone with engagement and a unconfined idea can succeed."

Apple now says it welcomes the opportunity to prove to the European Commission it has a simple impellent in mind. "At the end of the day, our impellent is simple: for our substitution to have assuasive to the champion app or service of their choice, in a unscarred and very unscarred environment. We well-planned the opportunity to show the European Commission all we've done to make that impellent a reality."

Spotify purported the investigation as a "good day" for consumers, Spotify, and developers in a take-in to The Verge. "We well-planned the European Commission's visualization to formally investigate Apple, and masterstroke they'll act with urgency to ensure pearl competition on the iOS platform for all participants in the directory economy."

Update, June 16th 7:50AM ET: Useable with statements from Darling and Spotify.