Apple has been fined 10 times by the Dutch Authority for Consumers & Market (ACM), over the lack of third-party payment options for dating app developers. While the tech giant recently introduced new changes to its App Store policies, the ACM has found them to be “insufficient.”
Dutch regulator considers Apple’s actions ‘insufficient’ on third-party payment system for App Store
For quite some time, Apple has been trying to offer proposals that adhere to an order from the ACM to allow dating apps to use third-party payment processors for in-app payments. Following the latest’s proposal submitted by the tech giant in March, the ACM stated that they were “insufficient.”
The March proposal from the company does not require developers to submit a separate binary for alternative payment methods only in the Netherlands along with other changes.
In a statement from ACM (via journalist Nando Kasteleijn), the ACM revealed that the changes Apple made in its late March submission were inadequate. The translated statement says that the tech giant still “uses unreasonable conditions for dating app providers in the Netherlands.”
The ACM says that the conditions proposed by Apple are unreasonable which is apparent from its own research, advice from experts, and “consultation with market parties.”
While the proposal still came up short, the Dutch watchdog does say it sees “an improvement in the proposals that Apple makes, but they are not yet sufficient to comply with European and Dutch rules.” The ACM further says that it is still discussing the proposal with the tech giant.
After 10 fines with no resolution, the ACM revealed that it is working on a new set of penalties to push Apple to make the required changes to the App Store. The ACM believes that the “penalty did not have the desired result,” therefore the “ACM is preparing a new order subject to penalty” that could take several weeks until a new announcement.
Details about what the tech giant failed to comply with as well as details about the new penalties were not provided by the watchdog. In the statement, the watchdog also says that it will only make an official announcement regarding the revised penalty when it is published and that it “could take several weeks.”
Currently, it is unclear what penalty Apple will be subject to now. To date, Apple has been fined 5 million euros ($5.26 million), ten times since it missed a January 15, 2022 deadline to make the ordered changes to its App Store.
