By Mauro Orru and Adria Calatayud
U.K. antitrust officials said Apple and Alphabet's Google should allow app developers in the country to steer customers toward alternative platforms for payment, a change the watchdog says would allow app makers to bypass some fees set by the tech giants.
The Competition and Markets Authority said Tuesday that it was launching a consultation on new requirements for Apple and Google to make the change that would let developers engage directly with customers about payments off their own platforms, a practice known as steering. The CMA said Apple currently banned steering in the U.K., while Google had some restrictions in place until now.
"We think it is important to give both app developers and users more choice about how they communicate and how they transact," Will Hayter, executive director for digital markets at the CMA, said in a statement. "This is not only because choice is inherently valuable but also because we see this as the best way to introduce some competitive pressure in a vital part of the mobile ecosystem that is otherwise sorely lacking such pressure."
The regulator said it would expect Apple and Google to introduce fees that app makers would pay to steer customers to other platforms for payment, and those fees would be lower than current app store charges.
