Dutch regulators reject Apple's appeal against fines under dating App payment rules

CTOnews.com, Oct. 2 (Reuters)-Dutch antitrust regulator ACM today rejected Apple's appeal against a fine of 50 million euros (CTOnews.com Note: about 385 million yuan), saying Apple failed to comply with an order to limit App Store's monopoly position.

ACM said Apple has met "most of the requirements", including opening a third-party app store in the Netherlands and allowing dating App to use other payment methods, but there is one "undisclosed condition" that has not yet been met.

Before that, Apple challenged the fine of up to 50 million euros, saying that ACM overestimated Apple's "monopoly" in the dating App and that regulators had an inaccurate definition of the market. ACM's decision to reject the appeal was made as early as July 13 this year and has not been made public until now. Apple responded, "as ACM rejected our administrative appeal, we will appeal to the Dutch court."

Previously on CTOnews.com: in 2021, ACM ruled that Apple's internal purchase rules on dating App violated competition law and asked Apple to allow third-party payment in dating App.

Subsequently, Dutch regulators fined Apple 5 million euros for a total of 10 times until Apple announced last year that it would allow the use of a third-party payment system in the Dutch dating App.

It is reported that Apple has long imposed the use of its in-app payment system, or Apple Pay, through which transactions will charge a 30 per cent commission, which some developers such as Tinder consider to be on the high side.