Apple and Google’s lucrative app stores are under threat from bipartisan legislation introduced in Congress this week.
A bill introduced in the House on Friday would bar Apple and Google from blocking users from downloading apps from third-party app stores.
The bill, a companion to a Senate bill introduced earlier this week, would also stop the tech giants from requiring app developers to use Apple or Google’s payment systems — a major point of contention behind an ongoing legal battle between Fortnite developer Epic Games and Apple.
In the lawsuit, which has yet to be decided, Epic blasted the 30 percent commissions Apple charges larger developers, saying were only possible because the iPhone maker maintained an unlawful monopoly.
Apple has admitted it made “at least” $100 million from commissions on the popular Fortnite video game alone — and raked in $22 billion in overall App Store commissions last year.
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Tesla CEO Elon Musk have also slammed Apple’s App Store practices.
“Apple app store fees are a de facto global tax on the Internet. Epic is right,” said a typically blunt Musk in reference to Fortnite developer’s lawsuit.
Google, unlike Apple, lets users download apps from outside app stores. However, developers who use the Google’s Play Store are required to use the company’s payments processor, which also charges fees of up to 30 percent.
Republican Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado — who introduced the House bill alongside Democratic Rep. Hank Johnson of Georgia — slammed both companies’ app store policies as squashing competition and hurting developers.
“For far too long, companies like Google and Apple have had a stranglehold on app developers who are forced to take whatever terms these monopolists set in order to reach their customers,” said Buck.
Buck and Johnson’s House bill follows the Senate bill introduced earlier this week by Democratic Sens. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, as well as Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee.
That bill would also allow developers to use third-party app stores and bar big app stores from requiring use of their payment systems.
Google and Apple did not immediately reply to requests for comment.
Apple has previously defended its restrictive app store as “an unprecedented engine of economic growth and innovation” and claimed the store “supports more than 2.1 million jobs across all 50 states.”
“I found this predatory abuse of Apple and Google so deeply offensive on so many levels,” Blumenthal said earlier this week. “Their power has reached a point where they are impacting the whole economy in stifling and strangling innovation.”
In addition to the congressional bills, Google is fighting a lawsuit from a group of state attorneys general who also argue that the company’s sky-high app store fees constitute an unlawful monopoly.
With Post wires