Google and Apple might be forced to open up their platforms for third-party app stores and payments
The Open App Markets Act has advanced out of Senate Judiciary committee. In short, that means the bill — which would require Apple to allow sideloading of apps on iPhones, and force both Google and Apple to allow third-party billing on their app stores and third-party app stores on their platforms — is one step closer to becoming law. It’s particularly important to note (and particularly concerning for Apple and Google) that the act got plenty of bipartisan support.
If you haven’t been following the news for this particular act, it’s understandable. Until now, it wasn’t clear how serious we might need to take it. Plenty of bills proposed in Congress die in the committee stage. The topically relatedAmerican Innovation and Choice Online Actreceived less across-the-aisle support, though it also passed this committee stage.
The details for the Open App Markets Act are still generally subject to change before (and if) they are passed into law, but the current details indicate that it would require app store providers with over 50 million US customers to meet basic requirements, including allowing customers to install apps from outside those stores, not to prevent third-party billing (or to try to influence that billing unfairly with other practices), and to allow third-party app stores, among other competition-friendly changes.
Many of the changes proposed are things Android users already take for granted, like the ability to “sideload” apps, installing them from any source they’d like, and the ability to install third-party app stores — even though these don’t get the same level of system integration the Play Store does. (Google plans to fix that.) Apple has long claimed that its customers wouldbe caught by the malware boogeymanshould they ever gain the freedom to sideload, and neither company would like to give up their app store billing cash cows, though both haverelentedanddropped prices for some developers.
While Apple and Google are understandably very much opposed to the bill, it is supported by other big players in the industry. Spotify, Epic Games, Basecamp, and many more have formed theCoalition for App Fairness, a body that is asking lawmakers to dismantle the houses that Google and Apple built, all in the name of creating a fairer environment for those businesses that don’t happen to be the gatekeepers of mobile revenue. Epic Games isno stranger to drastic measuresto bring this point home, and Spotify is likely more than happy to further grow its revenue.
However, the bill still isn’t law, and it has a long path ahead of it before that can happen, with no schedule yet. But the approval it received at this early stage, with only two of 22 members of the bipartisan committee objecting, could indicate better than expected support, increasing the odds it will actually happen in the face of an increasingly divided senate.
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