Epic Games, Spotify, Tile, and More Form ‘Coalition for App Fairness’ to Protest App Store Rules

Epic Games, Spotify, Tile, and several other companies have banded together to take on Apple and its unfair App Store policies.

More than a dozen app makers and other companies have joined together to form the Coalition for App Fairness, a nonprofit group that’s taking aim at Apple and its App Store rules, reads a new report from The Wall Street Journal.

Among the founding members are Spotify, Epic Games, and Match Group, all of which have been vocal critics of the fees Apple charges developers.

The CAF is pushing for new guidelines that are more developer-friendly, such as not using developers’ data against them, forcing them into app store exclusivity, or being blocked from the stores due to a business model.

“As enforcers, regulators, and legislators around the world investigate Apple for its anti-competitive behavior, The Coalition for App Fairness will be the voice of app and game developers in the effort to protect consumer choice and create a level playing field for all,” Spotify Head of Global Affairs and Chief Legal Officer Horacio Gutierrez says in a prepared statement.

“The basic freedoms of developers are under attack,” Epic Games founder and CEO Tim Sweeney adds. “We are joining the Coalition for App Fairness to defend the fundamental rights of creators to build apps and to do business directly with their customers. We are an advocate for any company that’s ready to reclaim its rights and challenge the anti-competitive behaviors that exist on app stores today.”

The coalition’s founding members also feature Basecamp, Blix, Blockchain.com, Deezer, the European Publishers Council, News Media Europe, Prepear, Protonmail, SkyDemon, and Tile.

Many of the apps in the CAF have already been vocal about their thoughts on Apple’s App Store, and Spotify even created a campaign called Time to Play Fair to promote fair competition.

The App Store is under the microscope over the question of whether it operates as a monopoly. Apple argues that competition is alive and well in its app store since it still allows competing services, like Google Drive and Google Maps, to exist on the App Store.

However, separate investigations from the New York Times and The Wall Street Journal last year found that Apple favoured its own apps over those made by third parties. The issue lies in the fact that by pushing its own apps to the top of search results, Apple could potentially influence customers to download its apps instead of others.