Dutch authorities have fined Apple another €5 million over third-party App Store payments

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What you need to know

  • Apple has been hit by another five million euro fine in the Netherlands.
  • Requirements to allow third-party payments for dating apps have so far not been met.
  • Apple has announced plans to charge 27% tax on all charges made via third-party services.

Apple has again been fined a further five million euros over its ongoing spat over whether Dutch dating apps should be allowed to use third-party payment systems in apps distributed via the App Store.

While Apple has begun to put the wheels in motion to allow Dutch dating apps to use third-party payment systems, the way it's doing it continues to rub Dutch antitrust regulators the wrong way. The Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) has been hitting Apple with a five million euro — or around $5.7 million — fine each week since the original January 15 deadline was broken. Apple was ordered to allow third-party payments and has so far not managed to do so.

Reuters writes:

The Dutch antitrust watchdog fined Apple 5 million euros ($5.7 million) on Monday, its fourth such fine for failing to allow software application makers in the Netherlands to use non-Apple payment methods for dating apps on the App Store.The Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) has been levying weekly fines of 5 million euros on Apple since the company missed a Jan. 15 deadline to make changes ordered by the watchdog.

Apple has already outlined new developer requirements that would have payments hit by a 27% tax even when handled outside the App Store. Apple has also offered up plans to allow developers the APIs required to make this happen — but none of it is happening quickly.

Developers and Apple watchers alike have railed against Apple's 27% cut with one developer calling it "absolutely vile."

Oliver Haslam
Oliver Haslam
Contributor

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too. Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.