UK's CMA Ends Investigation into Google and Apple App Store Policies

TapTechNews August 21, the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) today announced that it has ended its investigation into the policies of Google and Apple's app stores and hopes to curb the dominance of a few large technology companies in the future with the new Digital Markets Act.

The CMA said the new digital market regime will give the CMA greater power to levy huge fines for violations, with fines up to 10% of a company's global annual revenue. TapTechNews note: The UK's Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act (DMCCA) will come into effect this autumn.

Will Hayter, executive director of digital markets at the Competition and Markets Authority, said: Once the new Digital Markets Act comes into effect, we will be able to consider applying these new powers to the issues we have found in our current work.

The CMA launched an investigation in March 2021 to determine whether Apple and Google have a monopoly position in the UK in app distribution and whether they enforce unfair or anti-competitive terms on developers by virtue of their market dominance, such as charging a 30% commission.

In addition, the CMA believes that Google's terms requiring developers to use its in-app purchases violate competition law. The CMA also confirmed that it expects to launch approximately 3 to 4 SMS investigations within the first year of the new Digital Markets Act coming into effect.