Apple’s antitrust complaints continue grow with the latest one being filed with the European Commission by Florian Mueller, a German developer. The case is based on Mueller’s app originally called “Corona Control Game” being rejected by the App Store.
Mueller is aiming to sue Google along with Apple as both companies blocked the Corona Control Game from their app stores. Both have policies in place that only allow COVID-19 related apps that are government-approved to keep important health information in check (via Reuters).
Mueller says his Corona Control Game was “aimed at encouraging compliance with government COVID-19 rules.” It was rejected by both Apple and Google last November.
Now he has filed an antitrust complaint against both companies with the European Commission on the premise that Apple and Google are stifling innovation. It’s unclear at this point if the European Commission will hear the case or not.
Apple didn’t give an official comment to Reuters but shared its guidelines from March that says it won’t approve “entertainment or game apps with COVID-19 as their theme.”
Mueller’s complaint, which was seen by Reuters, says: “The stated goal of ‘ensuring the credibility of health and safety information’ does not justify blanket rules based on authorship or merely the combination of a broad category and a topic”.
Notably, Mueller renamed the app to “Viral Days” and was last month approved by Apple and Google.
- Epic Games calls on Apple to reinstate Fortnite to the App Store in new UK legal filling
- Epic claims App Store contract illegal; Facebook Gaming says Apple ‘frustrating’
- Apple Pay antitrust pressure grows as service heads towards 10% of all transactions
- New EU legislation targets Apple’s App Store practices and preinstalled apps
