France recently accused Apple and Google of abusive contracts, and will take both tech giants to court. French finance minister Bruno Le Maire says both companies have abusive contractual terms on French startups and developers.
Abusive Contracts
Earlier today Bruno told radio station RTL that he will take Apple and Google to the Paris commercial court. He claims that both companies impose prices on developers and have the power to rewrite their contracts.
All that is unacceptable and it’s not the economy that we want. They can’t treat our startups and developers the way they do…As powerful as they are, Google and Apple should not be able to treat our startups and our developers the way they currently do.
France seeks fines of 2 million euros (US$2,471,280). Bruno also said that he expects the EU to close tax loopholes that benefit Apple, Facebook, Google, and Amazon by the beginning of 2019.
Preventing the more powerful negotiator setting the terms, no negotiations – that’s un-American! oh yeh… my bad.
Sometimes I have to wonder if the French pop their heads up over the parapet (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8yjNbcKkNY) and rant and rail just because they’re “cheesed off” that they’re not the centre of attention ?
But seriously, (As GeoDuck noted) I’ve never heard of an App Developer being told how much they can charge.
And separately, of course Apple & Google will set the terms & conditions. It’s their App Store. It’s their reputation. They’re the ones who would face the wrath of the Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys and their lawyers if something goes wrong, or someone gets offended.
And I wonder how many little developers would never have gotten off the ground without the AppStore and GooglePlay store in place. Whats next, taking Walmart to court because they set the prices in their own store? And FWIW I don’t believe Apple sets app prices. They take a fixed cut, but as I understand it, the price is up to the developer.