US senators question Apple and Google on app store dominance

A panel ofUSsenatorsquestioned officials fromAppleInc and Alphabet Inc'sGoogleon Wednesday about thedominanceof their mobileappstores and whether the companies abuse their power at the expense of smaller competitors.

Amy Klobuchar, the top Senate Democrat on antitrust issues, saidAppleandGooglecan use their power to "exclude or suppressapps that compete with their own products" and "charge excessive fees that affect competition."

Appmakers like music streaming service Spotify Technology SA and dating services giant Match Group, which owns the Tinderapp, have long complained that mandatory revenue sharing for sales of digital goods and strict inclusion rules set byApple'sAppStorefor iPhones and iPads, along withGoogle's Playstorefor Android devices, amount to anticompetitive behavior.

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Representatives forAppleandGoogletoldsenatorsthe companies' tight control over theirstores and the associated revenue-sharing requirements are needed to enforce and pay for security measures to protect consumers from harmfulapps and practices.

But when asked by Senator Josh Hawley,Apple's Chief Compliance Officer Kyle Andeer would not commit to spending all of the mandatory fees on security.

Explanations from Andeer andGoogle's Wilson White, senior director for government affairs, about why the companies' fees do notapply to Uber Technologies Inc andapps that sell physical goods also failed to satisfysenators.

"I feel like unfrozen caveman lawyer," Senator Mike Lee said. "I'm not grasping it."

Senator Richard Blumenthal expressed concern about a call Match said it received late on Tuesday from its business counterpart atGoogle.

Match's Chief Legal Officer Jared Sine saidGooglewanted to know why Sine's planned testimony, which had just been released, deviated from previous comments the dating company had made.

"It looks like a threat, it talks like a threat, it's a threat," Blumenthal said of the call, vowing to investigateGoogle's action further.

Google's White said the call reflected an effort to ask an honest question and the company would never threaten partners.

In his testimony, Match's Sine argued thatGoogleandAppleboth exact an onerous 30 per centof any digital transaction, raising prices for consumers.

Match pays nearly $500 million in fees to theappstores annually, the company's single largest expense, Sine said.

Spotify and Match saidApple'sappreview process was opaque. Sine saidAppleblocked a safety update to the Tinderappmeant to warn LGBTQ+ users if they were traveling to a country where it might be dangerous to expose their identity becauseApplesaid the update violated the "spirit" of a new rule.

ButApplewould not explain how to fix the issue, Sine said. He said thatAppleapproved the update two months later only after senior leaders at Match's parent company at the time, IAC/Interactivecorp, raised the issue withApple's senior leaders.

The hearing came a day afterApplesaid it would begin selling AirTags - which can be attached to items like car keys to help users find them when they are lost - in direct competition with Tile, which has sold a similar tracking device for more than a decade.

Applesaid its AirTags were an outgrowth of its "FindMy"app, which is used for locating lostAppledevices and to share user locations and was introduced in 2010, before Tile's founding.Applelast month opened its operating system up to alternative item trackers and said that Chipolo, a startup competing with Tile and AirTags, is using the system.

Tile General Counsel Kirsten Daru testifiedApple's FindMy program is installed by default onApplephones and cannot be deleted.

"Applehas once again exploited its market power anddominanceto condition our customers’ access to data on effectively breaking our user experience and directing our users to FindMy," she said.