ProtonMail developers say Apple is holding us all as hostages

Management of the secure email service ProtonMail has sharply criticized Apple, claiming that the company is abusing its market position by using the App Store to control users and fight competitors, and thus holds us all as hostages.

In his blog Andy Yen, ProtonMai CEO, writes that Apple has long been a monopolist that fights competitors with completely inhuman fees and also applies censors for dictatorial regimes.

“We know this because we have dutifully endured this exploitation for many years”, — Andy Yen says.

Ian writes that with the 30% commission that Apple receives on any App Store sales, the company is “holding us all as hostages” by abusing its power:

“Apple is trying to justify these fees by arguing that the App Store is no different from a mall, where companies looking to sell their products have to pay rent to the mall owner (in this case, Apple). This argument gracefully ignores the fact that there is only one mall when it comes to iOS, and it is not possible to rent space from a rival mall”, – says Andy Yen.

According to Andy Yen, there is nothing illegal about Apple owning and leasing a mall, and Apple has rights to own a single mall. However, it is against the law to own a single mall that charges excessively high prices to hurt competitors.

The ProtonMail chief compares Apple’s actions to a reckoning, and says Apple makes developers pay for just staying in business.

“This fee ultimately hurts consumers because these fees are indirectly borne by users, either through higher prices or through fewer competing products on the market”, — explains Yen.

It should be noted that Andy Yen’s message is in many ways similar to the recent criticism of Apple, published by Pavel Durov. He also called Apple a monopolist, which abuses his power, and also noted that a 30% commission harms users and simply destroys many startups.

Additionally, Spotify leaders are also unhappy with Apple’s actions during the last year, when the company filed a complaint against Apple, referring to the European antitrust regulators. Spotify claims Apple deliberately restricts App Store choices and stifles innovations.

The Kobo service joined this complaint this summer. In addition, after sharp criticism of Pavel Durov, Telegram representatives also filed an antitrust complaint with the European Commission in connection with the non-competitive working conditions in the App Store.

It should be noted that representatives of the European Commission themselves, who are currently engaged in a detailed investigation of the activities of the App Store and the Apple Pay payment system, expressed concern about Apple’s course of action this summer.

Let me also remind you that we wrote about various bugs in the company’s products, and assured that cybercriminals did not use vulnerabilities (especially 0-day), however, in terms of security, company’s policy is also far from transparent.