BRUSSELS (AP) \u2014 The European Union stepped up its antitrust case against Apple on Monday, accusing the company of abusing its dominant position by limiting access to technologies allowing contactless payment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The 27-nation bloc\u2019s executive arm, the European Commission, has been investigating Apple since 2020. The commission\u2019s preliminary view is that the firm is restricting competition by preventing mobile wallet app developers from accessing the necessary hardware and software on Apple devices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mobile wallets rely on near-field communication, or NFC, which uses a chip in the mobile device to wirelessly communicate with a merchant\u2019s payment terminal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The commission said Apple Pay is by far the largest NFC-based mobile wallet on the market and accused the company of refusing others access to the popular technology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cApple has built a closed ecosystem around its devices and its operating system, iOS. And Apple controls the gates to this ecosystem, setting the rules of the game for anyone who wants to reach consumers using Apple devices,\u201d EU competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager said. \u201cBy excluding others from the game, Apple has unfairly shielded its Apple Pay wallets from competition.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The commission didn\u2019t say how big the fines could be if the charges against Apple were ultimately upheld.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Apple responded in a statement that it \u201cwill continue to engage with the Commission to ensure European consumers have access to the payment option of their choice in a safe and secure environment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The commission said the practice \u201chas an exclusionary effect on competitors and leads to less innovation and less choice for consumers for mobile wallets on iPhones.\u201d It said it sent a Statement of Objections to Apple over its practices, a formal step in its investigations into suspected violations of EU antitrust rules.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The case is one of several investigations opened by the EU targeting Apple. EU regulators are also looking into whether the company has been violating the bloc\u2019s antitrust laws by distorting competition for music streaming by imposing unfair rules for rival services in its App Store.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The commission said Apple Pay is the only mobile wallet solution that may access the necessary NFC input on iOS and blamed Apple for not making it available to third-party app developers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Apple responded by saying its digital wallet service \u201cis only one of many options available to European consumers for making payments, and has ensured equal access to NFC while setting industry-leading standards for privacy and security.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Vestager said the EU takes security issues very seriously, but insisted that the bloc\u2019s investigation didn\u2019t reveal evidence that security risks would increase if access were to be granted to third parties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOn the contrary, evidence on our file indicates that Apple\u2019s conduct cannot be justified by security concerns,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BRUSSELS (AP) \u2014 The European Union stepped up its antit […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1434,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1433"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1433\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1435,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1433\/revisions\/1435"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}