Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg joins fight against Apple, calls new EU App Store policies 'onerous'

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said it will be difficult for anyone, including themselves, to seriously entertain what Apple is doing

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has joined the chorus of rising criticism against Apple's proposed App Store policies to comply with the European Union's (EU) upcoming Digital Markets Act (DMA). During the company's earnings conference call on February 1, Zuckerberg said that the iPhone maker has made the rules "so onerous" and at "odds with the intent of what the EU regulation was" that he would be surprised if any developer chooses to adopt them.

"I don't think that the Apple thing is going to have any difference for us...I think it's just going to be very difficult for anyone, including ourselves, to really seriously entertain what they're doing there" Zuckerberg said.

On January 25, Apple announced that it will allow third-party app marketplaces on iOS and tweak its App Store fee structure in 27 EU countries, starting from March 2024.

These changes are part of the Apple's efforts to comply with EU's Digital Markets Act after it was designated as one of six “gatekeepers” companies along with Meta, Alphabet, Amazon, ByteDance, and Microsoft in September 2023.

The European Commission had also listed Apple's App Store, Safari browser, and iOS operating system as "core platform services" that will have to comply with DMA's obligations by March 2024. Failure to comply would result in fines of up to 10 percent of the company's total worldwide turnover, which can go up to 20 percent in case of repeated infringement.

Read: Why Spotify and Epic Games are unhappy with Apple’s proposed EU App Store policies

Apple also rolled out new business terms for app developers and it said developers looking to use the new capabilities of alternative distribution or payment processing must adopt them.

Apart from reduced commission fee, Apple introduced a new Core Technology Fee, that will apply for apps distributed both from the App Store and alternative app marketplaces.

Developers will have to pay €0.50 for each first annual install per year after it crosses a threshold of 1 million installs, irrespective of the distribution channel. This includes fresh app downloads and subsequent app updates and will apply for developers even if they choose to not use Apple's App Store or payment systems in the region.

This fee is expected to significantly impact all the big app makers or those that are experiencing rapid growth.

In the past month, many tech companies including Spotify, Mozilla, Epic Games, and Microsoft have criticised this move. Spotify termed Apple's plan as "extortion" and "total farce". Spotify CEO Daniel Ek said without the presence of many popular apps, alternative app stores will lack appeal, thereby rendering the EU's efforts to foster digital market competition futile.

Microsoft also called these App Store changes as “a step in the wrong direction” while Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney mentioned that the iPhone maker's plan is a "devious new instance of malicious compliance".

EU industry chief Thierry Breton recently told Reuters that they will assess the companies' proposals from March 7 and warned that if the "proposed solutions are not good enough, we will not hesitate to take strong action"