The European Commission will start a formal investigation into Spotify's complaint over Apple, reports the Financial Times. According to the paper's sources, the Commission will confirm the start of the probe in a few weeks, and preliminary investigations are already underway.
Spotify said in March that it filed a complaint with the EU about the commission charged by Apple for distributing products on its App Store. Spotify said Apple charges developers and content providers a fee of 30 percent of revenues the first year for distributing their products. This could be an attempt to favour its own apps and music service, Spotify said. App sellers are also forced to use the App Store infrastructure, including its payment fees, which can add extra costs.
Apple said in response that Spotify profits from the infrastructure of the App Store. For example, it has supported over 200 updates of the Spotify app. Furthermore, the sales commission works differently, as many Spotify users access the free version of the service.
