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UPDATE 3/8: Facing pressure from European regulators, Apple restored Epic Games’ iOS developer account. Apple says it secured a commitment from the Fortnite developer to follow its rules in the EU. But Epic Games credits the reversal to the European Commission.
Original Story:Apple is being probed by European Union regulators over the tech firm's Wednesday decision to terminate rival Epic Games' developer account. The European Commission is looking into whether the move might have violated the region's Digital Markets Act (DMA), which was passed back in 2022 and is now being enforced.
Earlier this week, the EU fined Apple over $1.9 billion for its App Store rules because Apple had been "abusing its dominant position" in the market, the Commission said. The agency has requested more information from Apple regarding the decision to ban Epic's account, and App stores like Apple's and Google's are a primary focus area for the Commission right now, Bloomberg reports.
Reached for comment, two European Commission spokespeople confirmed to PCMag via email that the agency has contacted Apple for an explanation of Epic's account ban. The Commission is also looking into whether Apple might have also violated the EU's Digital Services Act (DSA) and its Platform-to-Business (P2B) regulations as well. The Commission reps emphasized that any account terminations need to be "proportionate and in due regard to fundamental rights," and shared that under the P2B, a platform must notify a business user in advance of an account's deletion.
Just weeks ago, Apple had lifted Epic Games' developer account ban, but it seems the move was short-lived. On Wednesday, Epic Games alleged that Apple's second ban on its developer account "is a serious violation of the DMA and shows Apple has no intention of allowing true competition on iOS devices."
"If Apple maintains its power to kick a third party marketplace off iOS at its sole discretion, no reasonable developer would be willing to utilize a third party app store, because they could be permanently separated from their audience at any time," Epic continued in its post.
Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney wrote late Wednesday in response to the news that competition is "a fragile thing."
"Apple is doing everything they can to sow fear so that, even if they’re forced to end this blockade, every developer will know Apple can crush any of us on a whim, and therefore that competition is futile," Sweeney said.
But Apple claims Epic has broken agreements with the iPhone maker before, and sees that history as cause for concern.
"Epic’s egregious breach of its contractual obligations to Apple led courts to determine that Apple has the right to terminate any or all of Epic Games wholly owned subsidiaries," Apple said in a statement. "In light of Epic’s past and ongoing behavior, Apple chose to exercise that right."
In a February letter from App Store lead Phil Schiller, the executive emphasized Epic has called Apple's DMA compliance efforts "hot garbage," "malicious," and "devious."
The European Commission had previously given big tech "gatekeepers" like Apple until Wednesday to comply with the DMA, causing others like Meta to open up its WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger services to be able to communicate with third-party platforms.
Editors' Note: This story has been updated to include comments from the European Commission.