Apple: EU court confirms it is a gatekeeper for the App Store and iOS

The General Court of the European Union has dismissed the appeals lodged by Apple against the European Commission’s decision that designated it as a “gatekeeper” for the App Store and the iOS operating system under the Digital Markets Act (DMA), thereby confirming the legitimacy of the classification and the associated obligations set out in the Digital Markets Act.

In their judgement, the judges first of all confirmed the Commission’s assessment that the various versions of the App Store – for iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch and Apple TV – constitute a single basic platform service (SPB). The differences between the various digital stores, the Court notes, relate mainly to the specific characteristics of the devices used and do not justify a distinction between different basic platform services, as Apple had argued.

The Court also declared inadmissible the plea in which Apple challenged the legality of the provisions of the DMA on interoperability obligations, finding that those provisions do not constitute the legal basis for the designation decision nor do they have a direct link to it.

The appeal concerning the iMessage messaging service has finally been declared inadmissible. According to the Court, the classification of iMessage as a number-independent interpersonal communications service (Niics), does not, in itself, produce binding legal effects, since the Commission subsequently decided not to designate the service as an essential access point and, consequently, the obligations laid down in the DMA do not apply to it.

In a statement, Apple commented: “We firmly believe that the DMA’s mandate goes beyond what is required in terms of legality and proportionality, and that it risks eroding decades of privacy and security safeguards that we have built up, leaving our users exposed to new risks. We will continue to strive for the innovation and privacy that our European customers deserve.”