Users may sue Apple for monopolizing the apps market
Apple to monopolize the market of applications for the iPhone and force them to pay in excess. The ruling determined that the owners of the devices can demonstrate against the demands of Apple to download the applications only from the App Store, taking a percentage of sales made through the store.
When a user buys an application, Apple collects the money, charges a commission of 30 percent and delivers the rest to the developer. The company told the Supreme Court that in 2017 alone it transferred $ 26.5 billion to the developers.
According to the specialized press, the decision could increase the pressure that the company that Tim Cook is facing to reduce the commission charged in the sales of applications. The lawyers in the case have said they will seek hundreds of millions of dollars on behalf of consumers who have overpaid.
For its part, Apple argued that such a claim was not appropriate because a ruling of the Supreme Court of 1977, provides that only direct purchasers of a product can collect damages for surcharge under the federal antitrust law. However, Judge Brett Kavanaugh said that App Store customers comply with that test because they buy directly from Apple.
"There are no intermediaries in the distribution chain between Apple and the consumer," Kavanaugh wrote.
Before the ruling, Apple along with with other allies in the technology industry had said that a decision of this kind would costly antitrust lawsuits to other companies operating in online markets such as Google, Amazon, and Facebook.
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