Both the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission have started looking at the new terms Apple set this week for media companies that want to sell content on the iOS platform, according to a new report. Citing people familiar with the matter, the Wall Street Journal reports that the groups’ interest in Apple is only at a preliminary stage, and won’t necessarily develop into a formal investigation or action against the company.
Beyond the U.S., a spokesperson for the European Commission has said the commission is aware of Apple’s new policies and is “carefully monitoring the situation.” Earlier this week, Apple issued a press release announcing its new subscription service for the App Store, in which it revealed new rules that forbid companies from including links in their apps to sell content outside the app, force them to offer the same subscription price via In-App Purchase—of which Apple gets a 30 percent cut—as they do outside the app. Banning apps from linking to external sites “sounds like a pretty aggressive position,” said Eric Goldman, director of Santa Clara University’s High Tech Law Institute.
“It seems like that’s purely in the interests of Apple trying to restrict people doing transactions they don’t get a cut from.”
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