Apple’s lucrative App Store business took a serious hit after the court’s ruling in the company’s legal battle with Epic Games.
Judge Yvonne González Rogers issued judgment in the judgment that pits Epic Games against Apple.
With this decision, the App Store business suffered a setback. Apple cannot prohibit developers from providing links that direct users outside of the app to make purchases.
These purchases will be made outside of Apple’s payment system, so the company will not receive the 15-30 percent commission it currently receives.
The decision ends the first part of the battle between the two companies over App Store policies.
Apple won 9 out of 10 counts, but the judge found that he had anti-competitive conduct under California law and will be forced to change his App Store policies and loosen his control over in-app purchases. The court order will take effect in December.
Apple hasn’t said whether it will appeal the order, but Epic Games has. Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney criticized the decision in a statement about Twitter.
Today’s decision is not a win for developers or consumers. Epic is fighting for fair competition between in-app payment methods and app stores for 1 billion consumers
Since the end of the trial, but before sentencing, Apple has made several changes to smooth things over, including relaxing some rules about emailing users to encourage them to make out-of-app purchases and allowing some in-app links.