BlueMail’s fight with Apple was never only about one app. From 2019 on, Blix used its own experience to show lawmakers and competition regulators how App Store control works in practice: what it is like to be buried in search, removed from a store, and given a new explanation every few weeks.
The US Congress
In 2019 and 2020, the antitrust subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee investigated competition in digital markets, including Apple’s control of the App Store. Blix worked with Congress during the investigation.
The subcommittee’s majority staff report, released on October 6, 2020, cites Blix by name. In its section on how Apple takes developers’ ideas, it quotes Blix’s amended complaint:
“Apple frequently takes other companies’ innovative features, adds those ideas to Apple’s own software products without permission, and then either ejects the original third-party application from the App Store (as it did with Blix’s software) or causes the third-party software developer to close its doors entirely.”
Investigation of Competition in Digital Markets, House Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial and Administrative Law, quoting Blix Inc. v. Apple Inc.
The European Union
In June 2020, responding to the European Commission’s consultation on the Digital Services Act, Apple presented App Review as a safeguard that protects users.
On September 21, 2020, Blix wrote to Margrethe Vestager, the Commission’s Executive Vice-President for digital policy, to give the developer’s view. The letter argued that the App Store is not a level playing field, and that Apple uses its control over app distribution to favour its own apps over competitors. It set out BlueMail’s experience as evidence: years of suppressed search rankings, the removal from the Mac App Store days after Sign in with Apple was announced, and eight months of shifting explanations before BlueMail returned.
The Commission responded. On October 12, 2020, Executive Vice-President Vestager replied to Blix, agreeing that “innovation and competition among app developers must be safeguarded”. She pointed to the Commission’s ongoing investigations into Apple’s App Store rules, and to its work on new rules for large online platforms to keep the markets they affect fair, competitive and open to new entrants.
Two months later, on December 15, 2020, the Commission proposed those rules: the Digital Markets Act, a new set of rules for the largest “gatekeeper” platforms. It became law in 2022. Apple was designated a gatekeeper in September 2023, and the rules have applied to its App Store and iOS since March 2024.
Australia
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) examined app marketplaces as part of its Digital Platform Services Inquiry. Blix met with the ACCC during the inquiry and, at the Commission’s request, shared the concerns it had set out for the European Commission.
The ACCC’s report on app marketplaces, released on April 28, 2021, found that the Apple App Store and Google Play have significant market power in the distribution of mobile apps in Australia, and that developers need fairer terms and better app-approval processes.
What changed
Blix is proud to have been one of the voices – alongside our partners and many other developers – that helped put these problems on lawmakers’ agenda. The issues we raised in 2019 and 2020 are now addressed in European law:
- Apple’s apps ranked above better competitors The Digital Markets Act bars gatekeepers from ranking their own products more favourably than similar third-party products (Article 6(5)).
- No way to choose a default app Gatekeepers must let users change default settings and uninstall pre-installed apps (Article 6(3)).
- One store, with App Review as the only way in Gatekeepers must allow third-party apps and app stores (Article 6(4)), and give developers access to their own app store on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms (Article 6(12)).
In Australia, the ACCC reached the same conclusion about app approval: developers need fairer terms and better processes.