Following In Epic Games' Footsteps, US Publisher Asks Apple To Lower Taxes On The App Store

JAKARTA - A number of news publishers in the United States (US), Digital Next Content, joined the list of companies and application developers who criticized Apple's tax or commission provisions, through the App Store. They claim that the withdrawal of a 30 percent commission or tax is unfair and has the potential to carry out a trade monopoly.

The digital media trade association includes newspapers such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, Vox Media. A number of digital media and broadcasters also sent an open letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook last Thursday.

They questioned the policy taken by Apple regarding the amount of commission from each application in the App Store. This includes negotiating the amount of tax, as Apple did to Amazon, which only imposed 15 percent of its Prime video app, in 2016.

"We want to know what conditions our members must meet. High-quality digital content companies, in order to qualify for the arrangements that Amazon received for the Amazon Prime Video application on the Apple App Store," wrote Digital Content Next CEO Jason Kint as reported by CNET, Friday. August 21.

In his letter, Kint provided Cook's response to the Amazon deal, in which Cook said the terms were available to any developer who "met the requirements."

In addition, Cook has never clarified the question of these requirements. Likely, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is personally negotiating with Apple's senior vice president Eddy Cue to secure terms.

The Apple tax is currently being investigated by the European Union for alleged anti-competition and monopolizing profits from every application in the App Store. Besides the lawsuit that Epic Games filed against Apple for blocking Fortnite from the App Store.

Previously, the news publishing association also objected to Apple's move to introduce media aggregator Apple News. Because this application does not help publishers much in monetizing the content shared on its platform.

The New York Times publicly refuses to participate in Apple News Plus. Moreover, the platform provisions are reportedly unfavorable for publishers, when all articles are curated into Apple News both standard and free versions.