Spotify CEO wants Congress, Biden administration to rein in Apple’s ‘stranglehold’ on app stores

Spotify founder/CEO Daniel Ek is meeting with members of the United States Congress and the Biden administration this week in Washington, D.C., to urge them to pass legislation that would rein in the “stranglehold” companies like Apple have over the competition on their app stores, reports Billboard. 

The executive revealed this in a post on Spotify’s For the Record blog after teasing in a tweet on Sunday that he was headed to the U.S. capital. Ek wants to see the Open App Markets Act passed.

The Open App Markets Act seeks  to give app developers more power to reach their customers without the control of the app stores run by Apple and Google, and in particular without paying the app store commissions of up to 30% on in-app purchases. 

It does this by requiring Apple and Google to permit users to load apps on their devices from sources other than the proprietary app stores, Apple’s App Store and Google Play. It also requires the companies to allow users to access other payment systems that do not charge the app store commissions.

Apple has lobbied against the bill, arguing that it could lead to consumers loading apps onto their smartphones from places outside of its centralized app store, introducing potential privacy risks.