- Proton has joined an American trial against Apple on anti -competitive practices
- The costume is looking for the two changes in the ecosystem of the App Store and the monetary damage
- On April 30, 2025, an American judge recognized Apple guilty of having violated the federal injunction of the 2021 epic on the illegal monopoly
The Swiss Privacy Cabinet Proton continued Apple on anti -competitive practices which, warn society, undermine freedom and democracy, harm confidentiality first and leads to a worst user experience.
The supplier behind one of the best VPNs, secure e-mail, encrypted calendar and password management services, Proton, joined an existing collective appeal in the United States against Apple on Monday, June 30, 2025.
The pursuit, filed at the American district court in the North District of California, requires changes in the App Store ecosystem as well as monetary damage. The latter, Proton said, will be donated to organizations fighting for democracy and human rights through the non -profit organization behind society, Proton Foundation.
Why Proton pursues Apple
“Apple monopoly control over the distribution of iOS devices has a myriad of problems for consumers, businesses and society as a whole,” said Proton in a blog article.
“The anti-monopoly laws exist because the power offered by the status of monopoly inevitably leads to abuse. In the case of the giants of oligarchic technology, these abuses have great implications for society, and it is vital for the future of the Internet that they are discussed now.”
More specifically, Proton claims that Apple policies promote a model of surveillance capitalism that affects confidentiality and confidentiality companies.
Apple not only requires that all developers pay annual costs in the App Store, but a 30% reduction in all subscription payments made via iOS applications.
On April 30, judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers noted that this behavior violated her federal injunction on the illegal monopoly issued in 2021 in the Epic Games case.
The great giant of technology was indeed supposed to stop anti -competitive practices by giving third -party developers more power to redirect users to cheaper non -apple payment options.
On this occasion, the founder and CEO of Proton, Andy Yen, said that the company could reduce its price up to 30% if Apple was ultimately forced to remove its tax on the App Store.
In response to the recent court decision in the United States against the purchase monopoly in Apple’s illegal application, @ProtonPrivacy will finally be authorized to allow iOS users to buy subscriptions outside the App Store. No Apple tax means that we will lower user prices to 30%.May 1, 2025
Proton also warns that Apple’s total Apple control control endorses the distribution of the application on different markets.
“Apple maintains that this control is necessary for security reasons. But the reality is that it has made Apple the only failure of freedom of expression and a dictatorship tool,” said the supplier.
In 2024 only, for example, Apple deleted at least 60 VPN applications from the Russian App Store at the request of the authorities, for a total of almost 100 unavailable applications on the Apple market in Russia.
We are trying to constantly end anti -competitive behavior on the App Store
Proton
Applecensurship researchers also found 11,026 unavailable applications in the Chinese App Store, which affect sensitive categories such as the virtual private network (VPN) – Protonvpn included – other confidentiality software (such as Protonmail, Signal and DuckduckGo), information applications, social media and even dating applications.
Proton also accuses Apple of “intentionally paralyzing third -party applications that compete with Apple Services”, ultimately offering Apple users a worst internet experience.
For example, Apple prevents users from using the Proton Calendar app as a default option, said Proton, although this interoperability is available for messaging services.
What is the next step?
As mentioned above, Proton joined an existing trial which was filed on May 23 against Apple by a group representing Korean application developers.
However, the trial is not only a matter of money. The decision to join this legal action against such a technological giant, said Proton, results from the commitment to improve the state of the Internet by modifying once for all Apple Apple policies.
“We are constantly trying to end anti -competitive behavior on the App Store, and we join this trial to guarantee that any future regulations apply real changes to Apple practices and policies for the benefit of all consumers, developers and competition, and not just cosmetic changes,” said Proton.
We have approached Apple for comments, but we are still waiting for an answer at the time of publication.
