Spotify, Deezer, Rocket Internet, others sign letter to European Commission urging antitrust action against Apple and Google
Context & Ripple Effects
This 2017 letter is the opening move of what becomes a six-year lobbying campaign by Spotify and its allies. Two years later Spotify files a formal anti-trust complaint with the European Commission over App Store rules, and by 2021 sources report the EU is set to press antitrust charges against Apple for those same music-streaming rules.
The coalition tactic also persists: in January 2023 Spotify, Deezer, Proton and Basecamp send fresh letters to Margrethe Vestager demanding action on Apple's IAP fees — the same demand, aimed at the same commissioner, that this first letter previewed.
First-order effects
- Apple and Google now face a coordinated, named group of European digital businesses asking the Commission to open antitrust action, converting individual grievances into a single public demand.
- Spotify and Deezer get a shared platform for their App Store complaints without each bearing the cost of a solo regulatory fight.
Second-order effects
- Other app-dependent companies have an incentive to join the coalition, widening the complaint from music streaming to the App Store model itself — including in-app purchase fees.
- Apple must defend its store rules not just against one complainant but against a bloc of European firms, raising the political cost of leaving the rules unchanged.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, developer letters escalate into formal complaints and then formal charges — the sequence visible in the coverage — pushing the Commission toward regulating how gatekeeper platforms charge and restrict rival apps.
- App-store economics (commissions, IAP requirements) shift from private contract terms to matters of public antitrust enforcement in Europe.
The trend: European app developers are escalating from collective letters to formal complaints and charges, turning platform-gatekeeper fees into a standing EU antitrust target.