The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission says it will investigate competition between Google and Apple's app stores and how they use and share data
Two teenagers are posing with their Samsung Galaxy S4 (left) and iPhone 4 smartphones. — Apple and Google have been copping quite …
Context & Ripple Effects
The ACCC's app store inquiry extends an enforcement arc rather than opening a new front: it had already sued Google over misleading Android location data settings and again over expanding personal data use without explicit consent. The inquiry widens the lens from single data-practice cases to the structure of the duopoly itself — who controls app distribution and how the two gatekeepers exploit the data that control yields.
The move also anticipates findings that would later land hard: Australia's own federal judge eventually ruled Apple and Google misused their app store market power in the Epic case, and the UK's CMA launched a parallel mobile-ecosystems probe within months of this announcement, making app store power a coordinated multi-regulator target.
First-order effects
- Apple and Google now face simultaneous scrutiny of both revenue lines — app store commissions and data-driven services — while already defending two active ACCC lawsuits against Google over its data practices.
Second-order effects
- The UK CMA's ecosystem investigation and the ACCC's inquiry converge on the same two companies, raising the odds that remedies negotiated with one regulator become the template others demand.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds through cases like the Epic ruling, app store terms shift from unilateral platform policy to regulator-supervised rules, forcing Apple and Google to open distribution or commission structures across jurisdictions at once.
The trend: Regulators in Australia and the UK are moving from piecemeal data-practice lawsuits toward structural investigations of the Apple-Google app store duopoly.