Spotify and Deezer accuse Apple of anti-competitive practices

Mirroring the East Coast/West Coast hip hop battles of the mid ’90s, Spotify and Deezer have teamed up against Apple, asking EU regulators to halt what they claim are anti-competitive practices.

Spotify co-founder Daniel Ek and Deezer chief executive Hans-Holger Albrecht lead a team of companies who sent a letter to The European Commission urging for “a level playing field” by quashing practices by those companies who are “regularly abusing their advantaged position.”

The rub is that Apple takes a 30% cut when people subscribe to Spotify and Deezer through Apple’s App Store, despite also offering a competing service.

The letter argues the current legislation “will not ensure platforms act as gateways rather than become gatekeepers to the digital economy.”

The European Commission fined Google a whopping €2.4 billion for burying its competitors in Google searches (which is, admittedly, a fairly baller move) so it’ll be interesting to watch this play out.

This article originally appeared on The Industry Observer, which is now part of The Music Network.