Dutch court confirms Apple abused dominant position in dating apps

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) -A Dutch court on Monday confirmed a 2021 consumer watchdog 's ruling saying that Apple had abused its dominant position by imposing unfair conditions on providers of dating apps in the App Store.

The Rotterdam District Court ruled that the Dutch Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) was therefore right to impose an order subject to a penalty for non-compliance.

The court ruled that ACM was right in finding that dating app providers had to use Apple's own payment system, were not allowed to refer to payment options outside the App Store, and had to pay a 30% commission (15% for small providers) to Apple.

Apple said it was planning to appeal.

"This ruling undermines the technology and tools we've created to benefit developers and protect users' privacy and security, and we plan to appeal", a company spokesperson told Reuters.

ACM in 2021 fined Apple 50 million euros ($58 million) for failure to comply with changes it had ordered to Apple's app store to end practices it said violated European Union antitrust laws.

($1 = 0.8616 euros)

(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee, GV De Clercq; Editing by Benoit Van Overstraeten)