Apple will have to pay €500 million (about $539 million USD) in the European Union for stifling competition against Apple Music on the iPhone, Financial Times reports.The decision comes after a complaint from Spotify in 2019 that Apple prevented apps from sharing cheaper alternatives to Apple Music that could be used on the iPhone. Doing so would allow companies such as Spotify to sell users subscriptions to their service without having to account for Apple’s 30% fee on transactions.After years of investigation, the EU ultimately focused its complaint on Apple’s decision to prevent developers from linking out to their own subscription options within their app. Apple changed its policy on the links in 2022 after facing regulatory pressure in Japan.At one point, the fine being considered was 10% of Apple’s annual global income, which would have been close to $40 billion, so the $539 million dollar fine represents a much lower fee than the company might have had to pay in the case.
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