Epic blow: Judge strikes down Apple’s in-app payment restrictions

A United States judge’s ruling strikes down a core part of Apple’s App Store rules, which prohibit developers from telling users about other places they can go to pay the developer directly rather than using Apple’s payment mechanisms.

A United States judge on Friday issued a ruling in Fortnite creator Epic Games’ antitrust lawsuit against Apple Inc’s App Store, striking down some of Apple’s restrictions on how developers can collect payments in apps. The ruling says that Apple cannot bar developers from providing buttons or links in their apps that direct customers to other ways to pay outside of Apple’s own in-app purchase system, which charges developers commissions of up to 30 percent. The ruling also said that Apple cannot ban developers from communicating with customers via contact information that the developers obtained when customers signed up within the app. The ruling comes after a three-week trial in May before Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers of the US District Court for the Northern District of California. Apple shares moved down about 2.5 percent on news of the decision.