Apple has received a ruling in its appeals case against Epic Games , with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals deciding that Apple will be allowed to charge a fee for in-app purchases that were made through external links for payments outside the App Store. In its long-running case against Epic, Apple was ordered to allow external links for in-app purchases. Apple would go on to allow the external links, but it would also end up charging a fee on these payments.
Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers said that this decision was Apple “willingly” failing to comply with her order from a couple of years prior, and decided that Apple was not allowed to charge any fees at all for payments made through external links. Apple, not being content with this decision, appealed the order, and that’s the ruling it received today.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals says the prior ruling about Apple charging fees was going too far
Call this one a small win for Apple , because it’ll be able to charge at least something for any in-app purchases made in games or apps downloaded from the App Store, even if those payments were made after clicking a link that led to an external payment method. When it was ruled that the company couldn’t charge any fees at all, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals said this was going too far .
“Rather than coercing Apple to comply with the spirit of the Injunction with a reasonable, non-prohibitive commission, the district court used blunt force to ban all commissions, abusing its discretion,” the panel said, continuing by stating that it had recommendations about an “appropriate commission or fee limitation.” In other words, Apple will still be able to charge fees, but they likely won’t be allowed to be as high as they were before.
Aside from this, though, the rest of Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rodgers’ ruling appears to stand. The Ninth Circuit panel also stated that Apple is allowed to restrict developers from putting links or buttons to external payment methods in more prominent places. It can also restrict developers from using larger fonts, more prominent font types, and placing links or buttons in higher quantities.
