Apple Blocked Message Telling Users About Its 30% Cut: Facebook

Apple takes 30-percent cut from every digital purchase that you make from various apps.

Apple takes 30-percent App Store fee for every digital transaction via apps.

(Photo: AP /Jenny Kane)

It has been found that Apple restricted a Facebook update that informs users that the company would be collecting 30 percent App Store fee in a new online events feature on Facebook.

A Reuters report says that Apple is forcing Facebook to remove the message to get the feature to users.

Apple said that the update was in violation of an App Store policy that doesn’t let developers show “irrelevant” information to the users.

The new feature lets users buy tickets for online events directly through the app. As per the rules of the App Store, all digital purchases have to be made through Apple’s Store payment portal which gets Apple a 30 percent cut.

As per the report, Facebook says that it had asked Apple to waive this fee but Apple refused. The revenue was to go to the event organisers. The payment feature is now available but without the message that Apple is taking a cut.

Facebook, in a statement to Reuters, said, “Unfortunately Apple rejected our transparency notice around their 30 percent tax but we are still working to make that information available inside the app experience.”

Earlier, Facebook had released an image of how the message would appear if a user was making a purchase.

The report also says that the message doesn’t show up on Android smartphones as well. The planned message was supposed to read “Facebook doesn’t take a fee from this purchase.”

Facebook has said that it will find an alternative way to let users know that Apple is taking the 30 percent cut for every digital purchase but how exactly it plans to do that we don’t know.

Apple is currently waging a battle with Epic Games over its in-app purchases policy as Epic believes that apps should be allowed to have their own payment gateways and users should not be forced to use Apple’s payment services.

Epic has sued Apple and Google for anti-competitive practices on their respective app stores.

Other apps like Netflix, Kindle, and Spotify, for example, are also not allowed to mention that Apple takes a cut.