In the most recent bout of tech giant drama, Epic filed a lawsuit against Apple and Google after these two removed the Fortnite app from their storefronts, citing violations of their in-app purchasing policies. Not to be outdone, Facebook has now joined the fray as well.
As reported by Bloomberg, Facebook took umbrage with the fact that Apple refused to waive their usual 30% take on in-app purchases when the social media site rolled out a new paid events feature in 20 countries. This feature would make it so that businesses can charge users for access to livestreamed activities, like fitness classes or lectures. According to the Facebook executive running the main app, Fidji Simo, the company will not be taking any cuts from the revenue this feature generates.
While Google also refused to waive their 30% fee, they are allowing Facebook to process payments through their own channels to avoid the fee, something Apple is decidedly against on their own platform. This has led to Facebook accusing Apple of hurting small businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Helping small businesses recover from Covid is a critical thing that all tech companies should help with,” Simo said in an interview. “The reason we’re calling them out here is we hope they join us and end up waving their fees, so that’s really the goal here.”
This isn’t the first time Facebook and Apple have come to blows over policy, especially with Apple now working to limit the amount of data Facebook can gather from iOS users. Whether this latest clash will result in any change remains to be seen.
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