United States of America: Introduction of Open App Markets Act in U.S. House

On 13 August 2021, the Open App Markets Act was introduced to the U.S. House of Representatives. The Act represents the House companion of the Bill introduced in the U.S. Senate two days ago. The legislature contains rules that secure consumer interests as well as safeguard competition in app markets. The bill targets all companies with more than 50 million U.S. users. If the Act turns into law, it could reduce Apple and Google's possibility of making profits through the fees of up to 30% they impose on app developers in their respective app stores. Specifically, companies above the threshold of 50 million U.S. users would be prohibited from obliging app developers to use a certain payment method. Furthermore, these app stores could also not demand to be given preferential conditions by app developers on their own platform, compared with other platforms. App stores are also prohibited from committing any act of self-preferencing. Finally, it is strictly forbidden for the app stores to take any sort of action against app developers using a different app store or applying different pricing conditions and to interfere with app developers' communication with its users. These rules would be enforced by both the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Attorney General and any attorney general of a State.