- Proton has joined an American demand against Apple for anti -competitive practices
- The suit looks for both changes in the application store ecosystem and monetary damage.
- On April 30, 2025, an American judge found Apple guilty of violating the case of 2021 epic games in federal order on the illegal monopoly
The Swiss privacy firm has sued Apple for anti -competitive practices that, warns the company, undermines freedom and democracy, hurt privacy companies and lead to a worse user experience.
The supplier behind one of the best VPN, safe email, encryption calendar and password administrator services, Proton, has joined a demand for class action in the United States against Apple on Monday, June 30, 2025.
The lawsuit, filed at the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, is looking for changes in the App Store ecosystem, as well as monetary damage. The latter, Proton said, will be donated to organizations fighting for democracy and human rights through the non -profit organization behind the company, Proton Foundation.
Why Proton is demanding Apple
“Apple monopoly control of software distribution on iOS devices has a lot of problems for consumers, companies and society in general,” Proton wrote in a blog post.
“Antimonopoly laws exist because the power given by monopoly status inevitably leads to abuse. In the case of oligarchic technological giants, these abuses have wide implications for society, and is vital for the future of the Internet that are now approached.”
Specifically, Proton states that Apple policies favor a surveillance capitalism model that harms privacy and privacy companies.
Apple not only requires that all developers pay an annual rate in the App Store, but also requires a 30% cut of all subscription payments made through iOS applications.
On April 30, Judge Yvonne González Rogers found that this behavior violated her federal mandate on the illegal monopoly issued in 2021 in the case of Epic Games.
In fact, the great technological giant was supposed to stop anti -competitive practices by giving third -party developers more power to redirect users to the cheapest payment options.
On that occasion, the founder and CEO of Proton, Andy Yen, said that the company could reduce its price to 30% if Apple was finally forced to eliminate its tax in the App Store.
In response to the recent judicial decision in the United States against the illegal shopping monopoly in the Apple application, @protonprivacy may finally allow iOS users to buy subscriptions outside the App Store. No Apple tax means that we will reduce prices for users by up to 30%.May 1, 2025
Proton also warns that the total Apple control of the App Store endangers the distribution of applications in different markets.
“Apple argues that this control is necessary for security reasons. But the reality is that this has turned Apple into the only failure point for freedom of expression and a dictatorship tool,” said the supplier.
Only in 2024, for example, Apple has eliminated at least 60 VPN applications from the Russian App Store at the request of the authorities, for a total of almost 100 applications that are not available in the Apple market in Russia.
We are looking to permanently finish the anti -competitive behavior in the App Store
Proton
ApplecenShorship researchers also found an amazing amount of 11,026 applications not available in the China App Store, which affect the confidential categories such as Virtual Private Network (VPN), including ProtonVPN, other privacy software (such as Protonmail, Signal and Duckckgo), news applications, social networks and even appointment applications.
Proton also accuses Apple of “intentionally paralyzing third -party applications that compete with Apple’s services”, which finally offers Apple users a worse internet experience.
For example, Apple allegedly prevents users from using the proton calendar application as a default option, Proton said, although this interoperability is available for email services.
What follows?
As mentioned above, Proton has joined an existing demand that was filed on May 23 against Apple by a group that represents Korean application developers.
However, demand is not just about money. The decision to join this legal action against a technological giant of this type, said Proton, derives from the commitment to improve the internet status by changing Apple App Store policies once and for all.
“We are looking to permanently finish the anti -competitive behavior in the application store, and we join this demand to ensure that any future agreement applies real changes to Apple’s practices and policies to benefit all consumers, developers and competition, and not only cosmetic changes,” Proton said.
We approach Apple for comments, but we are still waiting for an answer at the time of publication.
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