Apparently, junior minister for digital economy Fluer Pellerin thinks that Apple shouldn’t have rejected AppGratis from the App Store last week. Her remarks to the French media make it clear that she feels the tech company isn’t behaving ethically in its dealings with AppGratis, a French startup, or others like it, calling the move “an issue of fairness,” and “extremely brutal.”
Not only that, but Pellerin feels that European regulators might want to think about taking action against Apple for the rejection.
“This isn’t virtuous and dignified behavior for a company of that scale,” Pellerin said, adding that Apple’s removal of AppGratis should make European regulators “think about legislation.”
AppGratis was pulled from the App Store over the past weekend, and the app developer’s CEO, Simon Dawlat, spoke up in a long blog post, which garnered a bit of attention from the media and blogosphere, alike. Apple cited Terms of Service violations regarding push notifications and displaying other apps. Other reports, like this one on 148Apps, say the problem was deeper, with AppGratis promising to sell a spot high on Apple’s own top ten free apps list to developers.
Whatever the reason, Minister Pellerin is upset about it. “The French are the world’s second-largest developers of software applications for mobile devices behind the United States,” she said. “What is the sense of investing if, overnight, your business model is jeopardized by a unilateral decision?”
Source: Lemonade Informatique
Via: All Things D
