Facebook Wades Into Epic’s Dispute With Apple

Sarah E. Needleman and Jeff Horwitz, reporting for The Wall Street Journal:

As part of a pledge to assist challenges to what it called Apple’s anticompetitive behavior, Facebook plans to provide supporting materials and documents to Epic Games Inc. The “Fortnite” parent sued Apple this year, claiming the tech giant’s App Store operates like a monopoly. Facebook said it isn’t joining the lawsuit but helping with discovery as the case heads to trial next year.

A spokeswoman for Epic declined to comment.

Like I wrote earlier this week, for Facebook to get what it wants on iOS, they’re going all-in on the argument that Apple’s control over its own platform is abuse of a monopoly. But Facebook and Epic are particularly well-aligned here, in that what they both want is to ship their own apps for iOS without going through the App Store. Epic, so they don’t have to pay anything to Apple, and Facebook so they don’t have to follow Apple’s privacy rules.

★ Friday, 18 December 2020