Privacy firm Proton is joining a lawsuit against Apple on behalf of app developers that claim to have been squeezed by App Store policies.
Proton makes it clear this wasn’t a decision they took lightly. So, why now? They point to a string of recent legal blows against Apple.
A European court slapped Apple with a massive €500 million fine, and a US judge in the huge Epic Games v. Apple case found that Apple had willfully defied a court order, even referring the company for a potential criminal investigation.
Proton believes that without this legal fight, Apple could continue practices in the US that are already being outlawed elsewhere, leaving American consumers and developers with higher prices and fewer choices.
More than just money
While the case does seek damages to compensate developers, Proton has made a promise: any money they receive will be donated through their non-profit foundation to organisations that fight for democracy and human rights. They want to take profits Apple may have made from working with authoritarian regimes and redirect them toward the cause of freedom.
The real goal, Proton says, is to force permanent, meaningful changes to how the App Store operates.
At the heart of the complaint is what many developers call the “Apple Tax,” the cut Apple takes from payments made through iOS apps. The lawsuit argues this fee is an “artificial and arbitrary tax”. Citing evidence from the Epic v. Apple case, Proton notes that Apple makes a 78% profit on these fees, suggesting it’s less about covering costs and more about profiting from a monopoly.
Proton argues this system does more than just inflate prices; it actively harms our privacy. Companies that make money by collecting and selling your data don’t really feel the sting of this fee. But for privacy-first companies like Proton that rely on subscriptions, it’s a major barrier.
The complaint takes an even darker turn, accusing Apple of becoming a “single point of failure for free speech and a tool of dictatorships”. Because Apple has total control, it can decide which apps get seen and which get censored.
Proton points to examples like Apple removing dozens of VPN apps from the Russian App Store and social and news apps from its store in China. They even claim that Apple threatened to remove ProtonVPN from the App Store unless they removed language about the app’s ability to “unblock censored websites”.
Proton details how App Store policies harm experience
The lawsuit also details how Apple’s controlling behaviour makes for a worse experience for both developers and users.
Developers, for example, are forbidden from telling you that you might get a better price if you subscribe on their website instead of in the app. They can’t even link to their own help or support pages from inside their apps.
Managing your subscriptions is a nightmare. If you subscribe on the web, you can’t easily change your plan on your iPhone. If you subscribe on your iPhone, you can’t change it on the web.
The lawsuit claims Apple intentionally hobbles competing apps. For example, you can’t set Proton Calendar as your default calendar app on an iPhone, and competing cloud services like Proton Drive can’t run background processes as seamlessly as Apple’s own iCloud.
Ultimately, Proton and the other developers in the suit are asking the court to break open the App Store and Apple’s broader “walled garden”. They want to see a future with competing app stores and payment systems on iPhones, which they believe will lead to lower prices, more innovation, and a freer, more private internet for everyone.
As Proton puts it, they hope to set a precedent that “free people, not monopolies, will dictate the future of the internet.”
See also: Official group aims for Swift language support on Android
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