Epic Games CEO to attend global conference for app store fairness
When Epic got banned from the App Store for promoting in-app purchases bypassing Apple's own payment system, and consequently sued Apple, it sparked nothing short of a snowballing avalanche, an international movement pushing back against Apple's (and other Google's) monopolistic practices on their app stores. Since then, Apple has also sued Google on similar claims.
As part of this resistance gone global, the CEO of the Epic Games platform, Tim Sweeney, will be speaking at a conference in South Korea the following week, according to a report by Apple Insider.
The event, dubbed the Global Conference on Mobile App Ecosystem Fairness, is organized by CAF (the Coalition for App Fairness)—group of companies striving for the same purpose headquartered in Washington, D.C.
Tile, Spotify, and Epic Games are among the 13 powerful companies which form CAF, all of which strive to "protect consumer choice, foster competition, and create a level playing field for all app and game developers globally."
At the conference, which is happening on November 15 and 16, Tim Sweeney will be joined by the CAF Executive Director (Meghan DiMuzio), the French Secretary of State for Digital Transition (Cédric O), and Senior Vice President and Head of Global Government Relations & Policy at Match Group (Mark Buse), among various other influential figures.
We still lack any solid details around the conference's planned discussion topics, but judging from the well-known group of attendees, we can fairly confidently assert that it will involve discourse on legal matters and criticism surrounding Apple and Google's mobile marketplace monopolies.
The choice of location for the conference could be related to a recent law that was passed in South Korea, which mandates that all app store platforms accept third-party payment systems, rather than forcing developers to take payments through the app store platforms, and losing a large chunk of revenue that way.
A further amendment to the South Korean Telecommunications Business Act also forbids that app stores place rules in place to discourage developers from advertising their services elsewhere.
Тhe conference will take place on Monday, November 15th at 5:00pm U.S. Pacific Standard Time, and run through both Monday and Tuesday. For those interested, it will be livestreamed here, and will be available in English, French, and Korean.
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