LONDON: The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm and top antitrust enforcer, said that it’s accepting the commitments that Apple offered earlier this year and will make them legally binding.
The commission had accused Apple in 2022 of abusing its dominant position by limiting access to its mobile payment technology.
Apple responded by proposing in January to allow third-party mobile wallet and payment service providers access to the contactless payment function in its iOS operating system. After Apple tweaked its proposals following testing and feedback, the commission said those “final commitments” would address its competition concerns.
“Today’s commitments end our Apple Pay investigation,” Margrethe Vestager, the commission’s executive vice president for competition policy, told a press briefing in Brussels. “The commitments bring important changes to how Apple operates in Europe to the benefit of competitors and customers.”
The deal promises more choice for Europeans. iPhone users will be able to set a default wallet of their choice while mobile wallet developers will be able to use important iPhone verification functions like Face ID, Vestager said.
Mobile wallets rely on near-field communication, or NFC, which uses a chip to wirelessly communicate with a merchant’s payment terminal.
The commission had charged the company with denying others access to Apple Pay, which it said is the biggest NFC-based mobile wallet on the market.
The changes that Apple is making are to remain in force for a decade, will apply throughout the bloc’s 27 countries plus Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein, and will be monitored by a trustee.
Apple must make the changes in the EU by July 25.
“As of this date, developers will be able to offer a mobile wallet on the iPhone with the same “tap and go” experience that so far has been reserved for Apple Pay,” Vestager said.
Apple said in a prepared statement that it is “providing developers in the European Economic Area with an option to enable NFC contactless payments and contactless transactions” for uses like car keys, corporate badges, hotel keys, and concert tickets.
Breaches of EU competition law can draw fines worth up to 10 percent of a company’s annual global revenue, which in Apple’s case, could have amounted to tens of billions of dollars.
EU accepts Apple pledge to let rivals access ‘tap to pay’ iPhone tech to resolve antitrust case
https://arab.news/ngycd
EU accepts Apple pledge to let rivals access ‘tap to pay’ iPhone tech to resolve antitrust case
- The commission had accused Apple in 2022 of abusing its dominant position by limiting access to its mobile payment technology
- The commission had charged the company with denying others access to Apple Pay
Media watchdog urges probe after gunmen attack home of Pakistani journalist
- Ihsan Khattak’s home came under fire by gunmen in February
- CPJ, 17 rights groups say legal and other changes causing ‘fear’
LONDON: Media watchdog the Committee to Protect Journalists on Friday urged Pakistani authorities to investigate a shooting attack on the home of journalist Ihsan Khattak.
On Feb. 12, at about 9:45 p.m., unidentified gunmen opened fire on the main gate of Khattak’s house in Kotka Jandar Khel village in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Bannu district. The assailants fled and Khattak was not injured.
“Pakistani authorities must thoroughly investigate the attack on Ihsan Khattak’s home, identify the gunmen, and hold them to account,” said the CPJ’s Asia-Pacific Director Beh Lih Yi.
“Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has become increasingly dangerous for journalists and this type of brazen intimidation cannot stand. Journalists must be able to work safely so they can provide the public with information.”
Khattak, a Bannu-based correspondent for ARY News and former president of the Bannu Press Club, has faced threats before.
On Feb. 5, three armed men on a motorbike followed him from a reporting assignment, forcing him to speed away in his car, he told the CPJ.
In 2017, after receiving threats from an unknown caller, he relocated to Islamabad. He said the threats resumed after he returned to Bannu in 2023.
Bannu Deputy Inspector General of Police Sajjad Khan told the CPJ that an investigation had been opened into the shooting and that police were committed to ensuring journalists’ security.
The incident comes as the CPJ and 17 other press freedom and human rights groups this week urged Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to take urgent steps to “uphold the country’s constitutional and international obligations” to protect media freedom.
They warned that recent legal and institutional changes, combined with “persistent failures” to hold perpetrators accountable, have deepened a climate of fear for journalists.
Pakistan, ranked 158th in the 2025 press freedom index, is considered one of the world’s most dangerous countries for journalists, with growing self-censorship, digital controls and widespread impunity for attacks on media workers.
The appeal also follows a sharp escalation in regional tensions: on Friday, Pakistan said it had carried out strikes on Taliban government forces in several Afghan cities — its first direct attacks on its former allies —describing the situation as “open war.”
