Suit alleges Apple tampers with App Store rankings
WASHINGTON — An email app developer says it has uncovered new data that suggests Apple has long been suppressing the rankings of apps in the App Store that compete with Apple’s own offerings, according to new court filings by the developer, which sued Apple in October for patent infringement and antitrust violations.
Blix, which developed the BlueMail app, made the discovery only when Apple’s rankings suddenly changed in its favor. At the end of September, Blix unexpectedly jumped from 143rd in Apple’s ranking for mail apps to 13th. Blix had for years been highly ranked in the competing Android app stores, run by companies like Google, Samsung, Amazon and Huawei. But on Apple’s iOS, where it competes with Apple’s own mail app, it had long been ranked low.
Blix started looking at other apps that also compete with Apple’s preinstalled apps. Several others, such as a mail app from Russian tech company Yandex, had also seen dramatic spikes in their rankings. Blix says it used market research firm Sensor Tower to research the unexplained spike in BlueMail’s ranking on the iOS store, which happened Sept. 26. Using Sensor Tower’s historical data, it was able to determine that BlueMail wasn’t the only app that had experienced the spike.
“Multiple different types of Apple app competitors enjoyed a sudden, unexplained rise in search rankings,” according to Blix’s latest filing in court, which appeared last week. The spike came roughly two weeks after a New York Times article examined how Apple ranked its apps higher than competitors’.
Apple spokesman Fred Sainz declined to comment on the litigation. On its website, Apple says its App Store provides “equal opportunities to developers to deliver their apps and services across iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV, and Apple Watch.”
The allegations come as Apple faces increased scrutiny for how it treats smaller competitors. The House Judiciary Committee and the U.S. Department of Justice are investigating whether Apple has violated antitrust laws. Last month, the top Democrat in charge of the House investigation raised concerns that Apple was using privacy as a way to shield itself from antitrust scrutiny. The committee has requested information from Apple on how it uses the innovations of app developers on its platform in its own services, one of the key allegations in Blix’s lawsuit.
The suit brought by Blix is unusual. Most app developers are careful about saying anything that might be construed as critical of Apple. That’s because the only way to distribute software to Apple users is with express approval from the company. Apple also decides which apps are included in the lists of apps that it recommends, one of the most important methods of marketing to Apple customers. Taking the company to court is an almost-unheard-of method of resolving a dispute with Apple.
“It was not an easy decision to proceed with this lawsuit against the largest tech company in the world,” said Ben Volach, who co-founded Blix. “Blix, and its BlueMail product, are the latest in Apple’s long line of victims. Apple’s monopoly over app distribution forecloses competition and harms consumers. Apple has also harmed additional developers who would otherwise compete fairly,” he said.