Apple, Google, and Amazon under fire from Italian anti-trust regulators

Italy’s Antitrust and Competition Authority says it is investigating “freemium” apps offered in Apple’s App Store along with similar stores operated by Google and Amazon, saying that customers could be misled by the “free” label, as reported by the Wall Street Journal. According to the regulatory group, users who download these apps for free could believe that the game is completely free and not know when downloading the app how much it will actually cost.

 Google Inc., Apple Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. are being investigated by an Italian regulator to determine whether the Internet giants mislead people to make purchases in mobile phone apps that are initially free to download. The move by Italy’s Antitrust and Competition Authority comes after the European Union earlier this year called on companies to reform their use of the “freemium” model in which apps are free to download, but then later require payments that often get charged to credit cards by default. The EU says consumer confusion with the freemium model threatens the long-term health of the continent’s booming “app economy” that employs more than one million people and is forecast to produce €63 billion in total revenue in 2018, more than triple last year’s level.