The European Commission was interested in buying Apple service Shazam
The European Commission, which is the antimonopoly regulator of the European Union, initiation of an investigation into the transaction buying Apple music service Shazam. FROM 7 countries immediately applied for the audit: Austria, France, Iceland, Italy, Norway, Spain and Sweden.
AT than suspect
The European Commission fears that by purchasing Shazam, Apple will receive " sensitive information for users " and will promote their service Apple Music. The there is evidence of preferences of users of Shazam can be used to increase the audience of Apple Music, and this is a violation of competition rules.
In addition, now users of Shazam can go to listen to the found song in Apple Music, Google Play Music, or Spotify. A this is of order 1 million conversions per day. Now Apple may disable links to competitive services.
" For In recent years, ways of listening to music have changed dramatically, and More and more Europeans began to use streaming services, - said a member of the European Commission on competition issues Margrethe Vestager. - By our investigation, we We want to make sure that music lovers continue to use attractive offers from streaming companies and not will face reduction in the result of the merger. "
The investigation will last until 4 September.
We recall that o purchase of Shazam became known in the end of last year. The deal is evaluated in $ 400 million
Source: European Commission