France reacted firmly on Thursday (April 11) after Apple pulled out a French application from its AppStore.
AppGratis, an application which allows users to discover new apps free of charge every day, was pulled out from the Apple application platform last Friday, according to CEO Simon Dawlat, without any warning or explanation.
AppGratis, which employs 45 people at its Paris office, say they had been present on the AppStore for four years and that their app was being used by 12 million people world-wide before it was taken out of the AppStore.
Dawlat said he had tried to get in touch with Apple but had not heard back from them.
"Apple is a company worth hundreds of billions of dollars so I don't really see the money, the business we've been doing for the past years as something they would like to grasp, I don't know if that's the matter, you know I would like to discuss it with them and find ways of maybe sharing revenue, we'd love to do that. Honestly their intentions are very very opaque, unclear and that's also, you know, at the real level the biggest problem today, you know, they are operating a platform on which the rules are not clear at all," he said.
The incident sparked a reaction by French officials with a visit by France's minister for digital affairs Fleur Pellerin at iMediapp, who publishes AppGratis. Pellerin said she would seize the European commission about regulating digital platforms.
According to Fleur Pellerin, France is the second AppStore applications provider behind the United States. Simon Dawlat said his company was aiming for a turnover of up to 25 million euros for 2013. The company had just raised 10 million euros through a private investment company but after being kicked out of the AppStore, plans to expand the company have come to a halt.
