ProtonMail stated that Apple required them in 2018 to add in-app purchases to their email app.
The recent dispute of Apple with "HEY," an email service that Basecamp launched in June 2020, is not the first time that the Cupertino-based tech giant tried to force an email app and its developers to add in-app purchases. Comparing Apple to the mafia, Andy Yen, the CEO of ProtonMail, revealed they were forced by Apple in 2018 to add in-app purchases to their email app.
In an interview with The Verge, Yen said that in 2018, Apple forced his company, ProtonMail, to add in-app purchases to its email app, which was already in the App Store since 2016. At the time, ProtonMail had a paid email service but was not offering the same thing in the app that was in the Apple App Store, which was available for free.
ProtonMail CEO says Apple forced him to add in-app purchases, compares it to ‘mafia extortion’ https://t.co/dhhyErgE51 pic.twitter.com/TvmRh3EM1s — The Verge (@verge) October 8, 2020
Yen recalled that for the first two years that the ProtonMail app was in the Apple App Store, they did not have any issues and got along fine with the Cupertino-based tech giant. Then "out of the blue," Apple told them to add an in-app purchase to their email app. "A common practice we see ... as you start getting significant uptake in uploads and downloads, is they begin looking at your situation more carefully, and then as any good Mafia extortion goes, they come to shake you down for some money," said ProtonMail CEO Andy Yen.
According to Yen, Apple suddenly told ProtonMail that it needed to add an in-app purchase option to its email app for it to stay in the App Store. The ProtonMail CEO admitted that the move of Apple took them by surprise as the version of the email app they had in the Apple App Store was for free. Similar to what happened with HEY and with WordPress earlier this year, ProtonMail mentioned some paid plans in their app, an occurrence he said may have prompted Apple to require them for the same subscription options they need to offer through in-app purchase.
Yen opined that the action of Apple at the time when it forced ProtonMail to add in-app purchases to their email app made them look like the judge, jury, and executioner, rolled into one, on their platform. The situation was in a "you can take it or leave it" condition and you cannot get any type of fair hearing to see whether the move is justifiable or not, according to the ProtonMail CEO.
The ProtonMail CEO said they complied with Apple's in-app purchase requirement to save ProtonMail's business, adding that there is no way to secure a "fair hearing" with Apple. Yen also revealed that ProtonMail was unable to add in-app purchases to their email app for about a month, prompting Apple to remove the app from the App Store if ProtonMail did not comply.
