Tom Fish, Richard Stables and Mark Buse gave evidence.

We will now hear oral evidence from Tom Fish, head of public policy and research at Gener8; Richard Stables, CEO of Kelkoo; and Mark Buse, senior vice president for global government relations and policy at the Match Group. Will you introduce yourselves for the record, please?

Mark Buse:

I am Mark Buse, SVP for global Government affairs and policy at Match Group.

Richard Stables:

I am Richard Stables, CEO of Kelkoo Group. I have been with Kelkoo for 14 years.

Tom Fish:

I am Tom Fish, head of public policy and research at Gener8.

Thank you. We have until 1 pm for this session. I call Alex Davies-Jones.

Q Thank you, gentlemen, for joining us this morning. Are you able to explain to us exactly how consumers are harmed by the behaviour of big tech in your industry and how that has hindered and harmed you?

Richard Stables:

I can jump in. Just to give you a little bit of background, Kelkoo was a shopping price comparison site—an internet darling. It started in ’99 and grew to be probably the most popular shopping comparison site in Europe, especially in the UK. Our industry and our company was decimated by the actions of Google, who decided to put themselves at the top of Google and remove the likes of us from the listings and put us on page 10 or page 20, which is pretty much in the wilderness. Why do you care? There are two big reasons. If you are a consumer, you want to see prices, and you want to see prices of lots of goods from lots of merchants.

I am a tennis player, and I want to buy a tennis racket. I am interested in what the cheapest tennis racket is, because I know that I am going to buy a Babolat or a HEAD racket. I want to see 30 to 40 merchants side-by-side, and I want to look at availability, brand and price. If I cannot see that, I am being hurt. I am not seeing the best price. With Google at the moment, you see 10 or 12 merchants. You do not see the entire industry. You can scroll to the right and see more, but what you see are the merchants that can afford to be on Google and pay the most to be in there at the top left. That is reason No. 1: you are seeing less prices.

As for the second, Google has created a complete monopoly on traffic. If I am a merchant or retailer, the only place I am going to get traffic from digitally is through Google. If I am only getting it from one place, I am basically in a monopoly. As we know, with a monopoly you are paying probably 25% to 30% more for the prices. What if I am a retailer in a cut-throat situation? What am I going to do with that price? I am going to pass it on to the likes of you and I. We are all paying a much higher mark-up to pay Google’s execs and Google for the massive amounts of money they extract from the UK economy. That is how consumers are hurt by not having proper competition in digital markets.

Q Thank you, Richard. As someone representing your company, which has been directly impacted by the practices that the Bill is seeking to protect against, do you see any omissions from the Bill? Had the Bill been around when you were going through your legal processes, would it have been able to save you from this heartache and pain?

Richard Stables:

I think the Bill is well written, well founded and I would not change it. The abuse started way back—according to the Commission’s shopping decision, in 2008. The first complaint came in 2009. It came from a company that we now own, Ciao, which has now disappeared, along with LeGuide, which is now part of our company. We basically have been in a fight with Google since 2010, when the investigation started with the Commission. In 2017, it made a decision and fined Google £2.4 billion. We are still in legal uncertainty, because Google has gone to a court of first instance and lost and has now gone to the European Court of Justice. That is why a merits appeal is absolutely loved by big tech. They want to delay, delay, delay—to kick the can down the road.

If there is one thing I would say to you guys today, it would be: do not move from JR. If you move from JR, you might as well go home. For businesses like mine, if we had had the Bill 10 or 12 years ago, the CMA could have looked at what happened and said, “You know what, we will do this in an ex ante fashion. We think there is a problem here. We will go and investigate. We know there is an issue, so let’s change it.” We have been going for 13 and a half years and we still do not have legal certainty because of the problem with ex post. That is the problem with antitrust regulation in digital, where markets move so quickly, so you are absolutely right. There will be a really vibrant market for price comparison today, but it would have been great for consumers if we had this legislation 10 or 15 years ago.

Q Just to push you on omissions, do you think there is anything missing from the Bill that would have helped you, or is it great and perfect?

Richard Stables:

I think it is long overdue. Governments in America, Europe and the UK have, frankly, been asleep at the wheel for the last 20 years in terms of big tech. There is a worldwide movement, and everybody recognises that there is a huge problem. They realise that you need ex ante regulation in digital. You have the Digital Markets Act in Europe, and this Bill is well founded, well thought through. From discussions I have had, it seems to be really well supported from both sides of the House. I implore you guys to pass it quickly.

Q I have a question to you, Mark, from Match Group. A lot of your products and offerings were traditionally on desktop providers, rather than apps. How can we ensure that the Bill is adequately future-proofed to ensure that that does not happen and it will not hinder businesses like yours?

Mark Buse:

We believe the Bill has the flexibility to be future-proofed. When we look at how our users access our services, it is almost exclusively via an app. Desktop has no role. You can use our products, such as Tinder, cheaper if you go to the website and download it, but nobody does. The user behaviour is that they all use apps. Our fastest growing brand in the UK is called Hinge; Hinge does not even have a website. It was not worth the time or money to build one, because nobody uses it.

When I say nobody, I mean that less than 1% of Tinder’s users go to the website. That is also partially because Apple and Google have restrictions that they impose on us contractually. They do not allow us to tell our users that they can subscribe cheaper if they go to the website. In an ideal world—we think the Bill will go a long way in creating an open market—somebody who wants to subscribe to our product will have those options right there in front of them. They will be able to subscribe using our service, PayPal, or whatever else is available, and get it cheaper.

Apple, Google or big tech say, “This is all a myth. You are not going to have cheaper products”. Match has stated emphatically and publicly that we will drop our prices if we do not have to pay an artificially imposed 30%, which is what occurs today. We will drop our prices. We have also pledged that we will put more money into research and development, the hiring of employees and online safety, which we believe is crucial. By the way, the monopoly power that both Apple and Google exert over the store hinders online safety. That also has a negative pejorative impact on consumers today.

Q Thank you for those really powerful testimonies. Before I come to Tom, could I ask you, Mark, to elaborate on the online safety that you just talked about?

Mark Buse:

Sure. There are a couple of issues when we look at safety. One is keeping bad actors off our platforms—for example, entities or individuals who intend to do harm. Another is under-age users; they do not intend any harm, but our platform is limited to 18 and over only. We do not allow people under the age of 18. We do not want them there and our users do not want them there. In both cases, we have a limited pot of data to try to assess whether somebody is a bad actor or under age. There is a lot of data that exists that could inform us about that. I am going to use this little device—my phone—when I fly home on Saturday as my boarding pass. I am going to pay my bills on it. I am incentivised to put truthful information into my phone, which is the most powerful computer that most people own. I use it for a multitude of services.

For us, 98% of our revenue is from subscriptions; ads have virtually no impact. When you look at our companies, when somebody subscribes to Tinder, we do not know who they are, because they do not actually have a subscription with us. That also has a pejorative consumer impact. Consumers cancel their subscriptions for perfectly good reasons, such as, “I have a three-month Tinder subscription and I met the love of my life. Neither of us want me on Tinder any more, so I am cancelling my subscription”.

As the consumer, I go to Tinder and say, “I have a Tinder subscription that I want to cancel. Tinder, cancel it”. We have to inform them, “You don’t actually have a subscription with us. You have a subscription with Apple or Google”, who artificially put themselves in the middle of this situation because they can—because they have a monopoly and they can demand and force it. As a result, they know who I am. They have my credit card and real address—all those identifiers that we could use at Match to keep a bad actor off our platform.

This Bill would change all that dynamic. The positive impacts, as I say, go much further than just increased competition; they go directly to lower prices and increased online safety.

Q Thank you for that. These two panels are getting right to the heart of the Bill. Obviously, Kelkoo had financial damage that held it under water some time ago. Match is obviously a successful company. You started to talk about data. Tom, this comes to you and Gener8. I have spoken to all three of you over the past few months and heard your stories. Gener8 is a relatively new company going great guns, and data is at the heart of your business plan. Could you tell us your story and where the risks are to Gener8?

Tom Fish:

Absolutely. Before I dive in at the deep end, it is worth recognising that these big tech companies play an essential stewardship role within their ecosystems, but the flipside of that is they are operating as the de facto regulator for millions of businesses up and down the country in a whole range of important public policy areas, including advertising standards, consumer protection and data protection. One thing we know is that the commercial incentives of these companies are not perfectly aligned with the optimal outcomes that we would hope to see in those areas, regardless of how hard they say they are trying. In many cases, they are operating as the rule maker, the referee and the player in that game. As a result, there are, of course, conflicts of interest. It is undeniable that some degree of growing oversight and scrutiny will be needed if participants like us in those markets are to believe that there is a level playing field and that they will get a fair crack of the whip.

When it comes to the challenges that Gener8 is facing, we struggle with unpredictable and opaque review processes. We miss out on a potential revenue stream for our browser as a consequence of Google’s dominance in search. We lose users of our browser in Windows because Microsoft disrespects our users’ choices. We suffer from surprisingly confusing and random rejections of our ad campaigns by Meta, which makes planning our user growth and acquisition strategy impossible. We observe insurmountable barriers to entry in the mobile browser market, leading to us putting development of that product on ice. When it comes to data and your question, we face unnecessary friction at every turn as we try to access our users’ data on their behalf and earn money on it for them.

Collectively, these issues cause real harm to our business—they have consequences. We face increased costs and we divert resources away from product development to fight these fires. Missing out on revenue means our users missing out on gift cards and charity donations. It makes us a less attractive investment proposition. We have a drag placed on our ability to attract and then retain new users. Most alarmingly, in my opinion, is the way I have been witnessing it filtering through into internal discussions and thinking about what we should invest in and which innovations we should bring forward to market. From our perspective, the Bills urgently need to establish this regime and address these issues.

Q Obviously, the risk of harm is predominately due to what your business is. Could you say a bit about Gener8 to bring it to life for people who have not heard of it and about what you are trying to do on freeing up people’s data?

Tom Fish:

Gener8 is a personal information management service. Essentially what we do is we enable our users to access their data from third-party services, bring it into the app and visualise it. If they want to, they can choose to earn from it, and we then put that data to work for them, just like a bank does with people’s monthly income. The crux of this issue is we need to be able to act as an agent for our users and to access that data. Unless that is possible in a streamlined, efficient way, users quickly get turned off. What we need is really for the companies that are hoovering up all this data to enable the data owners—the consumers—to be able to access it, and then ultimately share in its value.

Q It is essentially the premise that if something is free, it is because you are giving away your data. You are actually saying either you can go private, or you can actually be rewarded and paid for the data that those companies you are giving the data to would otherwise be commercialising themselves.

Tom Fish:

That is right. I think the excess profits of these companies, year after year, is an illustration that consumers are not necessarily getting a fair deal, even though it might look like it.

Q Finally, when the founder, Sam, founded it, he was working for Red Bull. When he first pitched and created the business, it was because of what he was seeing coming back about the value of data.

Tom Fish:

Exactly. He was being pitched to on the basis of these companies having astronomical levels of granularity and detail about what people are up to online. That is filtering through in the advertising market to vast profits. He had the idea that people should be able to take a share of that value themselves.

Q So when we are looking at that commercial strata, individual consumers will ultimately be harmed if we do not act.

Tom Fish:

That is right.

Q One of my questions has already been asked. You have given us a very powerful case around the benefits of this Bill. You have highlighted lower prices, charity donations and increased online safety. Are there any other benefits for my consumers in Southend-on-Sea that you could highlight? Also, what about the unintended consequences of the Bill? Are there any issues—Pooh bear traps—that we should be aware of and considering at this point?

Tom Fish:

Shall I answer quickly and then pass over? I looked it up, and in Southend-on-Sea there are 372 active Gener8 users. At the micro level, they stand to benefit from Gener8 bringing forward new features more quickly, earning more revenue more quickly, and they will quickly start to earn more value from their data themselves.

Zooming out from Southend-on-Sea and Gener8 and looking at the big picture, all these excess profits in the advertising sector filter through into the prices people pay for all goods and services across the economy, whether that is hotels, flights or insurance. They miss out on choice and potential quality that is banned by big tech, but really the biggest issue here is innovation. It is those innovations that we do not know about that never make it through to disrupt the status quo—the unknown unknowns—which are the greatest value consumers are missing out on.

Richard Stables:

You have probably read George Orwell; you have probably read “1984”. Later on today, you will hear some “1984”-type speak, because they will sit in front of you and they will say, “This Bill is going to hurt innovation. This Bill is going to hurt investment in the UK.” Basically, listen to what they say and think the complete opposite, because I can tell you now that if you are a businessman or businessperson trying to invest today in digital, your No. 1 question is, “How am I going to get keeled over by big tech?” If I am going to be keeled over, I am not going to invest in it. Why would you? It makes absolutely no sense.

By creating level playing fields, you will do the absolute opposite of what they are saying. You will get investment in the UK. People will look at the UK and say, “That is a place I want to be, because I know that I have got a level playing field against big tech, therefore I will invest in it,” so you get investment. What happens with investment? Innovation. Innovation comes from well-functioning markets.

Another myth you will get today is on security, or privacy, or China, or AI. If you look at what has happened in America when they tried to bring this type of legislation, big tech went out on the biggest expenditure—bigger than they did on even Medicaid, from big pharma—trying to rubbish the Bills. They said, “Amazon Prime will stop working. Google Maps will stop working”, but that is complete baloney; it is the opposite. None of that is going on.

For your constituency, you should be thinking, “We get lower prices, investment into the UK—why the hell weren’t we doing this 10 or 20 years ago?” Why have we got only five big huge titans running the internet today? Because we have not regulated them. These are winner-takes-all markets, and they have taken their power in one market to go and gobble up the rest.

Mark Buse:

Let me put some real-world facts around what my colleague here is saying. Match has been very consistent when we have said, “We will invest in markets in countries where the regulatory regime encourages competition.” So we were very active working with the Korean National Assembly to make the law pass there that broke open the app store. The law said people could have alternative payments. We then moved employees out of Japan and into Korea. Now, as they were testifying, my friends over on the big tech side of the world, said, “No, people aren’t going to move,” or, “It’s going to stifle innovation,” but others said, “Well, Match did.” They say, “No, that’s not true.” I say, “Yes, we moved employees. We absolutely did.”

When we look at marketplaces, we want to operate and headquarter in marketplaces that allow maximum innovation, flexibility and competition. What we want on our product is what you see today on Uber. You can open up Uber and choose to pay in 10 different ways; if you open up our products, you can pay one way and one way only—that is by using Apple or Google, and they take their 30%. That is the first point.

The second point is that, when you are a start-up, you are just creating the next new, great product. If you have to look at that and say, “Wait a minute! The moment I go in, I have to start paying 30%,” that changes the economics.

To make another, fine point about how fast things move, Tinder is the largest online dating app in the world, with 3.5 billion swipes a day. Tinder is 10 years old—10! That is nothing in the real world. Tinder was invented at a hackathon. If the UK creates this marketplace, all of a sudden you will see everyone flowing into it. Match would view this—absolutely, and we are happy to state this publicly—as a huge opportunity to put jobs and potentially even broad decision-making and corporate authority into a marketplace where we do not have to have our relationship with our users dictated by a couple of select big-tech companies.

Q Thank you. You did not actually answer my second question at all, which was whether you can foresee any unintended consequences. If you think it is perfect, that is fine, but otherwise it would be useful to have something on the record.

Mark Buse:

I think there are unintended consequences in every piece of legislation, some of which are impossible to anticipate, but what the UK is doing with the Bill you are considering is unique, in that it gives flexibility to the CMA to adjust and adapt. Recently, Google submitted its proposal or response to the CMA, in which it said, okay, it could do a 26% fee, which we would have to pay instead of 30%, and that there could be some flexibility so a company like Match could put an alternative payment provider in. The CMA accepted Google’s proposal because it had no authority to demand anything more from Google.

Make no mistake: 26% is a specific number chosen by Google and Apple, and they have done this in Korea and the Netherlands. They know that if we are paying a 26% commission—originally, it was called an “in-app payment fee”; now it’s a commission—and then pay to have payments processed and handled, we will be paying over 30%. What developer is going to want to choose the option that is going to cost them more money? Nobody will.

This kind of flexibility means that you do not end up in a world where you have these companies who have all the data and all the ability to come up with what are essentially programmatic solutions that are not solutions. I think that that whole dynamic is encapsulated in this flexibility in the Bill, designed to avoid unintended consequences.

Richard Stables:

My unintended consequences? More jobs for the UK, more investment and the UK maybe becoming a leading digital place to be. That may be unintended—[Laughter.]

Tom Fish:

A lot has been said about the fact that it has taken quite a long time to get this legislation to this point. Well, I guess that an unintended consequence of that is that it has given people a lot of time to think about these issues and to think through the design very carefully. So, actually, I cannot say that I think there are any obvious unintended negative consequences. Ultimately, a lot of the nature of the impacts will be determined by the individual decisions that the CMA makes. I think it has shown itself in recent years to be very adept at assessing the full range of potential pros and cons of the decisions it makes.

Thank you.

Q Thank you—I think that that evidence has been very useful to me as a parliamentarian. Richard, you raised some of the warning signs and some of the tactics that the big companies—Apple and Google—may use with us later on. To what extent do you think that the likes of Google and Apple lobby parliamentarians to maintain the status quo?

Richard Stables:

The biggest spender in the US on lobbying—they have to make this public—is Google. They spend millions. You must have heard what happened in the European Commission. There was a whole programme they were going to do in terms of trying to lobby on the Digital Markets Act, but it became public and it backfired massively. The Commission said, “Oh, we’re not going to speak to any of you in that sort of forum; we’re going to do it in a very clear fashion.”

I see this a lot, because I have been fighting this a long time. You will see institutions, education bodies and units that have been put up and that are sponsored by big tech. You will listen to what they are saying, and you are going, “Where did you get that from?” They go, “Oh, we’ve done all this research and evidence,” but it’s baloney. You get underneath it, and you are like, “That is not based on facts. That is based on you basically touting what they want you to tout.”

So, yes, I would be really suspicious of what these companies have to say. They have been on the biggest gravy train in history; they do not want to get off it. So they will say whatever it takes to try and obfuscate and persuade and stop this type of activity happening, because they know that the game is up.

Mark Buse:

By publicly available numbers, and we obviously believe that the spending far outpaces that, Google, Apple, Microsoft and Amazon have spent well in excess of $300 million in the last two years on advertising alone against anti-trust change. They have spent another huge amount of money on direct lobbying, as well as on public relations efforts and so on around these issues, in the context of the US alone. They have been very strong on that and I do think, as somebody who used to work in Congress, that it has proven effective in slowing anything from occurring in the US.

As was said, if you have an assured pot of income coming in—if you are Apple and Google, in the store—every day that you can keep your walled garden intact is a good day, because even if the Bill passes tomorrow, companies like us are going to have to convince users to try something different. We believe we can drive users to alternatives by lowering price, and there are a lot of dynamics around that. However, in many cases, it is still going to be difficult to pull users out of that walled-off system that has been created.

Richard Stables:

To add to what Mark has just said, when they were trying to pass the legislation in the US, there was one month where these companies spent $30 million on TV advertising. They specifically went to a couple of places where there were either Senate or congressional races happening and said exactly what I said earlier, which was, “Amazon Prime will stop working and your Google Maps will stop working.” It is just madness. I remember speaking to Senators and Congressmen, explaining to them that that is just rubbish and asking them to look at what is happening with the DMA in Europe. Amazon has not switched off its Amazon Prime and is never going to, and Google Maps works fine. They will do whatever it takes. I do not think they will try that in the UK, because they have recognised that parliamentarians are—well, they will not. I will not fill that; you can answer that yourselves. But they will try other, subtle things, and the most subtle one of all is innovation and investment. It is the absolute opposite of what they say.

Q Tom, do you want to add anything?

Tom Fish:

You certainly cannot blame the companies for wanting to put their points across to politicians who are potentially radically transforming their markets. I certainly echo the point about being wary of supposed bodies that represent small businesses in these areas. If you receive views from those types of organisation, think carefully about who they are really speaking for.

The one thing I would add is that knowing that those big companies will be lobbying hard is why companies such as Gener8 and others are willing to take the risk to speak out publicly and share our experience, because it is just so important that you hear both sides of the argument.

Q Mr Buse, I think you will be pleased to know that everybody in the Committee has now moved their subscription for Tinder from the app store to the website to get cheaper subscriptions, so thank you for that—[Laughter.]

You are a very successful company. You own plenty of brands—Plenty Of Fish, as well as Tinder and the like. What do you make of the argument that, actually, far from inhibiting investment, these companies have encouraged investment by giving you a platform that can access lots of customers around the world?

Mark Buse:

We do not deny, first, that what they have created is revolutionary and, secondly, that they should be paid for their intellectual property and their ongoing work. We have always stated that we support their ability to recoup and to profit off of this. There is no issue on that for Match. What causes us so much concern is that they make their decisions arbitrarily in a black box, with no transparency.

If you look at Tinder’s algorithm and Uber’s algorithm, they operate, at the base level, almost identically. We connect two strangers in real time for the purpose of a date. Uber connects two strangers in real time for the purpose of a ride. Uber does not own the car and it does not employ the driver; we encourage you to use an Uber, to not meet somebody in a dark alley in their car. Essentially, it works the same. Yet, on Uber, Uber pays nothing. We and our users have to only use Apple or Google and have to pay 30%. So there is a fundamental problem here.

Some of that is just due to a historical anomaly back when there was a competitive marketplace, but that competitive marketplace no longer exists. Again, we think this Bill gives flexibility, in that it does not have the CMA declare these companies as regulated utilities. Recently, a Minister in the Netherlands said that he believes Apple and Google should be treated like regulated utilities, such as a bank. That is not for me to decide; it is up to parliamentarians to decide. We would have concerns about that, just for precedent, but we think this Bill balances that and creates a flexible marketplace where, as long as Apple and Google are treating entities in a fair and transparent manner, they are entitled to earn profit.

Q Would you say that the situation has hampered your willingness to invest and the growth of your company?

Mark Buse:

Absolutely. It has hampered it in an actual way, in that 30% of the money we should bring in goes to Apple and Google. To put it into context, we do a little over $3 billion a year in revenue. Last year we paid Apple and Google around $700 million, which we could be investing in employees, research and lowering prices. The question is, $700 million for what? What are we paying for? Are we subsidising Uber? We would say yes, in fact we are. What do our users get from that? To show you how the stores recognise the value, Apple buys ads within the app store search for Tinder. We do not buy ads for Tinder; Apple buys ads for Tinder. You might ask why. It is because Apple knows that the average user of an online dating product will have four or five different dating apps on their phone—us and all our competitors—and will bounce back and forth between them all non-stop. That is just the way the user behaviour is. Once you meet somebody, you do not use any of them, so it is a high-churn business.

With Tinder being the most well-known brand, Apple knows that if it can convince a 19-year-old to open a Tinder account, that 19-year-old will also then open a Bumble account, an OkCupid account, a Grindr account or whatever. Apple knows that they are going to start subscribing to all of them, so that is all free money. The system is already built. Uber is using it, Walmart is using it and Tesco is using it, but 16% of the companies are paying the extra 30%, which is subsidising all of this and enriching Google and Apple’s profits, so there are issues there.

Minister Scully, do you want to come in on any of the points that have been made?

Q There was a brief point that someone raised—I think it was you, Tom, when you talked about the fact that you guys have put your heads above the parapet and come in front of us. Can you talk to us about why some other companies that you have spoken to would not want to put their heads above the parapet, and so it is you guys at the forefront?

Tom Fish:

I certainly am aware that other companies I have spoken to are reluctant to speak out publicly about the issues they face and the concerns they have. They are concerned about the risk that they might be penalised in the search engine, the app store or the marketplace. I will not name them, naturally, but those concerns are real. From my perspective, there is no choice. Unless this Bill is introduced, and the regime comes through and starts to address these issues, we will not be able to reach out for potential and the markets that we want to operate in will not be open and accessible. From our perspective, there is really no choice but to take this step.

Q Because of the ongoing relationship with those companies.

Tom Fish:

Exactly.

Richard Stables:

I could give a bit of colour to that. When we started being hit by Google, we thought that it was just us. Eventually we realised that the whole market was suffering. We started talking to the commission. We were absolutely paranoid. We said, “Don’t tell Google because we think we might get the traffic back. If they know that we’re talking to you, that’s going to hurt us.” Eventually, they hurt us so much that it did not matter. I have spoken to so many firms—big firms as well as small firms—that have turned around and said, “We’re really glad about what you’re doing. I can’t come out and say this.” The power that these companies have is phenomenal. Companies can literally be put out of business overnight if one of these companies decides that that is what is going to happen.

Mark Buse:

They believe in retribution. When we tried to offer Korean citizens in Korea a discounted price, Apple, instead of rejecting our app build, put every app build on hold. If you are not familiar with the concept of a build, it is where you update and change your app. You always get messages on your phone saying, “You need to update.” For 35 days, Apple froze every app build for every brand that we have that operates anywhere around the globe. We were unable to bring new products out, but more importantly we had bug fixes in all those builds. We have white-hat hackers: people we pay to show us what is wrong. We learned bug fixes internally. There were people who could not use the product right.

All those bug fixes sat on hold, so for UK citizens using our products, with no connection to Korea, those fixes did not take place for 35 days because Apple refused to let us move any builds. When we withdrew the build that would have given us the right to use alternative payment authorities, Apple then approved everything within 72 hours.

Tom Fish:

On that point, it is important not always to get drawn into a polarised debate on these issues. It is not necessarily black and white—that big tech is good or evil. You can be a supporter of the Bill and the new regime without wanting to break up big tech. All that I am really asking for is a bit more scrutiny, oversight and transparency where obvious conflicts of interest exist.

Briefly, you were saying that the app subscriptions that you might have will be through Apple, so the Q relationship is between the customer and Apple. We will look at the issue of subscription traps as the Bill progresses. Will the renewal relationship be between you and the customer or Apple and the customer? How will that end up working?

Mark Buse:

We believe that the relationship should be between us and the customer—that Apple should not intermediate between us and the customer. Then we will, rightly, have the responsibility to ensure that there are not subscription traps or any other issues around subscription. At this point, generally what happens is that we are still blamed but the subscription is actually with Apple. We do not think that in an ideal world it should necessarily be just us. If some of our users want to subscribe via Apple, we are more than happy to let them use our service and continue to subscribe through Apple. If they believe that that is a safer, more private way to do it, great. We want to bring as many people as possible into our business. It is not about excluding; it is about different ways to include.

Q May I pick up on the point that you made about Match payments and Uber payments? I was not sure why there is a difference. Why is Uber treated differently from Match?

Mark Buse:

It is a historical anomaly. When the store was created, in a brilliant move by Steve Jobs, he needed to get companies to build apps. Apps did not exist. People my age were bombarded with commercials. The slogan for Apple was, “There’s an app for that.” Apps have become the way we use our phones because they make it easier. He had to go to all these physical companies and say, “Build me an app. I’ll put it on the phone.” The Walmarts and Tescos of the world said, “We want people coming into our stores. Why on earth would we want them not to, and to use the app?”

What Jobs did, again because he was a brilliant man, is say, “Look—it won’t cost you anything. In essence, it will just increase sales. It’s you-branded. It’s yours. You operate it.” That is why apps are distinct. Uber had just come on to the scene and was the hottest thing going. It went into New York and into London—some would argue illegally, not abiding by the rules. What happened is that Jobs—you can see this from various biographies and public court documents—said to Uber, “Come into the store, but because you’re a digital product, and the whole idea of the walled garden is that they hold on to your digital data, you’re going to have to pay 30%.” Uber said, “No. We won’t do it.” Because the store was nascent and Uber was popular, Jobs said, “You know what? Go into the store anyway. It’s fine. I won’t make you pay.”

Match at the time was a fledgling, super-small company, and our business was not big and growing because there was a lot of stigma around online dating at the time. People thought that if you cannot meet a date in real life, in person, you go to the online dating world. Now online dating is the No. 1 way that people meet in the UK. More relationships start online than in any other way. In the LGBTQ community, over 70% of all relationships start online. The market has changed. If the store was being created today, our market power might enable us to say, “Don’t include us in that.”

That is really helpful.

I am afraid that we need to wind up. Mr Carter, very briefly.

Q Just a quick question to Tom. In your written submission, you commented on the scope of the Bill. Are you confident that it is broad enough, and future-facing enough, to cover things that we do not yet know about?

Tom Fish:

Largely speaking. The one issue that I raised in my written submission was a small concern around a degree of ambiguity regarding operating systems. It is critical that operating systems can be designated with strategic market status. Half the potential interventions that have been talked about for opening up markets will not be possible if you cannot designate operating systems. This is just a plea really to insert the words “operating systems” as an example. It will not cost anything, but it will solve a lot of problems.

Thank you. I am sorry that we have run out of time. On behalf of the Committee, I thank our witnesses.

Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Mike Wood.)

Adjourned till this day at Two o’clock.