EU clears Apple of anti-competitive behaviour with Apple Music

Earlier this year, ahead of Apple Music's initial announcement, the European Commission launched an investigation in to Apple's business practises leading up to the streaming service's launch. At the time, the EU suspected that Apple may be resorting to anti-competitive tactics in order to get an edge over competing companies.

Today, the EU Commission gave Apple the all clear, after its investigation failed to find any evidence that Apple was using its influence to strong-arm services like Spotify out of the market. While no illegal activity was found during the investigation, the EU will continue to see how things go by monitoring the market.

The EU's investigation may not have found any traces of anti-competitive behaviour but Apple isn't out of the woods yet as over in the US, the Federal Trade Commission is also investigating Apple and its deals leading up to the launch of Apple Music.

This all comes shortly after last week's news that Apple Music has already managed to sway 11 million people in to using the service, though given the three-month free trial on offer, the large number isn't too surprising. We still don't know how many people will stick around when Apple Music turns in to a paid service at the end of September, alongside the launch of iOS 9 and the new iPhones.

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KitGuru Says: Apple may be all clear for now, but the FTC is still snooping around. That said, we haven't seen many major artists leave Spotify in favour of Apple Music, so there may not have been any dodgy dealings between Apple and record labels after all. 

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