A clause buried on page 102 of a 114-page contract update is prompting UK app developers to ask how far Apple's commission can follow a customer once they have already left the App Store. The clause appears in the version of the Apple Developer Program License Agreement that developers in the United Kingdom were asked to accept this month, and it was flagged publicly by Kelli F., co-founder of the messaging platform xigxag, in a LinkedIn post that has drawn attention from lawyers, developers, and at least one antitrust specialist. According to the post, the agreement allows Apple to charge a commission not only when a customer buys through a link tapped inside an app, but also when that same customer independently returns to the developer's own website within seven days and buys again, without tapping any link at all.

In short

Apple's UK developer contract lets the company collect a commission on a purchase made on a developer's own website if that customer had tapped a link out of the developer's app within the prior seven days, even if the return visit and purchase involved no further click from Apple's platform. This matters for any UK app business that sells subscriptions or digital goods through its own site, because it extends Apple's fee beyond the transaction the link facilitated and into purchases the developer's own marketing, email, or habit brought back. The practical takeaway is that a seven-day attribution tail now attaches to every link tap under the UK's steering rules, not just the single transaction it produces.

A post from inside a messaging app's developer account

Kelli F. described xigxag as "human plus AI-powered tech" and said the company received a new Apple Developer Program License Agreement running 114 pages, with no summary of what had changed and no changelog. The post states that the company's co-founder Mark reviewed the document and produced videos walking through specific sections. The interesting section, according to the post, starts on page 102.

The mechanism described is narrow but consequential. If a customer clicks a link inside the developer's app that leads to the developer's own website, and completes a purchase there using the developer's own payment system, Apple takes a cut of that transaction. That much is consistent with the external purchase link terms Apple has operated in various forms since 2024. The clause that drew attention goes further: if the same customer returns to the developer's website within seven days of that link tap, and buys again, Apple's commission applies to the second purchase too, even though no link was tapped and no interaction with Apple's platform occurred during that second visit.

"Since when can a third party monetise another company's organic click?" the post asks, describing the arrangement as "an incredibly dangerous precedent for a free and fair mobile internet." The post also raises a comparison on transparency requirements: Apple requires developers to display a warning screen when a customer is about to leave Apple's in-app payment system for an external one, but the post states developers are not permitted to display a warning when a customer is about to use Apple's own payment system, which the post describes as failing at six times the rate of Stripe's web payments.

Lawyer and antitrust specialist Damien Geradin responded to the thread, noting explicitly that his reaction was that of an app developer reading Apple's terms and conditions rather than a legal opinion delivered in a professional capacity. The post also tagged the UK's Competition and Markets Authority directly, framing the clause as evidence of what the regulator's ongoing steering consultation is trying to address.

Where the seven-day figure comes from

The number is not arbitrary within Apple's broader rulebook. A seven-day attribution window already exists in the parallel European Union terms Apple published on August 18, 2026, and which take effect on October 1, 2026. Under those terms, out-of-app offers using an actionable link attract a store services commission, and only sales completed within seven days of the link tap fall inside that commission, according to PPC Land's reporting on the EU package. The UK clause described in the LinkedIn post appears to mirror that seven-day figure, but frames it as a floor for Apple's claim rather than a ceiling, since the post describes the fee applying to a return visit that happens without any further link tap, rather than describing the window as limiting Apple's claim to purchases directly initiated through the original link.

Apple's developer news page shows a pattern of frequent, market-specific revisions to the same underlying agreement, including changes affecting Brazil's alternative distribution terms and a separate June 2026 revision governing developer identity checks and export compliance. Apple has not published a standalone changelog isolating the seven-day return-visit clause for UK developers in the way it did for the EU's Attachment 14 terms, which is consistent with the post's complaint that the agreement update carried no summary of changes.

The regulatory backdrop the post points to

The post's reference to the Competition and Markets Authority is not incidental. The regulator opened consultations on June 30, 2026 proposing steering conduct requirements for Apple's and Google's mobile platforms under the UK's Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act. Those proposals would require Apple to let developers direct UK customers toward payment options outside the App Store, and would require any fee Apple charges for that steering to be "fair and reasonable." Apple submitted formal objections to the consultation on July 29, 2026, arguing the proposed treatment of steering fees amounted to price regulation rather than a competition remedy.

The clause described in the LinkedIn post sits inside that same live dispute over what counts as a fair steering fee. If Apple's contract already claims a commission on purchases a developer's own marketing generates after the link tap, independent of any further platform interaction, that structure becomes a direct input into the regulator's fee-fairness assessment, whatever the CMA ultimately decides.

The UK's Competition Appeal Tribunal has separately found Apple liable on App Store commission conduct before. The tribunal delivered a judgment against Apple on October 23, 2025, ruling that Apple had abused a dominant market position by charging developers commissions the tribunal found excessive and unfair, in a case brought by academic Rachael Kent on behalf of an estimated 20 million UK iPhone and iPad users. That ruling concerned historic commission rates rather than the specific seven-day clause raised in the LinkedIn post, but it establishes that UK tribunals have already been willing to find Apple's App Store commission practices unlawful once litigated in full.

How the UK clause compares with the US position

Apple's US terms took a different path after litigation with Epic Games. A federal court found Apple in civil contempt on April 30, 2025, and Apple was compelled to eliminate its commission on purchases made outside iOS apps on the US storefront the following day, according to PPC Land's coverage of the ruling. US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers's order prohibited Apple from charging any commission on purchases made outside apps and restricted the design choices developers could face around external purchase links. That order applies to the US storefront specifically; it does not bind Apple's UK or EU terms, which is why a return-visit commission clause of the kind described in the LinkedIn post can coexist with a commission-free external purchase regime for US developers under the same corporate umbrella.

What the EU package changed and what it left open

The EU's own October 1 terms, which PPC Land covered in detail, restructure Apple's commission architecture from a per-install charge into a percentage-based one. Apple's Core Technology Fee is being retired in favour of a 5 percent Core Technology Commission on sales made through alternative distribution and web distribution, with the App Store rate for Apple's own in-app purchase system set at 26 percent and a reduced rate of 20 percent for sales processed through an alternative payment system inside an app. Out-of-app offers using an actionable link carry a 15 percent store services commission, or 10 percent for participants in reduced-rate programmes, and that commission applies only to sales completed within the seven-day window after the link tap.

Reading the EU documentation alongside the LinkedIn post's description of the UK terms suggests two different applications of a similar seven-day figure. In the EU framework as reported, the seven-day window appears to function as the outer limit of what Apple can claim from a single link-driven purchase. The UK clause as described in the post instead treats the seven-day period as a window during which any purchase on the developer's own site, link-driven or not, remains within Apple's commission claim. PPC Land has not independently reviewed the specific UK contract text underlying the LinkedIn post beyond what the post itself displays and describes, and Apple has not published a UK-specific commentary addressing the distinction directly.

The steering rules this sits inside

The wider context is the anti-steering regime that has applied to Apple's App Store since a series of court rulings and regulatory decisions beginning in 2021. The European Commission fined Apple 500 million euros on April 23, 2025 for breaching its anti-steering obligation under the Digital Markets Act, and the EU's General Court dismissed Apple's challenge to its gatekeeper designation for the App Store and iOS on July 8, 2026, leaving Apple's underlying obligations under the Digital Markets Act's gatekeeper regime intact. In the UK, the CMA designated Apple with Strategic Market Status ahead of the steering consultation opened in June 2026, giving the regulator authority to write conduct requirements specific to Apple's mobile platform rather than relying solely on a case-by-case competition investigation.

None of those proceedings has yet produced a UK ruling on the specific return-visit clause described in the LinkedIn post. The CMA's steering consultation remains open, and Apple's July 29 submission objecting to the proposed fee-fairness framework predates the version of the developer agreement the post describes. Whether the CMA's eventual conduct requirement addresses a commission claim on purchases made independent of any further link tap is not yet settled.

Why this matters for the marketing community

For app publishers and subscription businesses operating in the UK, the practical modelling question is not the headline commission rate on a single link-driven transaction. It is how much of a customer's subsequent, self-directed purchasing activity remains inside Apple's fee claim after the first link tap. A publisher that sends a customer to its own website through an in-app link, and later re-engages that same customer through email or a return visit within the same week, may find the resulting transaction still carries Apple's commission under the clause described in the post, even though no further platform interaction occurred.

That distinction matters directly for how marketers plan retention campaigns and lifecycle messaging around link-out purchases. A seven-day re-engagement email sent after an initial link-driven sale is a common lifecycle marketing tactic; if the clause described in the post is accurate as written, that tactic could generate a second commission liability for the developer even where the marketing channel used to prompt the return visit had nothing to do with Apple's platform.

The clause also bears on Apple's steering-adjacent transparency requirements more broadly. The post's complaint that developers must warn customers before they leave Apple's payment system, but may not warn customers before they use it, describes an asymmetry in disclosure obligations that sits alongside the commission asymmetry the post separately raises. Both points feed into the CMA's ongoing steering consultation, where the question of what counts as a "fair and reasonable" fee for steering will need to account for exactly this kind of extended commission claim if the regulator's eventual rule is to address the practices developers are describing on the ground.

The dispute also illustrates a recurring pattern in how Apple communicates developer agreement changes. The post's central complaint is not solely the substance of the seven-day clause but the absence of a changelog accompanying a 114-page document. Apple's own developer news page for the broader October 2026 commission update did include itemised summaries of specific section changes for that release, which suggests the practice varies by market and by version rather than reflecting a single company-wide standard for change disclosure.

Timeline

  • April 30, 2025: A US federal court finds Apple in civil contempt over its App Store anti-steering compliance, and Apple is compelled to eliminate its commission on external purchases on the US storefront the following day
  • October 23, 2025: The UK Competition Appeal Tribunal rules that Apple abused its dominant market positionthrough App Store commission practices, in the case brought by Rachael Kent
  • June 30, 2026: The UK Competition and Markets Authority opens consultations proposing steering conduct requirements for Apple's and Google's mobile platforms under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act
  • July 8, 2026: The EU General Court dismisses Apple's challenge to its App Store and iOS gatekeeper designation, leaving Apple's Digital Markets Act obligations intact
  • July 29, 2026: Apple submits formal objections to the CMA's steering consultation, arguing the proposed fee-fairness framework amounts to price regulation
  • August 18, 2026: Apple publishes unified EU business terms replacing the per-install Core Technology Fee with a 5 percent Core Technology Commission, including a seven-day window on linked-out purchase commissions
  • Approximately two weeks before this article (per the LinkedIn post's own timestamp): xigxag co-founder Kelli F. publishes a LinkedIn post describing a new 114-page UK Apple Developer Program License Agreement containing a seven-day return-visit commission clause
  • October 1, 2026: Apple's unified EU business terms take effect

Summary

Who: Apple Inc., app developers operating in the United Kingdom, and xigxag co-founder Kelli F., whose LinkedIn post first described the clause publicly. Lawyer and antitrust specialist Damien Geradin and the UK Competition and Markets Authority were referenced in the post's discussion.

What: A clause inside a 114-page update to the Apple Developer Program License Agreement for UK developers that, according to the post describing it, allows Apple to collect a commission on a purchase made on a developer's own website if the same customer had tapped a link out of the developer's app within the prior seven days, even where the return visit involved no further interaction with Apple's platform.

When: The LinkedIn post describing the clause was published roughly two weeks before this article. The clause sits within the same period as Apple's broader EU commission restructuring, published August 18, 2026 and taking effect October 1, 2026, and follows the CMA's steering consultation opened June 30, 2026.

Where: The United Kingdom, under the Apple Developer Program License Agreement version applicable to UK-registered developer accounts.

Why: The clause matters because it extends Apple's commission claim beyond the single transaction a steering link produces and into subsequent, self-directed customer activity, a structure that bears directly on the UK Competition and Markets Authority's ongoing assessment of what counts as a fair and reasonable steering fee under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act.