#Barry Diller calls Apple’s App Store fees ‘disgusting’

Media mogul Barry Diller ripped Apple over the fees it charges companies that have apps in iPhone maker’s App Store.

“[Our apps are] overcharged in a disgusting manner,” the chairman of IAC and Expedia said in an interview on CNBC’s “Squawk Box on Friday.

Diller, whose companies have apps in the App Store slammed Apple for charging a sizable 30 percent commission rate on top of in-app transactions. Apple recently cut its fees to 15 percent for smaller developers after facing criticism.

“The idea that they actually justify it by saying, ‘We spend all this money protecting our little App Store,’” Diller said. “I mean, it’s criminal. Well, it will be criminal.”

Apple didn’t respond to questions about Diller’s remarks, but in the past, the company has defended its policies, saying that the money it gets from commission fees goes into maintaining the App Store.

Diller’s fiery comments came the same day that Apple chief executive Tim Cook took the stand in an antitrust case focused on the App Store brought by Epic Games, the maker of popular video game Fortnite.

Diller said Apple and its rival Alphabet’s Google, which makes runs the Google Play app store, a “quasi-monopoly.”

The exec compared Apple’s fat commission on App Store purchases to a credit card company, which typically takes a 2 percent fee on transactions.

“It’s irrational, 30 percent. I mean, it makes no sense,” Diller said before turning to Match.com, the dating company his IAC spun off last year.

“Match, little Match.com, pays $500 million a year to Apple to go through their store. Does that seem rational to you?,” he said.

The exec said that regulation would preserve competition and benefit the tech behemoth in the long run.

“I think regulation, proper regulation, makes sense. I don’t want to bust them up. I don’t think that that’s such a smart idea, but when you have size and power, you’ve got to have regulation,” Diller added.

While Diller was happy to talk tech and media, the exec was really on TV to plug his latest investment-— Little Island, a floating park located on the Hudson River on Manhattan’s West Side.

Speaking from the park, Diller said the $260 million, 2.4-acre park was mostly funded by him and his family foundation with wife, fashion designer Diane Von Furstenberg.

“We love public art and public places … but the real reason to do it is this. It’s to see people being really happy in the city,” Diller said.