EU competition regulators said Wednesday they were dropping an antitrust case against Apple's ITunes online media store after the company announced plans to standardise prices for music downloads across Europe. The European Commission levelled formal antitrust charges against Apple and major record companies in April 2007 for charging different prices for the same downloads in different EU countries, hitting British consumers particularly hard. Back to 2005 British consumer association, which complained that iTunes stores in France and Germany charged 99 euro cents ($1.45), while Britons must pay 79 pence ($1.56), instead of letting all Europeans buy at one store.

Apple said Wednesday it would lower prices in Britain within six months in order to standardise prices in Europe.

"This is an important step towards a pan-European marketplace for music," said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. "We hope every major record label will take a pan-European view of pricing."