Security and privacy, accountability, Fairness and Transparency, and Developer Choice – are the four areas covered by Microsoft’s new principles for its app stores. The new principles, eleven in total, are tightly based on the Open App Markets Bill currently debated by the U.S. Senate. The principles aim to promote competition, and they outline Microsoft’s obligations towards app developers, such as equal treatment to all apps and the optional use of external payment processors.

The new principles follow Microsoft’s recent announcement on its purchase of games publisher Activision Blizzard, in a whopping $68.7 billion deal is tightly overseen by the Federal Trade Commission in its capacity as a regulator of competition and anti-trust. The new principles are reportedly intended to assist Microsoft in securing regulatory approval for the deal.