This is easily one of the most expansive Acts regarding computing devices passed in my lifetime. The summary is in the link. As an iPhone user, this will enable me to:
* Install any software
* Install any App Store and choose to make it default
* Use third party payment providers and choose to make them default
* Use any voice assistant and choose to make it default
* User any browser and browser engine and choose to make it default
* Use any messaging app and choose to make it default
* Make core messaging functionality interoperable. They lay out concrete examples like file transfer
* Use existing hardware and software features without competitive prejudice. E.g. NFC
* Not preference their services. This includes CTAs in settings to encourage users to subscribe to Gatekeeper services, and ranking their own services above others in selection and advertising portals
* Much, much, more.
After the Act is signed by the Council and the European Parliament in September, Apple, Google, Amazon, and other "Gatekeepers" will have six months to comply. Fines are up to 10% of global revenue for the first offense, and 20% for repeat offenses.
Interestingly enough, an iPhone that complies with these demands is actually the first iPhone I'd ever consider paying for. I wonder if this might actually increase adoption.
It’s not a popular opinion around here, but the reason I like my iPhone is _because_ it’s a walled garden. It just works, reliably, without surprises, for years on end.
That's fine, just stay on the default settings then.
This however isn't a reason for the rest of the world to accept this. And since the power in the market is highly concentrated and all of it is moving more and more in this direction, regulation enforces these alternative options now.
All this does is regulate the power the provider of a product has over their customer. This does not ruin the walled garden for the people who prefer to stay in it for peace of mind, but it adds a door for the people who want to leave. There is no negative side-effects for the people staying, only the platform providers will have to spend some money and lose some revenue.
That's fine, just stay on the default settings then.
I agree in principle, but I worry that we end up in the situation where if you need to use a particular app, you can only get it from a third-party store that you don't trust. (Something gross like Facebook starting an app store.)
Or course, this is mostly a result of Apple being greedy. If they had acted like a good steward of the platform rather than trying to extract a lot of money from developers, we probably wouldn't be here.
Then don't use this particular app? This already exists today: A lot of apps are android-only, or jailbreak-only. In the same sense, tomorrow we'll likely have amazon-store-only apps.
In practice I doubt many apps will use a third-party appstore. Apple has a lot of leeway in how they will implement the regulation - they can make it painful enough to use a third-party store that most popular apps will want to keep using the primary app store to get maximum reach. Just like how almost every android app is on the google play store - despite sideloading being a thing since forever.
Yeah, but for the apps that are on iOS devices, Apple is effectively currently standing in the position of "the lawyer who writes a 4000 page contract to de-risk the wish they're making with the evil wish-granting genie", so that we don't have to. Apple forces apps on their store to obey certain restrictions that make life better (less tracked, especially) for consumers; and those restrictions are begrudgingly accepted by the developers, because there's no other way for the dev to access the iOS user-base.
As soon as those devs can avoid Apple's restrictions and deliver their apps directly to users with the "intended" experience, they will.
Personally, I like neutered-evil-genie apps, and will be sad to lose them (i.e. have them turn into unfettered-evil-genie apps, which I won't use.)
Isn't the answer for Apple to provide operating-system level restrictions to apps (regardless of source) that make it so the only way any application on the system can access the identifier is by permission from the user? I wouldn't be surprised if this is how it works right now anyway, just because an app is deployed by an enterprise developer doesn't mean it should be able to bypass the app tracking transparency prompt.
Or does the EU law prevent them from having private APIs/system components period? It seems like many people are making the assumption that this means that every single sideloaded app will be able to bypass all of the privacy/security features on the device, and I don't see why that would be. My understanding is that this is for "fairness", which would mean that apps that are sideloaded would have the same level of access as those on the App Store, meaning they use the same APIs that trigger the same prompts.
No, because this isn't about OS-level identifiers; it's about things like e.g. applications working together to track you by passing permacookies through Shared Containers; or about apps that ask for microphone privileges then listening for ultrasound beacons in retail stores to determine their location.
These are the sorts of prohibited behaviors that can be heuristically recognized by technical means (e.g. static analysis), but where any such recognition would necessarily result result in tons of false positives; and so those issues, when raised, must be passed to a team of human auditors for determination.
This is, by-and-large, why App Store submissions — even for updates — still require that human-auditor step. They're always watching for those seemingly-minor "this app got sold to someone evil" updates that slip in spyware — the kind you see often with Chrome Extensions.
Your point is valid, but I think those examples are fixable. Permacookies could be fixed as simply as "Would you like to allow {EvilApp} to access data from {EvilPartnerApp}?", as there aren't a lot of reasons that apps should be passing data between each other without user consent (or the share sheet).
The second example has already been fixed with the microphone indicator from 1-2 versions back, where a light shows up in the corner whenever the microphone has been activated (and swiping down tells you what app activated it). A notification could be added if an app tried to activate the microphone when it wasn't in the foreground (but I don't think the OS lets you do that anyway?)
One other obvious "Turing-hard" spyware side-channel, is that it's basically up to the application developer to come up with a list of Internet domains it should be able to connect to, to put into the app's entitlements; and it's up to humans at Apple to determine whether that list is sane — often by starting up the app with syscalls to the network stack shimmed/traced, doing packet captures, and seeing what the app says to each of the domains it lists itself as entitled to talk to.
You'd think that maybe restricting connections to e.g. domains that are rooted in a zone the developer has proven ownership of, would be fine... but there are third-party advertising, analytics, and fingerprinting services that allow you to CNAME them as subdomains of your domain to evade ad-blocker signature recognition.
And, of course, no user could ever be expected to figure any of this out if asked in a prompt. "Example App is asking me to allow it to connect to abcdefg.example.com? Well, they own that, don't they? Why wouldn't I allow that?"
Asking the user sucks. All it does is train users to click yes without thinking about it because they just want to get on with their life. (See: The ubiquitous GDPR cookie prompts).
ANY "solution" that puts more burden on the user isn't.
They could just ask once for defaults not every time and have a per app dialog where the user could tweak the permissions, like browsers do. For instance I have almost everything blocked in the browser: camera, location etc.
They do it for location access, calendar access, notification access, and clipboard access for every app. Access to shared containers shouldn’t be a common occurrence outside of once when the app is set up.
You didn’t disprove what your parent said. People still just tap yes on them. I ran an experiment and put little snitch on my wife’s laptop. She just clicked “accept” every time it popped up without question.
People always make this argument in these kinds of threads and I wonder how it isn't blatantly obvious that operating-system level restrictions are woefully inadequate to deal with unscrupulous developers. Put yourself in the mindset of an unscrupulous developer for a moment, can't you think of a hundred ways to abuse permissions granted by the user or operating system to violate privacy?
> If these abuses happen under the aegis of the current App Store, doesn't that nullify the argument that App Store review is sufficient protection?
Not at all. App Store review is not perfect and no one expects it to be. That doesn't mean it has no value or that we should get rid of it entirely. Otherwise you could make the same argument about any system involving unscrupulous actors: "people still kill despite there being laws against murder, doesn't that mean the law is pointless?"
> This also ignores that it's conceivable that Apple can harden iOS's existing permissions system.
Curious how you think this would actually solve the issue I linked above.
> App Store review is not perfect and no one expects it to be.
But Apple is clearly presenting it as such.
> That doesn't mean it has no value or that we should get rid of it entirely.
That is correct, but right now it is the only game in town. There's no secondary stores that present it with competition. Already we read about top-10 grossing apps that are actually scammy. Perhaps Apple will strengthen its App Store when presented with alternatives.
> Curious how you think this would actually solve the issue I linked above.
It really depends on what mechanism that Uber is using to bypass the notifications systems. But off the bat, iOS could force even more granular alerts to the user when sensitive permissions are required.
Curious too, how you think that App Store review currently solves this issue. Uber is already too significant to the platform for Apple to do much more than give them a slap on the wrist, as seen historically.
> But off the bat, iOS could force even more granular alerts to the user when sensitive permissions are required.
How does having more granular alerts actually solve this issue?
> Curious too, how you think that App Store review currently solves this issue.
Well, obviously it doesn't, currently. App Store review needs to update their rules to address this type of abuse. Uber is big but they've taken hard line stances against bigger apps before (e.g. Facebook).
I don't think it's a rules update thing. It's more like review didn't uncover this behavior. (In the past Uber had gone all the way to use geofencing to evade reviewers and regulators.) Maybe this could've been only uncovered through long-term testing by reviewers who actively use the app day to day. Maybe they need such a process that does that.
> Sounds like a success story, imagine the alternative scenario where there was no review process and Uber could get away with this entirely.
It'd say 60-40. The 40% downside is that Apple deigned to go through with actually pulling Uber from the store, even just for a few days. Do you think they'd do anything even remotely similar over the notifications permission leak you cited?
> How does having more granular alerts actually solve this issue?
More restrictive and more transparent handling of permissions. Maybe this mechanism was caused by Uber bundling some sort of library that led to permissions leak. Perhaps the OS could expose that permission being triggered.
> More restrictive and more transparent handling of permissions. Maybe this mechanism was caused by Uber bundling some sort of library that led to permissions leak. Perhaps the OS could expose that permission being triggered.
I don't think you've thought this all the way through. Once a user grants me permission to send them push notifications because they want to know when their ride shows up, you can't really stop me from pushing them ads through the same channel.
Then it sounds like we have found ourselves a problem that is unsolvable both by OS-level protections and App Store review restrictions, and perhaps we should look beyond to other ways to rein in Uber.
> Once a user grants me permission to send them push notifications because they want to know when their ride shows up, you can't really stop me from pushing them ads through the same channel.
Wait, can't an improvement upon the OS be to make it more granular so that Uber is forced to establish separate permissions channels for rides (vital) vs. ads (not-so-vital), and that every time a notification of a certain type appears, the user is given the option to mute that channel entirely?
Sure, you can offer me different notification channels for rides vs ads. But remember, I am an unscrupulous developer. How are you going to stop me from sending you ads through the rides channel?
My underlying point, of course, is just because the operating system provides certain APIs, does not mean they are going to be used in good faith.
What I mean is if a notification presents itself, allow the user to mute it. If that channel was intended for rides, then the unscrupulous developer simply disables their own app.
Fight the good fight, this is all valid concerns, I don’t look forward to the Netflix store to download Netflix, the Spotify store to download a Spotify, etc
Both Netflix and Spotify are having mounting problems with user retention and growth. Pulling their apps off of the official, most highly-trafficked, App Store is literally suicide for them. Not to mention the inherent difficulty of creating and maintaining their own app stores, of which trying to convince users to sign up for would be a hurdle on its own.
Perhaps they could team up with Facebook and create a rival app store of those who don’t want to pay the 30% tax. Of which they can all hemorrhage users together- it should be noted that FB is also having issues maintaining and growing DAU.
Many of the restrictions that Apple added along the years were reactions to abuse by app developers (which in reality nowadays are "legal malware developers"). Everything you can think of has been tried: from reading the installed list of apps, spying on the clipboard, scraping location data from pictures, fingerprinting phones based on camera sensor or motion sensor and many others.
Permissions represent one of two pillars of their strategy against legal malware developers. The second one is the rulebook associated with the AppStore, preventing publishing non-compliant apps and banning developers for breaking said rules. A classic example is Facebook misusing enterprise certificates to install "Facebook research" which allowed them almost unrestricted access to the data of the users. Apple revoked their enterprise certificate, which also affected internal applications that Facebook employees were using. Facebook relented.
If Facebook launches their own app store, the second pillar is completely circumvented. Additionally they will find ways around the technical limitations, be it through use of private APIs, tricking users into clicking confirmations or bribing them. Technical limitations are not enough when dealing with malicious actors.
> If Facebook launches their own app store, the second pillar is completely circumvented
Meta be forced to offer their adware/spyware Facebook app through the Apple app store as well, as many people will not agree or won't have the technical knowledge to install more than one alternative app store. Apple will probably be forced to provide a list of alphabetically ordered app stores to choose from in the initial iPhone setup. It's quite convenient that their own app store starts with an A.
> that make it so the only way any application on the system can access the identifier is by permission from the user?
And let's say the user says No. Today the app will be forced to work without it. By Apple Store rules. Tomorrow the app will say "this permission is required for app to work".
When we tried to restrict cookie tracking via voluntary consent, every site installed an cookie consent overlay, where agreeing to cookies is one click, not agreeing is seventy-eight clicks.
Almost every site I've had this pop-up on required no more than 2-5 clicks -> manage cookie options -> either select ok because everything but 'required' is already off or deselect a couple of options then ok. That's easy after doing it a couple of times, it's pure laziness to say that's too hard, and we should not accept that as a good excuse to remove it.
It’s easy but very annoying. Especially when you have a secure setup that randomizes identifiers or removes cookies after the session such that the next session and every session after that you get the prompt. And how many people do you think actually take the time to deselect things? Your example here is the simplest case. Many sites it’s much more than 5-7 clicks as the pop up has a tabbed interface with 10+ checkboxes per tab. What was this supposed to accomplish again? Harass users?
WhatsApp is avoidable with this same law forcing interoperability with other messaging clients. Facebook's app is avoidable with a browser and Facebook.com . Actually WhatsApp's app is avoidable in the same way.
They’re all avoidable by just not using them. Use that fancy text message feature of your phone to communicate. 30 years ago these apps didn’t exist and people somehow continued to exist without them.
Because everybody needs their conversations encrypted. What was that liberal saying, what are you hiding? Most people are not targeted by some state actor
Not selling anything here considering every reasonable solution to this problem is something offered for free, or can be mitigated by a user with FOSS.
Yea totally normal for a majority to use SMS in my country when both platforms send messages through their own encrypted servers. I don’t have this problem, nobody in my family does, so now explain to me why I should use matrix?
The obvious counterargument here is that having lawyers write 4000 page de-risked evil genie wishes just normalized the concept of dealing with evil genies. Apple can negotiate around the margins - maybe they stop making their ad tracking identifier opt-out or something. And indeed, that seems good, we increased privacy compared to the alternative. However, this isn't the full picture. Apple is the one who provided that ad tracking identifier in the first place. More generally, they brought a lot of users straight into Facebook's open, gaping maw.
Furthermore, the lawyer isn't just de-risking one evil genie wish, they're de-risking millions of them. Apple does not just have Facebook on the App Store. They have millions of apps. And as you can imagine, many of them are barely reviewed garbage or outright scams. If these apps tried to get distributed outside of the App Store, nobody would trust them. But them being on the App Store gives users a false sense of security. Apple switched from being highly selective in the early days of iOS to doing bare-minimum checks because the latter made them more money.
The issue is what if you have to use a specific app to access some service or community. And then that app requesting access to your location data and your address book even though there is no point in it requesting either. Sure you can deny but if you do it, the app will refuse service. It can only be solved by the app store requiring that users denying access won't result in the app refusing to work, or only the features will refuse to work that actually need that data.
"just don't install the app" won't work in many, many cases.
But this doesn't really happen on Android now. Even though I can sideload apps and use different app stores, my bank never told me to get their app from Shady Store and the public transport company didn't ask me to you F-Droid. The official app store is still _the_ place you find apps in, you're just _also_ free to wander on your on.
The most famous example of an app choosing not to be on the play store is Fortnite. Google even had to add a feature to their play store search to show a message that Fortnite is not available, so that people don't get desperate and install one of the many scams. Fortnite did this because they didn't want to pay the Google tax, but other apps might do it because they want to spy on users more. The danger exists.
We can always use Apple's favorite defense on why they don't have an app store monopoly: use your browser. Facebook, Instagram, TikTok etc. all still work via the browser. I don't know a single one that doesn't (though I could be wrong)
> The issue is what if you have to use a specific app to access some service or community.
Such compulsions are the real problem. In a free society, nobody should be compelled to have a phone at all, let alone install software on one. Government services in particular should never be gated in this way. If no compulsion exists, then there is no problem with people having the choice to use any appstore they wish.
If by 'have to' you mean something along the lines of "My brother keeps badgering me to install WhatsApp" then the answer is to simply say "No." Real example. He texts me instead.
It's thankfully not mandated by governments. However, often there is social pressure to obtain a given app. E.g. when a friend group is all on snapchat and they organize outings via the group chat. Do you want to be left out of that discussion and only be informed by one person from that group who forwards the decision when and where to go to you?
In US I have not seen any government services that are available only via mobile devices. Most online government services are accessible via a website, and one can go to a public library to use a (non-mobile) computer there.
The app might be able to detect the pattern generated by the fake data generator and refuse to work in that instance. E.g. apple's approximate location feature often puts you into the city center at a very specific location. It's trivial to detect devices that are always at that precise location and only move around in discrete steps between those points.
This can lead to an arms race where the OS creates increasingly advanced/realistic fake data, and apps get increasingly sophisticated logic.
So I'm not a fan of solving this the technical way. A policy is way better, but you need to be able to enforce it.
Sure, it'll lead to arms race like you describe on one side, but let's say 99% of the apps won't even engage in that arms race if the fake data is generic enough to cause a high number of false positives (blocking someone who's not actually faking the data).
Then, we can focus on the remaining 1% of worst offenders to actually enforce the policy.
Ultimately I think the only person this benefits is Tim Sweeney, as he gets the Epic store on iOS/Android/Playstation/Xbox.
Realistically this just drives people into a different walled garden. One that is device-vendor agnostic, but a walled garden nonetheless - in that your purchases are tied to Epic. This law could have been so much better, but now it just trades one problem for a bunch of new ones (some even worse than what it's trying to solve).
One thing that might have been nice - making allowances in the law for centralised certification authorities with fixed tariffs, so that Apple still checks the builds as it does now for the App Store, but then the builds can be released elsewhere (as the signatures will match). For this they could charge a fee, which could be capped in the law at a percentage of the sale price (and obviously much lower than 30%). This way iOS/Android could still have guaranteed protection, for which Apple/Google's costs are covered, but the user would have freedom to get their software from wherever.
The problem is that hardline free software advocates would still complain about this, insisting that the certification authority be scrapped. iOS and Android are now Windows, and it's going to be a mess.
You underestimate the blessing that is an app store that's free of bullshit policies restricting what you can and cannot publish. With F-Droid on Android, I used to have access to apps like NewPipe that Google would never even consider carrying on their app store, but - because I had a third party store, that wasn't a problem.
Now that I have an iPhone, I miss NewPipe greatly. But with this law, I might be able to get something like it in a few months without jailbreaking.
Not underestimating it at all, it has value. Unfortunately it undermines so much of the security model in other areas that both platforms will rapidly become malware swamps.
if you need to use a particular app, you can only get it from a third-party store that you don't trust
This will be a problem but the solution is not to transfer your freedom to choose to Apple and just let them decide which third party apps you are allowed to use.
In some cases that will mean making a hard choice between accepting the risk of using the third party app store, or accepting that you won't be able to use certain apps. The benefits are significant though - your device will actually be under your control. You will be able to do all the things Apple prevent now.
> ...the solution is not to transfer your freedom to choose to Apple and just let them decide...
Very good point. It's almost like people believing it to be better for a "benevolent" dictator to make all decisions, so that they won't be bothered with having to make choices.
Not every user wants to give over their freedom of choice to Apple (or any seemingly "kind" dictator), and many would prefer they can make decisions about what is best for their particular situation and based on their own preferences.
> This will be a problem but the solution is not to transfer your freedom to choose to Apple
Will the solution involve a method to negotiate degrees-of-freedom? Or perhaps a freedom grant method with revocation protocol? Do I get a little widget to see how free I am at the moment?
I'd love to see a laundry list of changes to industry practice, too. But the language employed for these compatibility fights is just getting goofy.
The F150 cup holder is enslaving me, somebody pass a law quick!
> In some cases that will mean making a hard choice between accepting the risk of using the third party app store, or accepting that you won't be able to use certain apps.
You already have that choice today: I can buy into the walled-garden, or go to Android and side-load to my heart's content.
Clearly the market has chosen the preferred route. (I personally am also in the camp of preferring the simple, locked-down approach for my family that Apple has created.)
> You already have that choice today: I can buy into the walled-garden, or go to Android and side-load to my heart's content.
So if Google decided to force this policy onto Android phones, you would support the EU introducing this legislation to bring back the option of side-loading?
Or would you want the legislation to only apply to Android phones, and not Apple devices?
> you can only get it from a third-party store that you don't trust. (Something gross like Facebook starting an app store.)
As apposed to today where you can’t get it at all if apple and the app disagree about anything?
I know you are thinking of another large enough player you don’t trust as much forcing their store as the only avenue for an app, but it’s hard to imagine how that wouldn’t provide large incentives for a smaller party to make a competitor on the official store.
As apposed to today where you can’t get it at all if apple and the app disagree about anything?
Since there is only one app store for iPhones, almost every app vendor is willing to conform to Apple's guidelines (which are often pro-privacy and protect the user). Otherwise they lose out on a significant market share with a lot of spending power.
smaller party to make a competitor on the official store
Sure, they will pop up. But Facebook, Microsoft, and Google will start iOS app stores and app developers will go to their app stores because of network effects.
> Since there is only one app store for iPhones, almost every app vendor is willing to conform to Apple's guidelines (which are often pro-privacy and protect the user). Otherwise they lose out on a significant market share with a lot of spending power.
You've just described why these changes are good. I feel like the word "willing" in your statement is carrying a lot of weight.
Apple forces developers to publish from Apple devices, spend $100 a year for a developer account, give up 15-30% of any revenue generated from that app, use WebKit, etc.
That is not at all what I describe as restrictions that lead to "willing" app vendors.
This doesn't happen on Android, so don't worry too much about it. I can bet my 2 cents on that 99% of users will only use app stores even after this regulation and Apple has a power to make it happen. Of course Apple will need to spend some of its energy on suppressing real competition but that's not what customers need to worry about...
Any of this is already possible on MacOS, Windows, and Android. It's not actually so wild as you're making it out to be. Just ignore the software merchants you don't want to affiliate with. I don't like Valve, so I don't install their 'appstore' Steam. That means I can't buy games that are only sold on Steam. Big whoop, it's a consequence I accept of a decision I am free to make or reconsider. Life goes on.
Yeah, even the ones run by major tech players- the Amazon and Samsung Android app stores, are really just there to serve their own devices. They don't contain any exclusive apps that are forcing Android users off of the Play Store for.
>I agree in principle, but I worry that we end up in the situation where if you need to use a particular app, you can only get it from a third-party store that you don't trust. (Something gross like Facebook starting an app store.)
You have Android as a real world experiment, go ask an Android users to search the Facebook Messenger app on Google Play store and you will see it is there, FB did not forced Android users to install the app by side loading it and FB did not created their own app store for their apps.
What could happen though is you would get fair prices, say an app/Game would be 30% cheaper if you buy it directly from the developer and not from an intermediary, though I did not see this happening on PC (getting a better deal if I buy directly, I am wondering what causes this)
We did not see this as being in an app store actually has value: these 30% cover server/traffic for downloading, billing, discoverability, ease of use in getting the app, little marketing (getting featured). For lots of developers, this seems to be worth whatever the market in question asks for.
I have never needed to install an app from Facebook, and never have. Amazon has an appstore; I have never been forced to install it or anything from it. Should the day come when people are actually forced to use any facebook app or appstore, that compulsion is the problem that needs to be corrected. The problem isn't having the option to install a facebook app; the compulsion is the problem.
> but I worry that we end up in the situation where if you need to use a particular app, you can only get it from a third-party store that you don't trust
I often hear this argument but Android has had third-party app-stores and 'side-loadable apps' since day one and I can't think of a single major app that needs its own app-store.
> I worry that we end up in the situation where if you need to use a particular app, you can only get it from a third-party store that you don't trust.
This works both ways. Some people want to use iOS exclusive apps but can't justify buying an iPhone because of how restrictive it is. This act alleviates that.
- Third-parry app stores exist, the app in question is available on one of them. You have a choice: install it, or ignore it and stay fully under Apple's aegis, as before.
- The app in question does not exist because the only existing app store run by Apple rejects it. Tough luck, no choice, but you still can stay safe.
Don't you agree that the latter situation is a strict subset of the former?
Also, if I were Apple, I would implement a one-click return to "safe defaults", and a prominent badge to tell Apple's software and setting from third-party.
Don't quote me on this, but there was some discussions early this year about dominant platforms (I didn't read what does cover this Act, but) need to provide API to allow users to use third party alternatives, like Facebook, WhatsApp, iMessage, etc, so you could now have an app like Adium again where you have all your chats. So in theory this will be not an issue.
I think you missed the point of the new restrictions. Stopping those practices that are harmful to users is a good thing. Ending endless spying, aka corporate surveillance, that can be a good thing. When Apple made their changes, Apple conceptually blocked any new facebook app that spys on you, because you can't install it. If there's a future facebook store that has the only facebook app (because facebook won't agree to that more limited apple ad/surveillance world capability), you'd have freedom to install that app because of european rules described here - but you wouldn't necessarily be better off by having more spying.
European (and other) regulators are concerned about tech data collection. It’s an issue that’s not necessarily orthogonal to this development. If Meta wanted to try their luck at putting their apps on an exclusive Facebook app store, such a platform would be subject to regulator scrutiny as well, and would be an even more convenient target for investigation.
You can't believe how jolting people and/or companies make them change for the better. Maybe this is the kick we needed for the companies to start innovating and "Think Different"?
I use MacBooks and iPhone, and I love their current form, but they are victim of their own success at one point, like how Intel just dragged its feet to just keep the performance gap enough to keep the lead. Maybe this can help us to see a better, more exciting Apple and tech ecosystem, no?
The last battery lawsuit brought us "Battery health" menu, and this is immensely useful, even if it only reads a couple flags and shows us what the iOS is doing.
> if you need to use a particular app, you can only get it from a third-party store that you don't trust
This sounds like iPhone user argument.
In Android world you can have multiple app stores, but if you want your app to be used you must be on Google one, because it has the most eyes.
Facebook didn't create their own app store.
Custom App stores are fringe apps, with exceptions of f-droid which is source of open source apps and many prefer it to google play (and apps are frequently on both stores) and maybe samsung/amazon ones because they are preinstalled on some devices.
>Or course, this is mostly a result of Apple being greedy. If they had acted like a good steward of the platform rather than trying to extract a lot of money from developers, we probably wouldn't be here
I don't think so. Another comment was mentioning how some desktop apps are built to install ONLY from a certain marketplace (eg Steam) so you can't install them from anywhere else. It could easily happen on iOS.
This will immediately happen, and is the intent of the law.
Direct downloads from websites isn't far off - I wouldn't be surprised if we very rapidly get to a place of each-app-is-it's-own-store for the purposes of complying with the law so you can freely download apps from websites.
It'll be Windows all over again, with all that implies.
> That's fine, just stay on the default settings then.
That’s actually not possible though. For instance, Microsoft is likely to create its own app store, as is Adobe, Google, and obviously Epic, among the many others. So now I will have to install a bunch of app stores just to install different softwares.
I already have this problem on my gaming PC where I not only have a bunch of different app stores, but a bunch of different update tools, payment providers, logins (not just for the games, but for the app stores). It’s a freaking pain in the butt. I just want to play a game on my PC and I have to deal with crap like that. I don’t want it on my phone!
Then maybe someone come with a platform that is agnostic. Like Humble Bundle - they offer in many cases both Steam codes AND ability to download directly from their servers with no need to install any additional platform software.
I don’t see how your walled garden is threatened by giving Melbourne Trams the ability to use the NFC chip in my phone to pay for rides. Or threatened by Amazon having the ability to add an in-app purchase button to their iPhone app which uses my saved Amazon payment options.
I’m sure apple will fight this tooth and nail, but it’s my phone. I paid for it. I want to be able to do what I want with my device.
I'm not thrilled with their having to open up most of these areas, but it's doable. If the API's don't already exist (read: Private, for Apple's use only) they can be written - that's an item on the to-do list, but it's not crazy.
However, the Apple Pay & NFC stuff just rubs me the wrong way. The only reason they have been begging for this is the ability to collect more data about riders, which isn't necessary and probably would get sold to third parties for the purpose of serving ads and other services.
I want none of this and those firms can kindly fuck off right into the Sun.
Existing API's do the basics just fine.
Thank $deity the MTA didn't entertain any of this bullshit when they rolled out OMNY. Now if we could get NJTransit on board, we'd be all set.
I'd welcome a return to transit tokens. They were simple and easy to use, and could be easily shared with guests visiting town. And they couldn't be used to track anybody.
In Chicago you can put your metro card in your apple wallet and it’ll automatically use it on the public transit system even if you have a different default set. Not sure if apple is charging them fees or what, but it works pretty well for me.
IIRC, those fees are charged to the merchant in order to process transactions. Traditional credit cards are similar in theory. For example, American Express has long had the reputation that in addition to the cards people know (Green, Gold, Platinum, etc.) technically being "charge cards" that need to be paid in full each cycle, merchants pay a higher fee to accept them.
^ Offset of course by the fact that most customers have pretty good credit to begin with and probably spend more than your average Visa or Mastercard.
In addition, I would also expect them to be paying for integration into someone's payment infrastructure to provide other services - PayPal, Stripe, Square, and the like.
The whole point of an NFC chip is to allow this sort of thing. I don't see how anyone can think it's a good idea to make Apple entitled to set arbitrary payment processing fees for all NFC payments on an Apple device.
It’s their platform. If you don’t like it, there’s the door.
I’m not opposed to regulations, but the EU should be careful not to be too permissive or specific, keeping in mind the limitations of doing either one.
See also: the EU directive about mandating USB-C ports. They claim the standard will be revised in response to market conditions on the ground, which is nice to hear, but governments are slow - often by design - and they will need to prove it before they can be trusted not to screw up.
My phone is nobody’s platform. It’s my phone. I paid for it. I demand the right to use someone else’s software on my device if that suits me better.
It’s not like apple subsidises the devices with income from the App Store fees. They’re just double dipping, and I’m glad the EU is slapping that down.
Again, it's not a huge leap to imagine someone (in this case, banks or transit authorities) using that unfiltered access to do something gross, like giving your data to an entity you've never heard of.
Using the official API prevents most of this misbehavior, which is why it doesn't bother me if Apple are jerks about enforcing compliance.
If you, or an app you use, feel like access is necessary, make your case to them. Repeatedly if neccessary. Software is nothing if not malleable and most of these areas are slowly opening up, as the company seems to have read the room on a few things and would like to get ahead before the law requires they do so.
On the other hand, especially with hardware that could conceivably track your location, I'm surprised that users - the knowledgable ones anyway at least - aren't up in arms about what access to raw data (e.g, not mediated by an API) by someone other than the platform vendor might mean for them.
I don't think it's necessary to pull an EFF move and demand everything be private, but this is one area that I suspect would meet the standard where people want the bar to be much higher about who gets access to data and what they are allowed to use it for.
I’m sympathetic to the privacy argument. But I’m suspicious.
Particularly after reading the memos which came out in the Epic lawsuit, I can’t tell how much all of this really is about privacy. Or how much privacy is just cover to take a cut of the profits of Netflix, Amazon and visa by controlling access to our phones.
The privacy argument probably has some truth, but it seems suspiciously self serving for Apple.
I think there’s plenty of ways apple could preserve my privacy without taking such extreme control of my device. A simple answer would be to give banks direct access to the NFC chips on the condition of user privacy. And cut them off if they violate that policy rule.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that apple’s chosen solution just happens to be the one which maximises their profit.
The testimony I recall from the Epic trial was pretty clear - Cook & Co. see this as a point of differentiation that helps them sell hardware.
After all, Google can't really do the differential privacy stuff to the extent Apple does due to their reliance on ad revenue - which is only so targeted because they collect it in the first place, giving their Ads customers (businesses) more opportunities to sell to.
Netflix wants to build viewer profiles of its users, so gathering that data in a way that they can ID helps; Amazon will do similar things to suggest purchases based on your history.
As a card provider for the general public, Visa kind of has to play ball and even then, their customers are merchants and financial institutions that issue cards.
Given enough size - think FAANG, or really any financial institution - Apple probably can't reject them for shady behavior, but can always work to build guardrails to prevent the worst offenders from going off.
> Again, it's not a huge leap to imagine someone (in this case, banks or transit authorities) using that unfiltered access to do something gross, like giving your data to an entity you've never heard of.
So you would also approve government entity to control what you do in your house, just to make sure you don't do something gross? If not, why you want some private company to control a phone you bought and own?
So the OS updates each year are free labour? The constant research as well? Okay…
How about the fact that you knew about the restrictions before you bought the product?
I feel you are in the wrong here. You knew the contract conditions and still signed it but because you don’t like it you want to change it. Well I like it so why is your view stronger than mine? Keep in mind you do have the option of Android and with this law you are taking away my right to choose a completely closed garden. Something I actually enjoy - I’m not just playing devil’s advocate here
As I see it, the $1000+ I paid for my phone more than covers the cost of Apple’s R&D, and a few years of software updates. Apple’s balance sheet bears this out too.
> You knew the contract conditions and still signed it
I didn’t sign a contract. I bought something with my money. I don’t have an ongoing business relationship with apple. But apple still thinks they’re in the right to control what I do on my own hardware.
And wow do they make a lot of money inserting themselves into my financial transactions. All in the name of privacy I hear. Suuuureee.
Apple is cleverly using the iPhone as a moat to stop banks and other companies from competing with them on software for their devices. They know nobody else has the expertise and deep enough pockets to compete on hardware - and they’re using that to milk as much money through software as they can get away with. It’s just the same as what Microsoft did bundling IE with windows - except way worse because apple doesn’t even let you install anything else.
It’s a terrible deal for consumers and the EU is right to slap them down for it.
ummm?? government is slow then what is Apple? with its bs expensive cable that is like a decade behind with its USB2 speed? its 2022 every other phone has fast transfer rate
Yeah this doesn't make sense to me. I've used my iPhone with NFC to pay for transit in multiple cities in multiple countries, I don't see any reason Melbourne Trams can't implement it too.
Because it requires the devotion of Apple's resources to supporting non-Apple things. It will necessarily degrade certain experiences away from those that Apple would provide without the regulation.
Why do there need to be new customers? If you didn't like the product before, you can look elsewhere (or look within). Seems pretty messed up to ruin the experience for those who have been enjoying the products as is for years.
How would opening up the API and payment system ruin the product? I want to buy audible books from the audible app on my phone but I can’t do that. I want to subscribe to Netflix from my phone but I can’t.
Seems to me that opening this stuff up would make our phones better, not worse.
Ah, yes, if only Apple Computer could have borrowed the wisdom of the famously prescient and tech literate European Union, it might have seen its way to these changes and new customers alone.
Apple has a bajillion dollars and cheats their own engineers.
> Apple is the world's largest technology company by revenue, the world's largest technology company by total assets,[454] and the world's second-largest mobile phone manufacturer after Samsung.[455][456]
> In its fiscal year ending in September 2011, Apple Inc. reported a total of $108 billion in annual revenues—a significant increase from its 2010 revenues of $65 billion—and nearly $82 billion in cash reserves.
> In re: High-Tech Employee Antitrust Litigation (U.S. District Court, Northern District of California 11-cv-2509 [10]) is a class-action lawsuit on behalf of over 64,000 employees of Adobe, Apple Inc., Google, Intel, Intuit, Pixar and Lucasfilm (the last two are subsidiaries of Disney) against their employer alleging that their wages were repressed due to alleged agreements between their employers not to hire employees from their competitors.[11][12] The case was filed on May 4, 2011 by a former software engineer at Lucasfilm and alleges violations of California's antitrust statute, Business and Professions Code sections 16720 et seq. (the "Cartwright Act"); Business and Professions Code section 16600; and California's unfair competition law, Business and Professions Code sections 17200, et seq. Focusing on the network of connections around former Apple CEO Steve Jobs, the Complaint alleges "an interconnected web of express agreements, each with the active involvement and participation of a company under the control of Steve Jobs...and/or a company that shared at least one member of Apple's board of directors." The alleged intent of this conspiracy was "to reduce employee compensation and mobility through eliminating competition for skilled labor."
And do you really think they've "seen the light" since then?
> the entire tech industry was colluding on salary and comp?
And BTW it pretty much was the entire tech industry, it came out in the court proceedings: "Dozens" of other major tech companies were involved. Pando Daily had good reporting but they closed but you can still read up on it through the Archive.
- - - -
The OP said:
> Because it requires the devotion of Apple's resources to supporting non-Apple things. It will necessarily degrade certain experiences away from those that Apple would provide without the regulation.
The first point (about Apple's war chest) is that they have plenty of resources.
The second point (about how they conspired to cheat their own engineers despite having more money than Scrooge McDuck) is just to remind everyone that these are amoral money-grubbing bastards who will do pretty much anything they think they can get away with to make a buck.
The idea that opening up their walled garden to competition will "degrade certain experiences" is laughable.
I kinda get your point that Apple will have to devote some more resources, but it will only be slightly more: All the API are already there and being used by Apple apps privately and they just have to make it open to everyone. That's not really a huge overhead for someone of Apple's size - they'll just need to publish / update documentation and increase their developer support teams and that doesn't cost 10's of millions of dollars (which is again peanuts for Apple).
Private apis are nothing like public. You can’t just document them and toss em out the door because Private means you can change and break them every release without concern because you control all the consumers. You can also start using incomplete ones before the contract is solidified. Public means they are in use and shouldn’t change much, and if you do you need to announce a deprecation and then slowly deprecate. Not that apple has to do that but generally that is the rather large difference and you know the moment they break one everyone will be scream at them for that.
This is really not how it works. Private APIs are usually poorly designed for general use — safeguards for excess power consumption, etc, often don’t exist.
Many things will need to be rewritten; this legislation will result in significant delays in shipping new end-user features, if Apple doesn’t simply pull out of the EU, since the EU is demonstrating with this legislation that they don’t care about end-user privacy/security.
> This will have an extremely high cost to Apple if it’s implemented.
Come on, do you really expect us to be sympathetic to a trillion dollar company if its profit margin reduces? (Which any way may not happen - realistically, they'll just pass on the cost to us consumers).
How? If someone installs different app store and it breaks, they just don't handle the requests regarding 3rd party apps, just like now. What extra resources you're talking about
Well, as an average iPhone user, no. The reliability is mediocre.
Keyboard crashing, UI glitching and having wrong dimensions/inoperable sections, occasionally deciding that minimum brightness is the only allowed value and being entirely unresponsive to the brightness slider, some days using waaaay more battery with no battery accounting, sometimes requiring a reboot to use a Qi charger, occasionally freezing and dropping me back to the home screen after what I assume is a crash, sometimes requiring hard reboots as the UI is entirely locked up and doesn't even want to soft crash, ...
I can keep going. And yes, it's a new model that no it's not full of crap and apps. It sees light usage outside reading news sites.
The "apple is more reliable" thing is a myth. I feel that it used to be the case, but I haven't felt like that for a decade.
And no, having anecdotal good experiences is not very useful. I also have those, and so do users of every other platform. Reliability is about the bad experiences, and just works" implies none or at least very few bad experiences.
This sounds like you have a hardware or software issue on your phone. make a backup (if you aren't using icloud backups already) and then make a genius bar appt. and see if they can fix this. I have never seen that level of glitchy-ness on an iphone without there being a serious issue. either on my own phones or during nearing a decade in IT.
Yes, I have a hardware and a software issue: the root cause is that it's an iPhone running iOS as normal.
This isn't a hardware defect or a broken install. It's just mediocre software, nothing more. This isn't even that glitchy. All those things don't usually happen at once, although they are recurring - including for friends on different device generations, ruling out unlucky hardware and moon rays.
I agree with parent. You phone is broken, my friend. In the years I've been using iOS, these have happened to me less than a handful of times. Definitely not something I would ever remember if not prompted.
I'm sorry, but it's just not particularly believable that all devices in my vicinity should have rare hardware faults that cause the mentioned software crashes and glitches.
As mentioned, they are reproduced on devices of friends of different generations, and my earlier devices were no saints either.
Plus, remember the debugging manual: When software bugs out, it's safe to assume it's always the software that's broken. Suspicion of kernel, compiler or hardware faults come after the software has been proven free of fault (which you can't reasonably do without source access).
UI glitching and being stuck at minimum brightness is sometimes a sign of overheating or battery problems, and the OS applying draconic power management to compensate. Unusually high battery drain and overheating is something I once had because of a bad sim card, but YMMV. It is definitely not normal to see these problems on an iphone. I would take it in for service.
That's a fair explanation if the brightness thing, although I'm not particularly demanding of my devices. Unless my thigh was unreasonably warm, overheating would probably have to be a background service gone rogue. That one has only happened a few times though.
As for service, this is not unique to a single device. Many if the issues are seen on a newer model from a friend within a few weeks of purchase. For that to still be hardware or related to my iOS install, shipped product quality would have to be quite a lottery...
I hope you recognize that your experiences are anecdotal as well.
None of what you mentioned I even heard of, let alone experienced. Yet you come here and seem to be claiming that your anecdotal evidence weighs heavier than the anecdotal evidence of others. Weird.
It's a shame that you drew the short straw but maybe it's something in your setup, home network, mobile coverage or whatnot.
If we're going to exchange anecdotes, I can write at least 20 short horror stories of all 13 Android devices I owned over the course of 6 years, belonging to 5 different brands. They had systemic and repeatable / reproducible issues which I eventually concluded their custodians weren't interested in fixing.
I can keep going as well. None of what you said is actual evidence.
This argument keeps on popping up, but I don't really understand why. Apple themselves already have a platform that's had a reputation of reliability and "just works" that is not a walled garden in most of the ways the digital markets act intends to prevent: the Mac. There's no evidence the the qualities of Apple products are strongly linked with them being walled gardens. Your iPhone will be fine.
(Macs may not be as "just works" as iPhones, sure. I've personally seen that too many times. But computers are also intended to be more flexible and complicated in operation than smartphones, and regardless of personal anecdotes Apple is still widely regarded as building the most "just works" general purpose computers. And whatever faults Macs have, you'd be hard pressed to argue that if only the Mac was more of a walled garden that things would be better.)
Your walled garden gets better, mine (existing Apple ecosystem) gets worse. Less people -> less revenue -> less developers/features/customer support. Just want to highlight the no free lunch in this situation.
True, countless times I had to fix friends/family android tablets and phones where all of the sudden apps stopped working and will boot crash . It is always some crap like apps messing settings and permissions or play not being updated etc… I converted most of family to iPhone/iPad problem solved.
I am a tech person but when it comes to phones I want the damn thing just to work and simple to use.
And what in the new law would prevent them from continuing to make the same "reliable without surprises" iPhone experience you seemingly enjoy? I don't see anything that prevents them from saying "We can only guarantee an Apple-level experience by using apps vetted by Apple and download directly from the official Apple App Store." Most companies that I'm aware of don't have to warranty issues arising from after market/3rd party accessories. I mean, is Apple responsible if I download software from x company on my mac from x company's website? Why isn't the laptop ecosystem "all messed up" if you can install anything from anywhere on your macbook and use any payment processor? The only thing this really would do to upset Apple is taking away some of their walled-garden revenue, like processing fees. I'm not sure why a watch or phone or tablet needs to be treated opposite of other traditional computing devices. Just because it's a different form factor?
I'd argue appliances should be walled and computers shouldn't be.
I think the form factor is very relevant. A MacBook is treated like a computer. A phone is treated like an appliance.
Most phone/tablet users want the convenience of modular functionality without vetting the source. Said functionality should also be easy to discover and add/remove, hence app stores.
Whereas on a computer, app stores are ignored if they even exist. Most people install after doing their own Googling or seeing it run on another MacBook.
In my opinion phones intended for general purpose computing should have distinct marketing and different software-related features.
It's an extremely popular opinion. It's the tech grandma phenomenon. A lot of people in tech want to optimise for their grandmas. So whenever something like this is proposed, the standard response is, 'But what about my grandma ?'. It's a variation of the 'But what about the kids ?' argument.
But what about me? I’m the one who likes the fact I don’t need to worry about malware on my phone and I open sensitive documents only on my phone without any anxiety that they might get leaked.
I feel a lot of ppl in tech actually don’t care about the end user and care only about the profit they can make while completely disrespecting my privacy. How about that being the phenomenon?
I won't have when my bank decides their crappy app is better than Apple Pay, when an app I rely on decides to leave the app store, etc.
Sure, I can find another bank/app, but I use the ones I use because they have the best conditions/features/etc for me, which others may not have. Or I can't even switch, because the app in question is required for work/public transit etc.
Here in Germany, “Sparkassen” and “Volksbanken”, which together have >50% market share, both don't support Google Pay, instead providing their own (according to acquaintances using them, not that good) payment apps. They both support Apple Pay, though.
But it does .. It does happen on Android. Plenty of banks refuse to support Google Pay, and will instead leave you with their own crappy app. They all support Apple Pay though.
I'm not quite understanding this argument. If you prefer to stay behind a "walled garden", then you still can. The difference being that you will personally enforce your own preferences for all things dictated or suggested by Apple versus Apple imposing what they want upon everyone. The "walled garden" will be your own mentally imposed constraint.
Though you and various others might prefer the "walled garden", that is not to say that all Apple users prefer it that way. Clearly, as jailbreaking demonstrates, there are significant numbers of iPhone users that didn't and don't want to stay behind Apple's jail or wall.
And this law is taking away my preference. I WANT to pay through Apple, because they make it easy. Subscriptions through Apple are super easy to cancel. That will for certain be gone, because now they get away with all their shady schemes that make it close to impossible to cancel. I want to pay with Apple Pay, because it is rock solid. I don't want to be forced into the banks half-baked crap app.
There might be some apps and hardware that are desirable on the iPhone and some apps that are desirable on an android phone.
For example, I might want to use iMessage without any of the restrictions that you get on other non apple devices. This is huge, my friends all have iPhones and use iMessage. I don't want a neutered experience. What happens to family that rely on these tools, mom's that are looking into buying their child's first phone? This is how people become trapped in these ecosystems.
The camera on iPhones is really good, apps like Snapchat or Instagram have always functioned way better on iPhone than on android.
There are many reasons why someone would want to use a lot of apps developed for the iPhone. But they might also have extra needs. Personally, I do have an android phone, and besides the apps that I've installed through the playstore I have lots of alternative apps from the f droid. They're great. I have wanted to try the iPhone because I know my mainstream apps would work better in the iPhone. But alas, there are too many restrictions.
You are disrespecting the choice of iPhone owners, who want freedom of choice on a product they paid for. That's what jailbreaking was/is all about and the various App Store alternatives. It also shows a lack of understanding on the EU's position in regards to fair business practices, where Apple snuffs out any competition. Apple is not suppressing competition out of the kindness of their hearts, they did so to maximize profits off of their captive user base.
If you want to follow Apple's future suggested practices, then you will still be able to, it just won't be forcibly imposed on all users.
If I were Apple - the way I would have gone about it was to sell an open developer phone that supported changing the defaults, etc.
That way when the inevitable "Apple has been hacked and is no better than Android" media driven hit pieces come out - Apple can highlight that this is happening on the open developer phone meant for the fringe consumers, not the safe walled garden that most of us normal, non bleeding edge consumers have in our pocket.
And us folks who just want a phone that works can sigh in relief versus having to read a 1000 word article only to find its because some guy went through several hoops to install some obvious malware.
Really, Apple could have headed off regulators at the pass if they had embraced the (semi-)opening of their platform themselves. Allow third party app stores but on their own terms, providing SDKs and APIs for creating your own iOS App Store with security checks baked in and mandating privacy protections built in. Sort of like a software services equivalent to Apple Authorized Service Providers and Apple Authorized Resellers.
They would have then controlled this debate, and there would have been less room for the Epics of the world to complain about the platform being locked down. Not to mention users would benefit from greater choice. Imagine boutique third party app stores springing up devoted to specific interests and niches such as F-Droid, or promising better curation or quality.
Companies who refuse to use the AppStoreKit that Apple so beneficently provided would then be seen as malefactors seeking to subject their users to lack of privacy and security, rather than Apple trying to uphold their 30% cut and restrictive behavior.
Instead, Apple tried to control everything and not only did they expose themselves to regulation like this, they deal with customers annoyed at scammy apps on their own App Store, and third party devs crying foul at inconsistent policing.
Now that there's a way out, however, you can be forced out if e.g. you have to install an app that isn't available in the App Store because its developer saw an opportunity to roll their own.
Not saying that the trade isn't worth it, just that, well, now that Pandora's box is open, it's coming to get you, even if you don't want it to.
1. Apple won't stay competitive for its major partners in the app store.
2. The app will be really important for you with no alternatives.
3. It will be both important and won't be up to your standards established by Apple.
My suspicion is that if it provides really interesting functionality, it will have enough competition that you will be able to choose from.
The major danger comes from scams targeting uneducated users, however, if Apple really wants to protect them, it will make everything possible to maintain their app store as a viable distribution channel.
> My suspicion is that if it provides really interesting functionality, it will have enough competition that you will be able to choose from.
I'm thinking of scenarios where you don't specifically want the app, nor does it offer any particularly interesting functionality - it's just a platform lock-in effect.
As a trivial instance, you can't install Fortnite on Windows machines without going through the Epic Store. Yet, the value of Fortnite isn't how the game plays, but the skins & community - things that cannot be replicated by another app.
> Now that there's a way out, however, you can be forced out if e.g. you have to install an app that isn't available in the App Store because its developer saw an opportunity to roll their own.
This is something iPhone uses use all the time and this did not happen on Android.
At first I thought you had missed a word or two ("don't install anything unapproved by Apple"?), but then I decided this was deliberate as you're making a reference to Adam and Eve.
I too enjoy having an extra layer of protection from the companies writing apps. (And the companies providing libraries to them, like Facebook.) And for my own stuff, the sandboxing gives me a layer of protection from vulnerabilities in the libraries that I use.
I think being able to side-load stuff, while keeping the sandboxing (and requiring user permission for access to data) in place would be ideal for me. This makes it a bit easier to write stuff for the device and distribute ad-hoc to friends and family stuff that is of no interest to the general public.
I don't have a strong interest in alternative browsers, because I don't believe any of the developers of alternative browsers will prioritize battery life. But I know others have strong feelings about that.
The idea of this is great in theory. But since when have third party companies ever acted for the benefit of the user. This is one of those cases where I felt like Apple benefiting also benefited me as a user.
Epic is a fantastic example that went to great lengths to not use the App Store for Fortnite.
I worry that allowing this will make it so more developers use third party billing (and dark patterns for canceling), third party app stores that may do shady things, or just distributing packages directly.
Sure you can make the argument that I can just not download those apps, but once a company realizes they can abuse their customers by not needing to conform to the rules that Apple sets. Why would continue to be on the App Store?
I am watching this very carefully, but I worry that as a consumer I will loose one of the key reasons I use an iPhone.
Interesting why, the name Hacker News implies being able to hack around even (or espacially, this is basically a supercomputer most of us carry around all the time) with your phone.
Not if players like epic games don’t support Apple Pay (with east cancellation). Don’t support the app stores rules and are only found in 3rd party apo stores..etc.
It’ll turn the iPhone into an android. Which sucks as I left android because I enjoyed the walled garden.
There are countless ways one can be forced to use an app. My employer could require it. My bank could switch to their own system from Apple Pay. The public transport in my region could roll their own tracking ticket system instead of using Apple Pay. An app leaving the App Store could just have no viable alternative. Etc.
what is in the walled garden is decided by apple, and they do not have your best interests in mind.
For example - any app you install has unfettered network access.
what/who the app is connecting to, and what is being sent back and forth is opaque to you.
deep linking allows apps to intercept url references external to the app.
privacy policies are documents that live on a web server and can change at any time. And app updates can silently change the behavior of the apps as well.
It's all a mess, but because there are nice fonts and the icons have rounded corners people are subtly influenced to think it is well organized, maintained and modern.
I agree 100%. While I personally would love all these features as a tinkerer, I'm afraid my retiree parents are gonna click on malicious links and install malware. Because this is what they fall for on Windows and Android.
Then the solution will be to use anti viruses and other software, which will make the ecosystem even more exploitative (imagine the likes of Norton and Avast on your phone).
I believe the best solution is giving the user a choice of the OS. Like go to a store, select phone hardware, select OS and pay. Once you're on an OS you play by the OS' rules. Like for android you could choose vanilla, Samsung distro, Mi distro, etc. Similarly iOS could be available on Pixel hardware, etc.
That's not the only reason to get an iPhone though, and why should you get this at the expense of the rest of iPhone buyers? The iPhone is hardware, not software
Agreed. I switched from an iPhone to a Pixel because the iPhone experience is claustrophobic (admittedly I switched from Android to iPhone before that for the much better and lengthy software Apple gives). If this means the iPhone is getting things similar to F-Droid and NewPipe I'd be happy to switch back.
The new iPads have an M1 chip with virtualization capabilities, but you wouldn't know it with the stuff Apple allows on it. Imagine how much better iPads would be if Apple couldn't block Linux VMs just because it doesn't suit them.
There's a reason mammals feed their infants milk, not oats. Milk is strictly more nutritious.
Inefficient to produce, sure. Destroying the environment, yeah. Cruel to animals, definitely. Unnecessary, yes. These should be reflected in the price, not nutritional labels.
The idea is good, it just got water down too much. On top of that, there are German laws dictating a certain minimum sugar content for certain products to be called mustard or marmalade for example, or lemonade. Which kind of screwed up if you ask me. But that is more of a national thing.
Having used iPhones since the very earliest ones, I also fear this might turn it into an Android situation. I like iPhone because I know it’s likely the page works in Safari since iOS+Safari is a large customer group. While choice, a diverse web, competition & all that is important, I personally wouldn’t want anything but a walled garden monoculture in most cases. Being able to integrate a different voice assistant??
Sideloading apps as an advanced user concept sounds great. But if users who switch on their iPhone for the first time had to @choose a store”, that would be an absolutely terrible UX.
>> I know it’s likely the page works in Safari since iOS+Safari is a large customer group
That until you find out some of the best web technologies are not working on safari(i.e indexeddb has been left unfixed for years on purpose by apple).
I don't think people would like a safari only on desktop. Why would they want that on mobile?
Part of why I like Apple products is because they tend to have more apps made natively and well fitting into the ecosystem. I don't want web apps which use double the energy, don't look and feel like they were designed for iPhone/Mac. And I use Safari because it does everything it has to (display information) while using the least energy for it. I've yet to see any really good web app, no matter the browser or device.
I don’t really care about modern web tech I’m happy so long as web pages I visit work and lay out properly. (I don’t do web dev so I don’t need to professionally worry about the IE6-issues of having a large but slow moving target)
Then you shouldn't have an opinion on modern web tech. Stick to what you care of.
>> I don’t do web dev so I don’t need to professionally worry about the IE6
Mobile safari is the IE6 of the modern web but as you don't do web dev you don't need to worry about it. Let the people who build for the web worry about the web.
>> I’m happy so long as web pages I visit work and lay out properly.
Simple text Webpages were workig on IE6 too so I can only assume that the transition from IE6 to Safari mobile was a smooth for you.
I realize it's sarcasm, but my Android has the ability to run whatever I want on it and I just use it for a handful of things that Google won't allow. That's all I need.
It's not a free-for-all or a virus-laden hellscape. It's just freedom.
Same, actually. I've seen enough iPhones in the hands of friends and family to be envious of some of the features, but I've never wanted to be part of Apple's walled garden. A more open iPhone that I would be free to choose my own apps for if I didn't like Apple's offerings? Yeah I'd try that.
Same although replaceable batteries would make it even more compelling. I enjoyed the early Motorola android phones because they were phones rather than jewelry and they also kept them lightweight.
Same here. I'm dying for a phone that doesn't balk at the idea of long-term support, but I'm simply not using a platform where I can't install the software I want and can't even get a real version of Firefox.
Ironically it might be the last iPhone I use, even though I believe very much in free-as-in-speech software on my devices.
This just bludgeons so much of the security model of the iPhone. I get that this is by Apple's design, in that conflating the security model of the iPhone with App Store lock-in has been a gold mine, but I just don't see how you provide the same malware guarantees without that enforcement.
EDIT: Not sure why the downvotes, I guess it's from people that are big free-software-at-any-cost advocates. The cost of doing this is going to be too high for most iPhone users - I very much doubt this is in their best interests overall.
For me, "an iPhone that complies with these demands" would be a worse experience than the current one. I have no intention to install Microsoft app store (so I can get Outlook), Facebook app store (so I can get WhatsApp), and Google app store (so I can have Maps). I prefer having one app store to having four different ones.
In the future, this might be the same on the other platform, — or it might be different. I don't trust any of Google/Microsoft/Facebook to not try to shove their app store (user account, personal information collection) down our throats in perpetuity.
If "Install any software" becomes real and I can start writing software on Linux for iPhone, without requiring me to have a Mac, I'll become an instant iPhone fanboy as the hardware is second to none. It's the software that is stopping the phone from becoming the best one around.
I am not sure about this - does install any software also mean system software or is it only meant to allow installation from sources other than their own app store? To allow system software installations, Apple (and other mobile device manufacturers) will have to allow unlocking the bootloader. (But that alone is limited as without the hardware information of the individual parts, developing an alternate OS for such devices is painful work as you have to essentially reverse engineer everything to create the device drivers - as evident with the snail's pace that Asahi Linux are progressing at to port Linux to Apple M1 and M2 ARM processors. Unless ofcourse, the DMA also forces them to publish the hardware literature so that other system developers can use it, which would be a real game changer ... ).
If the platform becomes open enough so we can side-load applications, I bet you 100EUR we'll be able to develop iPhone applications from any operating system, but first Linux, within a year :)
How? I've been looking for ages on how to develop iPhone applications on Linux and there is no way that doesn't involve installing Hackingtosh, either as a new OS on a partition or in a VM, or renting a Mac server somewhere, so it's not really "developing on Linux" at all.
Um, you just create a cert in XCode, pair your device to it, load the certs onto the device and run the app on it.
You're not going to do it on a Linux box for sure as the tools aren't there but you certainly can run your own stuff on iOS. You don't have to sign up for anything either - just install XCode from the app store and build stuff.
Random anecdote: if you don't pay 99€ yearly for your developer subscription Apple revokes your certificates and disables your apps on the Apple app store. Your problem indeed.
You don't have to pay Apple to deploy to your own device. I don't have a developer subscription. You only have to pay the 99€ to access the store and provisioning.
While I am in the camp of apple allowing side-loading, i am not a fan of monopolistic regulations like this. It opens all kind of questions, like
1. What devices have to comply? 2. Who decides what device has to comply? Should playstation open their system too. What about a niche bank transaction signing device that internally uses an android capable hardware. Is this illegal now?
3. What about a car infotainment system that can theoretically run linux.
4. What if a European startup wants to compete with the iphone? Now they have so many regulations instead of focusing on a great device for their niche.
This looks like it will kill competition and harm European innovation, while major players will find their ways around it.
Most of these rules apply only to companies above a certain size, both in number of users and revenue. Those get classified as "digital gatekeepers" and they are the companies that have to comply with extra requirements.
So no, this will not affect startups and harm innovation, it will just force the monopolistic behemoths to play nice and cease actively harming innovation.
It also starts to bother me quite a bit when we go from treating everyone equal before the law to creating certain requirements based on other factors.
Further it seems more like a moat to keep anyone else from getting as big as these "digital gatekeepers" are as suddenly when you get to a certain size you have an enormous expense.
If these companies really are that large that they have to get special laws for them isnt the solution to dissolve their monopoly and split the company up instead of starting to create separate classes of laws.
> It also starts to bother me quite a bit when we go from treating everyone equal before the law to creating certain requirements based on other factors.
Like tax brackets? Treating big things exactly the same as small things seems ideological, not rational.
Very different structurally. Tax brackets almost always apply _marginally_. The higher tax bracket only applies to income made above the higher bracket level.
Behavior that applies marginally avoids most "discontinuity" and distortions in incentives that come along with them. For example, people whose income increases from $99,999 to $100,001 are only incentivized by a 100,000 bracket to hide the marginal $2, rather than suddenly needing to hide all of their income.
EU regulations that apply to companies above a certain size are not like this. Once you pass a certain level, it applies to all the business below the level. That already has a distorting incentive on growth and incentivizes companies to stay small. Maybe that's something you want in this case, but it's almost always an unintended consequence.
I wonder if there's any way these sorts of regulations could be applied marginally.
Perhaps if we formalized legal code as code, we could apply automatic differentiation (just kidding... I think)
Continuous laws do seem more fair in general. But it seems more important (to me, at least) that this sort of fairness is applied to individuals. For companies... they aren't people, we don't need to worry about making their lives confusing or miserable. They have legal departments to sort this sort of stuff out, they'll respond rationally to incentives, it is just a business decision.
They aren't people, but every additional thing they have to contend with affects only people. The abstract company is just a common understanding of what people are doing and what group of people they are dealing with when they buy a product.
The amount of market power Apple has left even after such extensive regulation still far surpasses what a small company can hope to get by building even the most restricted walled garden.
So, if there were any medium companies just below the regulation threshold, the discontinuity argument would make sense. But there isn't, and there won't be, precisely because of anti-competitive behavior of the giants, they can sustain walled gardens precisely because they are giants.
US long term capital gains do work that way: they have marginal brackets just like regular income taxes. (Your starting bracket is calculated based on your regular income, rather than from 0 the way regular income tax brackets work, but otherwise they work the same.)
I assumed the discontinuity the commenter was referring to here is the >=1 year cutoff for long term capital gains. After one year, all of the gains from the previous year are instantly converted to a lower tax bracket. You're not required to reassess the cost basis at the 1 year mark or anything like that, so there's a huge (intentional) incentive to hold capital for over 1 year.
I can’t speak for all member states but I do know some have a threshold and from that point you have to pay a percentage of the total amount. So some investment firms will game your portfolio to bring you in just enough to fly under that threshold.
The U.K., while not technically an EU member any more (and I’m still bitter about that), also operates this way.
Stamp duty is a U.K. tax placed on purchases of property. It’s free for properties under a threshold but the moment you go over it you have to pay a percentage of the total price of your house. Stamp duty does have incremental percentages but it isn’t calculated like income tax. Thus you’ll often see a lot of properties for slightly under each increment and then a jump in prices after. Some sellers even go as far as to put the house on for £x (under that threshold) but charge extra for additional purchases outside of the property (like a gazebo, hot tub, etc). I’ve even seen some buyers/sellers ask for private bank transfers for the additional extra. Which is outright fraud. But it does still happen.
No. Income tax you only pay the percentage of the bracket you’re in. So (made up numbers here) if you earn 100k and the bracket changes every 40k then the first 40k will be taxed at the first bracket. The second 40k at the second bracket, and the remaining 20k at the third bracket. This means there’s no incentive to game income tax because if you narrowly slide into the next bracket then you only pay the higher tax rate for that margin you’ve gone over.
Whereas the capital gains and stamp duty go from (again made up numbers) 0% on 15k to 15% on anything above 15k. So if you had 15k you get taxed nothing. But if you get 15,001 then you pay 15% on ~15k (just by gaining an extra £1) rather than 15% on £1 (like how income tax works). Thus that extra £1 actually ends up costing you _a lot_ more in tax than it’s face value. And thus why people game such taxes to slide under the threshold in ways that doesn’t make sense with income tax.
There have been exceptions to that reform though. For example the “stamp duty holiday” incentive ~two years ago removed marginal bands for the lower thresholds during its run. Which created a great deal of chaos for the housing market.
But keep in mind that this is at least partially contributing to the status quo, where there are very few large European tech companies and even fewer young ones.
This doesn't work online, and is the opposite of how fraud works in practice though. Larger sellers have a reputation that they care about and invest in. Small sellers with 10 sales don't care at all, they will make 10 good sales and steal from the 11th for a 10% profit.
Giants can afford to skimp on any single customer relationship. Go read Amazon reviews, etc...
The one-person show with only continental shipping taking PayPal payments for their hobby business absolutely cannot afford to screw over 10% of their customer base. PayPal (or any other provider) has no patience, and anecdotally will always side with the customer.
Have you used Amazon lately? They not only don't care, they push garbage that is obviously fake in their advertised/recommend blocks. Go search for an SD card on Amazon, and they will recommend a 5000 terabyte SD card that costs $9. I've switched to Best Buy because in this weird dystopian future they are more worthy of my business than Amazon now and I'm not doing business with garbage companies any more.
My personal experience with Amazon in particular has been the opposite of yours.
Amazon has completely refunded every defective or damaged products I have ever received. I've done two returns of $100+ items in the past month, in one case the seller disagreed with me and Amazon took my side. In total I've probably had 30 refunds over the past 10 years of which at least 5 were Amazon intervening to prevent the seller from screwing me.
Why do you buy so many defective or damaged products?
I cannot remember the last time I had to return something. I rarely buy from Amazon though, and choose quality products from reputable sources, not the cheapest offer.
I bought studio monitor speakers from Amazon. I received 1. Sent it back. Amazon refused to refund me. I had to point out over and over that from the weight of my package they can easily tell they did not ship me two speakers, only one. Nope. Months later I got an Amazon credit.
Just recently Amazon allowed me to buy a kindle book for my specific kindle device, which turned out to not be supported. But they still allowed me to purchase and deliver it to this kindle. Only once I went to the device to sync it did I learn that it was incompatible. I was not allowed a refund.
Amazon is full of minor counts of fraud like this and at their scale I bet it adds up to real money.
YES, like tax brackets. Everyone should pay 30k$ per year to the government, no matter how rich or poor, for the services they get, and it would be the literal individual fair share.
The percentage-based taxes are already an unfair distribution of cost for the rich, and the progressive taxes amplify it even more. After all, who costs more at school, a Jeff Bezos, or an unruly one?
Good comment, but this will get killed by libs. However you are too high with 30k. I think something like 3k should be plenty to finance our government, and affordable for all. If the rich want a more expensive program that the poor cannot afford then they gotta find another way to finance it, rather than from taxes. Our government is supposed to represent all of its people, not give preferential treatment to the rich, the poor, blacks or whites, retirees or students, renters or landlords etc. Its none of its business.
The government should protect our constitutional rights, provide security from other nations and represent all of us abroad. It shouldn’t build roads, (beachfront) housing, statues or plant trees. Thats up to the people that will benefit from it, whether that be a company, a worker or a town agreeing to do so.
> It also starts to bother me quite a bit when we go from treating everyone equal before the law to creating certain requirements based on other factors.
This is completely normal for laws.
Your kitchen at home doesn't have to follow the same rules as restaurant kitchen, for example. You as a driver of your personal car don't have to go through the same process and registration as truck drivers do. Small stalls selling things have different rules than big stores. And so on.
I reckon this particular objection actually shows the forma mentis of developers. It seems like a lot of them feel like they are temporarily-embarrassed megacorps, worrying about things that will never really apply to them.
Exactly. Worrying about your company "suddenly" crossing the €75 billion market cap threshold... that's the sort of problem most people would give an arm and a leg to have.
This is a very perceptive extension of the famous Steinbeck quote. The sentiment is certainly not limited to the blue-collar labor class of which the original referred.
It's possible to have an opinion on laws that you don't effect oneself. If a country had a law that if a company reaches $1 billion lifetime revenue that it gets repossessed by the state I can apply my belief that stealing is bad and be against that law despite it likely never affecting me.
> It's possible to have an opinion on laws that you don't effect oneself.
Sure, and it's possible to heavily discount your opinion when compared to the hundreds of opinions of experts in antitrust law that helped shaping this legislation. This would be less the case, maybe, if this legislation actually targeted you, so your insight would be relevant; but the fact is that it doesn't.
Democratic societies don't decide laws based off what "experts" think is right, but instead based off what the entire populace thinks. If I was European my opinion should matter just as much as one these "experts."
Europe is, for the most part, a representative democracy, not a direct democracy. We specifically elect experts to write laws, and not have the general populace decide it.
Yeah, no. Neither systems thinking nor empathy lead to the position that megacorps should be treated exactly the same way as smaller companies. If anything, the exact opposite is the case.
This is even true for something like medical devices. The FDA is really soft with startups and a pain in the ass once you grew some years.
And it makes sense. Let the small business experiment a bit, give them a bit leeway and once they grew to a certain size, expect that they think about the bigger picture. Which our dear monopolists only do in their favor.
Also, equality principles that apply to actual persons don’t necessarily make sense if applied to corporations.
A person, even if very rich, has a limited lifetime and a limited amount of hours in a day to spend. A corporation is immortal and can have 100,000 people simultaneously working on something. It’s bizarre if the law pretends that such an entity is just another human.
> It also starts to bother me quite a bit when we go from treating everyone equal before the law to creating certain requirements based on other factors.
They are literally the internet. That’s not about some companies to get some of there dollars. They literally gatekeeping. Amazon just shut down a whole social media platform. You can’t sell apps to iOS without paying Apple a big part of it (15 % - 30 %). Yeah you could say just create your own phone that would be fine right? How realistic is this. You can’t even build a good one because the bigger companies have so many patents you can’t go out. Then you write your own OS because you don’t want to pay and global company for using there OS. So give me my 200billion $ to get in the market. You can’t even advertise your product because they wouldn’t show your ad at all. That’s equal?
Also the EU can’t just split up companies. It’s a step to get some freedom back.
Exactly, and this is why the rest of the world is wishing and waiting since years that US lawmakers start implementing serious anti-trust laws and entities which work in that direction.
I mean, after the facebook-whatsapp merge (and the whole aftermath) we mostly lost all hopes.
> It also starts to bother me quite a bit when we go from treating everyone equal before the law to creating certain requirements based on other factors.
We already do that. We always did that. We regard things that are used larger than a certain scale as infrastructure. Roads. Justice system. Military. Power network.
We always heavily regulated these. Entire world except the US also regulated the Internet backbone as a utility. So nowhere in the world do people and companies have to still pay mid-2000s prices for bandwidth like they have to in the US after 1990s regulations expired and major ISPs started to consolidate entire backbone. They even tried to declare the Internet backbone, therefore the Internet, their 'private property' to be able to do whatever they wanted.
When tech monopolies go over a certain size and become literal infrastructures that everyone HAS to use one way or the other, they should get the same treatment.
I don’t think the EU has the ability to break up American companies. I guess they could try to ban them from operating in the EU, but that would pretty much nuke diplomatic relations with the US so it’s hard for me to see it happening.
Oh we absolutely can do that. Microsoft barely avoided that fate over their antics with Internet Explorer back in the days.
Anti-American company sentiments are high across Europe, especially when it comes to big tech companies. Our people are sick of US companies playing wild west and stomping all over regulations - AirBnB and Uber caused the most public backlash here (AirBnB because of people complaining that they were priced out of their homes and illegal hotel-style operations disrupting their lives, Uber because taxi drivers have pretty good lobby connections), followed by Facebook (which was mostly a topic for privacy nerds). Also, we have not forgotten who caused the 2008 financial crisis and who keeps dodging tax and labor laws while the taxpayers are left to deal with the followup costs.
Pay up and behave or get kicked out, GDPR was just the beginning (and once we get the Irish authorities to behave, your companies are done). The EU bureaucracy is like a big tanker ship, slow as molasses, but once it is moving it is not stoppable other than by going out of its way.
I just checked Uber from my home to the airport and it’s 17 EUR. If I call yellow cab, price would be 1.5-2x higher and if I imagine a foreigner catching one on the street without the meter - that could get even worse.
I went for 2 weeks abroad with a week vacation and other week working remotely. There was no hotel in the area to provide me with the proper accommodation. But Airbnb did that just fine.
So I don’t necessarily see those services and companies behind as pure evil. I would say the government running behind and reactively setting limitations rather than proactively thinking about the way to move forward is an issue here.
> I just checked Uber from my home to the airport and it’s 17 EUR. If I call yellow cab, price would be 1.5-2x higher
A taxi may be more expensive at "idle" times - but ever tried to grab an Uber at a big event like a concert, a soccer game or Saturday night out drinking? You'll pay triple or more. Regulated taxis are more expensive, but always consistent which is a value on its own. Also, you can be sure that the driver doesn't live in poverty [1] or works ridiculous hours.
> and if I imagine a foreigner catching one on the street without the meter - that could get even worse.
I can't speak for countries other than Germany, but at least here this is simply not a thing.
What is a pain point with German cabs (and other German services) is that the acceptance of credit and especially debit cards is still a bit lackluster, but the situation has massively improved during covid.
> There was no hotel in the area to provide me with the proper accommodation. But Airbnb did that just fine.
Yeah, because wherever you were is most likely zoned residential, meaning no hotels and the associated noise from partygoers, vehicles and the likes. Are the neighbors of your AirBnB fine with someone renting out a room to randoms? Most likely not.
> Also, you can be sure that the driver doesn't live in poverty [1] or works ridiculous hours.
You absolutely can't. Taxi drivers are independent contractors in most european countries too, with no minimum wage protections or enforcement of hours worked.
> A taxi may be more expensive at "idle" times - but ever tried to grab an Uber at a big event like a concert, a soccer game or Saturday night out drinking? You'll pay triple or more. Regulated taxis are more expensive, but always consistent which is a value on its own. Also, you can be sure that the driver doesn't live in poverty [1] or works ridiculous hours.
The prior here is simply not having enough taxis available. Fixed cost and capacity versus incentives that increase capacity when needed.
Honestly, the EU better step up actually creating tech companies then, because the current situation generally sucks. I'd happily use European alternatives to the products from Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, etc. but you have very little at that level. For my use cases there's nothing from the EU to replace those companies for me. There are some alternative offerings but they're usually far inferior and so I can't count them as replacements. The ones that are good usually end up moving to the US because it actually isn't insanely difficult to run a business there.
Even Linux is more an American product at this point than a European one with Intel being iirc the biggest contributor. I just think it's a bit of a joke that the EU strategy is to regulate American companies to this extent without having any coherent vision on developing genuinely viable alternatives and providing incentives to stay in the EU.
> Also, we have not forgotten who caused the 2008 financial crisis and who keeps dodging tax and labor laws while the taxpayers are left to deal with the followup costs.
But we have apparently forgotten about this [0], nearly a decade later and it still remains a completely ignored issue that pretty much nobody was held accountable for except the people who drew attention to it.
> Anti-American company sentiments are high across Europe, especially when it comes to big tech companies.
Not "especially" but exactly those. Almost no other american companies are known here. Of course there are McDonalds and Coca-Cola, but their bad reputation is for their unhealthy products, not the companies themselves.
As a Swede with pretty much the opposite views, your monolithic EU "we" sounds pretty offensive.
The 2008 financial crisis might have started in the US, but outcomes in European countries varied greatly depending on local policies and debt levels. It's hardly Americas fault that some European countries had taken on very high levels of government debt.
AirBnB and Uber seems pretty easy to regulate on a local level and in many places in Europe they are.
Obviously the EU can institute rules and fine companies that break them. But forcing companies to break up or kicking them out of Europe might be a step too far for the American government. Is the EU really willing to enter a Cold War with the us? Especially with the Russia situation I’m not sure they’re even able to without mass protests because the lng pipeline from the us will immediately dry up.
> I’m not sure they’re even able to without mass protests because the lng pipeline from the us will immediately dry up.
The cold war has already gone hot thanks to "Fuck the EU" US interference in Ukraine [0] by now having escalated into a full blown open war, just like there is no "LNG pipeline from the US" to Europe.
> not sure they’re even able to without mass protests
Do you mean mass protests like they we had over the invasion of Iraq? That didn't lead to anything and thus has crippled the global peace movement to this day.
That's why the idea that European people will "take to the streets" to protest for "American gas", is pretty out there and quite fantastical.
Before that happens you will see people take to the streets to protest the sanctions that are mainly responsible for this economic hardship, sanctions pushed for by Washington.
> The cold war has already gone hot thanks to "Fuck the EU" US interference in Ukraine [0] by now having escalated into a full blown open war, just like there is no "LNG pipeline from the US" to Europe.
The Cold War got hot cause of Russia, no one else. Russia is the one who decided to invade Ukraine, Russia is the one who decides to bomb children, Russia is the one who decides to commit genocide against the Ukrainians, Russia is solely responsible for this war.
No amount of “Ukrainian bio weapons” or “Ukrainian witch battalions” or “Ukrainian inhuman super soldiers” stories pushed by the kremlin will change this fact.
> Russia is the one who decided to invade Ukraine, Russia is the one who decides to bomb children, Russia is the one who decides to commit genocide against the Ukrainians, Russia is solely responsible for this war.
To hear Russia tell it, Ukraine has bombed a lot of children in the last 8 years and was committing genocide in East Ukraine. Ukraine also got couped.
Note: I personally have no ability to determine the truth of the Russian side beyond reading the wikipedia page and noting it plausible. I wonder if you have some extra information on things like how many civilian causalties occurred in the Donbas before 2022 or what the real support for Crimea joining Russia was?
Except that's not how Russia tells it, that's what actually happened.
On February 21 then acting Ukrainian president Yanukovych signed a transition deal with the Ukrainian opposition, brokered by the EU and Russia [0].
That should have been the end of most of it, but it wasn't, later that day Yatsenyuk, aka "Yats our guy" from the Nuland tape, and Tyahnybok, who both agreed and signed to the deal, went on stage on Euromaidan and then declared how "That's not enough" riling up the protesters to demand more.
Klitschko, who was constantly trying to keep the peace [1], and was Merkel's aka the EU's choice [2] was completely left out of that. More context on that in the leaked Nuland call, where she rates Klitschko's governmental experience not high enough for such a position, thus their go ahead with "Yats is our guy" and "Fuck the EU".
That situation escalated then so much, that by the early morning of February 22 the leader of Right Sector announced how they had taken over, and secured, the parliament and several other local government buildings [3].
It's exactly that part the current "Russia lies" narrative always leaves out, by claiming Yanukovych just randomly fled from a completely peaceful protest.
After Yanukovych fled, Yatsenyuk announced their new post-coup government to rather frosty reception on Euromaidan [4].
As a German I was actively following the situation back then, that's why I still have most of these sources. But since then so much information was straight up "deleted" from the web. It used to be extremely easy to find violent footage from Euromaidan on Twitter and YouTube, not anymore, all deleted as "Russian propaganda" so the "peaceful revolution, there was never a civil war" narrative can keep getting pushed without too much of an factual opposition.
Another, rather concrete, example is Yatsenyuk's "Open Ukraine Foundation", that went online shortly after the coup, it's partners page had all the usual US regime change actors bluntly spelled out [5]. First the foundation changed from his name, to his wives, and ultimately that partners page vanished completely, too blatantly incriminating.
> That should have been the end of most of it, but it wasn't, later that day Yatsenyuk, aka "Yats our guy" from the Nuland tape, and Tyahnybok, who both agreed and signed to the deal, went on stage on Euromaidan and then declared how "That's not enough" riling up the protesters to demand more.
Alleged Nuland tape, it hasn't been in anyway shape or form authenticated and we know from this war that Russia is more then happy to use deep fakes to control the narrative.
> It's exactly that part the current "Russia lies" narrative always leaves out, by claiming Yanukovych just randomly fled from a completely peaceful protest.
It's not a narrative, unless you seriously believe in Ukrainian weaponised witches/black magic and Ukrainian bio engineered super soldiers.
> The following day, police withdrew from central Kyiv, which came under effective control of the protesters. Yanukovych fled the city.[33] That day, the Ukrainian parliament voted to remove Yanukovych from office by 328 to 0 (72.8% of the parliament's 450 members).
Looks like Yanukovych ran away after he got ousted by the parliament themselves.
> Alleged Nuland tape, it hasn't been in anyway shape or form authenticated
Except the USG officially apologized for the "undiplomatic language" on the tape [0]
Do you think the USG is in the habit of apologizing for Russian fakes or what happened there?
> It's not a narrative
Yes, the "peaceful revolution" is very much a manufactured narrative, you should check out your own link [1]
> unless you seriously believe in Ukrainian weaponised witches/black magic and Ukrainian bio engineered super soldiers.
Can you please stop the bad faith arguing and strawmanning? I didn't write a single thing about anything like that.
> Its funny you paint a very different picture to the wikipedia article
Lets take a look at the actual TIMES article that's the citation for that [2];
"Ukraine’s beleaguered President Viktor Yanukovych fled Kiev Saturday as protestors took full control of Ukraine’s capital"
Beleaguered president fled after protesters took control of the capital, which also involved taking control of the parliament and the local security authorities, Right Sector announced it very much themselves in the very early morning of 22 February [3];
"“The Seventh Hundred is located inside the Verkhovna Rada. Also there is a division of the "Right Sector". Protected by the Cabinet. The nineteenth and third hundreds are guarding the Presidential Administration. The Fifteenth Hundred guards the Ministry of Internal Affairs,” Parubiy said."
Right Sector had control over who they let enter the parliament and who not. Want to guess who they let in, and who don't? That's also why the Wikipedia article has several different numbers for that how many actually participated in those parliamental votes. Sometimes it talks about 328 attending, then it's 386 and then it's suddenly "450 members voted 332-0", the Wikipedia article is all over the place on that.
Additionally; Did Russia also fake McCain shaking all the right hands [4]? Was it Russia who then made an American investment banker the new minister of finance for Ukraine, complete with fast-tracked citizenship? [5]
The evidence is overwhelming and blatant, that's also why all you can do is deny, even trying to strawman the discussion by talking about "weaponized witches".
Very much the same as back in the early 2000s when everybody knew the USG was lying about Saddam being responsible for 9/11 and the WMD, yet everybody played along for appearances and not wanting to get called a "terrorist supporter". But unlike back then, this time the stakes actually involve nuclear weapons.
This might or might not be the reason US authorities have lately been very active in educating their population about the proper response to a "radiation event" [6] [7] [8].
Mostly unnoticed in the US, yet to those who was alive during the cold war, particularly in central Europe, that's just quite scary, particularly in combination with the even worse than war on terror levels of information distortion.
> Except the USG officially apologized for the "undiplomatic language" on the tape [0]
>> Victoria Nuland reportedly said ‘Fuck the EU’ speaking of Ukraine crisis, though department didn’t confirm it was her voice on tape
There’s no confirmation whos voice is on that tape although the tape itself is reportedly said to be authentic
> Yes, the "peaceful revolution" is very much a manufactured narrative, you should check out your own link [1]
The Russians often lie _is not a narrative_ the Russian government nearly never tells the truth. All you need to look at is there state media during this war to see many examples of it, from downing civilian aircraft to weaponised witches, the firehose of falsehood is well and alive.
> Yes, the "peaceful revolution" is very much a manufactured narrative, you should check out your own link [1]
The only person on that page that suggests this is a coup is the former president who got deposed and ran away back to his masters in Russia. No amount of images will change the fact it wasn’t a coupe, no amount of walls of text from you will either.
> The evidence is overwhelming and blatant, that's also why all you can do is deny, even trying to strawman the discussion by talking about "weaponized witches"
> To hear Russia tell it, Ukraine has bombed a lot of children in the last 8 years and was committing genocide in East Ukraine.
Russia likes to tell a lot of lies and half truths to muddy the waters of everything I wouldn't trust what they they also generally don't provide any solid evidence of any of there claims either, just take these examples.
"Russian State Media Claims to Discover Militarized Ukrainian Witches".
Russian state media just cannot be trusted to tell the truth, I wouldn't believe a single word they say.
> Note: I personally have no ability to determine the truth of the Russian side beyond reading the wikipedia page and noting it plausible.
This would be a mistake, the "firehose of falsehood" is a well known Russian tactic, they lie constantly just to muddy the water. All you need to do is look at MH70 (the civilian airliner that Russian troops pretending to be separatists shot down) to see it in action, before it was publicly revealed to be a airliner they where posing with pictures of the wreckage and bragging about downing a Ukrainian military plane then when it was revealed what happened a whole bunch of Russian pushed conspiracy theories started popping up regarding it.
> I wonder if you have some extra information on things like how many civilian causalties occurred in the Donbas before 2022.
Because of the way that Russia lies and muddies the water, the real numbers will never be known just look at how little casualties they are claiming on their side for the current war.
> or what the real support for Crimea joining Russia was?
Again because of the tactics the Russians use this will never be actually known. But maybe once Ukraine retakes Crimea we may know more.
> The Cold War got hot cause of Russia, no one else.
Because decades of NATO expansion have nothing to do with this [0], having literal NATO exercises at the border of Russia [1], just completely normal and not at all an escalation. Nobody ever warned about any of this, it just came completely out of nowhere [2].
While the US would have no issue with Russia holding military exercises in Mexico, and couping the Mexican government. It wouldn't react in any way, most certainly not with the military, it's not like we have a precedent like the Cuban missile crisis, and the US military illegally occupying parts of Cuba to this day, in a very similar way to what Russia has done to Crimea.
> Russia is solely responsible for this war.
Sure, as long as you just wholesale ignore and deny what actually led to the war and how it was an active choice by US officials to undermine a diplomatic and peaceful solution, brokered by the EU, because "Fuck the EU".
In that context most online debates about this topic are similarly dishonest and toxic as war on terror debates in the early 2000s were; Anybody who doesn't join in with the blatant jingoism shall be declared an "enemy supporter", back then it was "terrorist supporter" nowadays it's "Putin supporter" and allegedly the only way out of this is more conflict, more weapons, any diplomatic solution shall be considered "pro Russia propaganda" because the forever war can't stop.
In that context you might as well tell me about WMD in Iraq, that's the level of argument you can bring that solely rests on ignoring a coup and insisting how a civil war, resulting from that coup, is totally not a civil war.
Your argument pretty much predicates itself on Ukraine not having agency to make decisions for itself.
Ukraine is free to lick whatever alliances it wishes to join.
> Because decades of NATO expansion have nothing to do with this [0], having literal NATO exercises at the border of Russia [1], just completely normal and not at all an escalation. Nobody ever warned about any of this, it just came completely out of nowhere [2].
Decades of NATO are literally driven by the current actions of Russia and the past actions of the USSR. To view this in a vacuum is disingenuous at best, and malicious at worst.
Those NATO exercises where in Ukraine in 2014. In what world is that on the border with Russia?. In it’s a _country_ that borders Russia far far away from the actual border, in Lviv on the border with _Poland_.
> While the US would have no issue with Russia holding military exercises in Mexico, and couping the Mexican government. It wouldn't react in any way, most certainly not with the military, it's not like we have a precedent like the Cuban missile crisis, and the US military illegally occupying parts of Cuba to this day, in a very similar way to what Russia has done to Crimea.
The worlds changed (at least outside of Russia). Since Cuba, if this is your best comparison maybe it’s a bet of a stretch. This comparison would also require Ukraine to plan to host US nukes to be comparable.
> Sure, as long as you just wholesale ignore and deny what actually led to the war and how it was an active choice by US officials to undermine a diplomatic and peaceful solution, brokered by the EU, because "Fuck the EU".
Sounds like your suggesting that Russia was forced to invade Ukraine and murder there citizens.
You need to remember that Russia has the ability to not invade and subjugate countries, although given their history this may be hard to believe.
Russia is solely responsible, no one else. Ukraines also had 3 elections since the revolution and different people got elected each time, amazing isn’t it.
Your source for [0] is from the 50s the world was a very different place back then.
> Because decades of NATO expansion have nothing to do with this [0], having literal NATO exercises at the border of Russia
Putin has told the world many times that the Ukrainians (and other former Warsaw Pact countries) aren't real countries and destined to be colonies at best. All his actions align with these sentiments. For example, Belarus never threatened to join NATO, but they were invaded and subjugated all the same. This is 100% on Putin and Russia.
When Microsoft made claims like you are back in the day we called it FUD. Dude, our government in the USA is barely functional right now. If they can't pull together for basic necessities but pulls together to go to 'cold' war with Europe over business practices the normies here would revolt. People can't afford rent, food, but the government's focus is ensuring Apple's profits? Yeah, good luck getting the people to support that. "I'm sorry you are at your breaking point, but real issue is poor Apple's profit struggle in Europe!".
The government had no problem instituting mega sanctions on Russia, entire European will obviously be a harder political pill to swallow but really doesn’t seem out of the question.
Oh man. You do realize that some 50% of GPS satellites are EU satellites right now? The US doesn’t even have a fully functioning constellation without the EU’s Galileo satellites (which are far more advanced in offering a cryptographically provable time). If the US were to go down that road, I’m fairly confident you’d have to go back to MapQuest and print out your directions.
The US barely traded with Russia anyway, and most of it was aircraft, vehicles and various services [1]. Sanctioning off Russia was and is easy for the US, the only major problem is the loss of soft power the US had with the OPEC and the resulting hike in oil prices.
The ones really affected by the sanctions are us Europeans.
Sanctioning Russia was a huge gamble in that it will likely lead to a heavily decreased reliance on USD globally as well as create competitors to swift which the us uses to enforce its hegemony.
The US dollar will always be the major currency of the world. What should replace it? The Euro is a good valuable currency, but we lack the military power that secures the US dollar plus we suffer from internal issues like the Italian debt that threatens to destabilize the Euro once again. Japan is a major economy, but still small and it has issues because its backing by the government is uncertain after "Abenomics" and the gerontification of Japanese society. The Chinese currencies suffer from cashflow control measures, and who the fuck would buy anything from Russia even if they had more to offer than barely functioning tanks, oil, gas and grain?
EU could break up the EU operations of the said company and it leaves it up to the company whether to break up in other parts of the world or just in Europe. Just think how many shell companies are created to dodge taxes. Same can be done here.
They let these unregulated behemots to plunder effortlessly without any repercussions in the last 10 years or so. These rules are just topical treatment and came already too late.
Well, they can leave the market. But the problem here is, that the EU concepts are often adapted elsewhere (e.g. GDPR is more or less adopted by California) especially, since these regulations often make sense and are not too political/onesided. GDPR - while we all hated it - make sense. This DMA - while it is extremely hurtful for the gatekeepers - make sense for the users.
Speak for yourself. Most users don't hate the GDPR, they hate the way companies tried to game it (very incompetently, I might add) by adding obtuse banners and modal dialogs.
As for companies: mostly US companies hated it because they previously got away with extremely abusive business models whereas EU companies were already facing similar regulations in individual EU member states.
Not speaking as a user but an architect needing to work it once though dozens of huge legacy systems .. as a user I love it. I am the biggest advocate.
> It also starts to bother me quite a bit when we go from treating everyone equal before the law to creating certain requirements based on other factors.
Uh, are you secretly longing for filing the paperwork required to obtain Title V Operating Permit for a major air emission source, or is there some other reason you oppose the idea that different things will have to follow different laws?
Personally I think most people will agree that a company with 150000 employees (Google) is not the same thing as one with 750 (tinder).
> Further it seems more like a moat to keep anyone else from getting as big as these "digital gatekeepers" are as suddenly when you get to a certain size you have an enormous expense.
Yes, and that's a good thing. It suppresses monopolistic tendencies before they can take hold, rather than trying to prove they are a monopoly and trying to figure out after the fact how to break them in a sensible way.
> If these companies really are that large that they have to get special laws for them isnt the solution to dissolve their monopoly and split the company up instead of starting to create separate classes of laws.
Why? All you're doing is letting that monopoly create the great device/service/whatever that lots of people seem to be enjoying, but levelling the playing field so they are still forced to compete for users instead of exploiting their monopoly power to kill any competition.
Encouraging competition is the ultimate goal because that's where the progress from capitalism comes from. If we can continue to encourage competition without going about the messy business of directly interfering with how a company is structured or how it operates, that seems like a win.
Did you ever read Thinking in Systems (D. Meadows)? It's quite a nice read and there are some nice paragraphs about why we need rules to prevent or reduce monopolies.
There are very real, very scary monopolies in Europe that are actually an issue that will never be dealt with. Whether or not iMessage can talk to Whatsapp has almost zero effect on my life.
I was responding to the claim that companies were treated unequally, which OP claimed was unjust. I'm simply stating that treating companies equitably, not equally, is just.
I understand that awareness of the importance of treating individuals equitably rather than equally has been increased in light of the increasingly public discourse on civil inequity, but these words have always existed outside that context to mean what they do.
The meaning of "equity" in a legal context according to the american heritage dictionary [0]: Justice achieved not simply according to the strict letter of the law but in accordance with principles of substantial justice and the unique facts of the case.
Not seeing how that requires me to anthropomorphise corporations.
Also, I kindly ask you to extend a bit of respect my way and not imply that I suffer from a mental illness because you disagree with me. It's not very civil.
Is being a gatekeeper a function of overall size, or market share in a given sector?
I may have missed the definition in the article, but my cynical take is that it seems geared towards getting companies that enjoyed dominance in the 90s back into the game now.
I very much welcome this legislation (and I use an iPhone).
How would you approach this otherwise? The EU probably can't break up Google or Apple (how would this even look like?) and the walled gardens are clearly a market failure, including apples fat margins. You mention details, but regulation can be well made and just continuing the status quo is also bad. All regulations open up questions but it's not the wild west here, we have rules and they regulate the economy, even for big multinational giants like apple. Sometimes companies even get nationalised (or nationalised companies get sold)!
“I oppose this legislation that will bring massive good because I can imagine a few edge cases that have almost certainly been addressed but weren’t explicitly stated in the summary I glanced at.”
This type of comment is everywhere on the Internet and completely predictable.
Frankly I don’t see how this legislation could possibly bring massive good. For one I like my iPhone how it is and don’t see how I could possibly benefit from this passing.
As an American I think regulation should only be enacted when absolutely necessary, and these laws seem anything but necessary. I’ve rarely seen convincing cases of innovation being stifled or people being harmed by Apple’s walled garden approach. It’s clearly not a market failure because (1) it is extremely profitable and (2) it is not a monopoly. As you can see in this thread, tons of people prefer differently, and those people can buy Androids. I also don’t like how this EU legislation mainly targets American companies.
Forcing Apple to allow other voice assistants will only strengthen Google and Amazons dominance in the voice assistant ecosystem.
Forcing messaging apps to allow cross compatibility only will give them more of my unencrypted messages.
I could go on, but I’m very curious what all of these “massive goods” that I’m not seeing are.
It cost me ~$600 in app purchases to switch from Android to Apple. So “just buy a different OS if you don’t like it” is not a reasonable solution unless you only have free software and it is also free on your target OS. The fact that these licenses can’t be transferred is part of the problem (though I’m not sure that is even addressed in this legislation).
You don’t personally have to benefit from this legislation, you can stay in an “official” configuration until the day you die. For some of us, this opens the door to have a FOSS App Store, or custom apps without having to rebuild them once a week.
I bet you would have said the same thing when Microsoft killed browser competition decades ago using its Windows dominance. Fortunately, the govt acted against Microsoft.
If Microsoft continued its monopolistic practices, it's very likely that the iPhone that you like so much now won't be existing today.
Apple, Google, Microsoft, constantly buy, "sponsor" or sue competitors (whatever is cheapest) in order to keep their monopoly. All innovation is killed or at best assimilated (Star Trek Borg style). It's a bit funny that we ended up with two major platforms for smartphones... Microsoft did have a good grip on the smartphone market before Apple and Google entered, but they couldn't simply buy Apple or Google in order to keep their monopoly, nor can Google buy Apple or vice versa. But they can kill anyone else that tries to innovate.
Plus an inability to accept that there will be corner cases and some drawbacks, and that the best you can do with legislation is have the good well outweigh the bad.
The default remedy isn't break up, it's 10% of the total worldwide turnover (20% for repeat offenders). The EU can very much fine Google or Apple (and already did so).
If break-up is not possible, retricting or prohibiting access to the EU market is quite possible.
Edit: also, on my dealings with Google, I am contracting with Google Ireland Limited, a company that the EU can break up.
I wouldn't call it a market failure, there's plenty of benefits with wall gardens and it's not done solely for profit. BUT there's also drawbacks and places where walls don't make sense.
Not being able to install arbitrary apps from various app stores provides security, UX consistency, and stability of the software. But there's also drawbacks for things like privacy or abusive censorship or copyright policies.
Given the benefits/drawbacks, the best solution is to have options in the marketplace. If you prefer having more control, don't mind sacrificing deep horizontal product integration, or doing the leg work to make it ideal (doesn't need to always 'just work' predictably), etc, then you should have the option to use an OS/device that offers that.
Personally I'd rather see Google make Android more flexible (for ex: making Google Play Services less restrictive) rather than forcing every OS to be like Android.
But I'm not sure how that could be done via restrictive policy without throwing the baby out with the bath water (other than targeting monopolistic behavior like preventing choice in browsers). Otherwise taking a more-freedom approach would be best, maybe by investing in open platforms, investing in public relations campaigns to make people understand why lack of choice is bad or a consumer-friendly 'open platform' label to guide shoppers, incentives like small tax breaks for offering more open platforms, etc.
For Apple, they could offer a stripped down iOS (like a server edition of a desktop) without all of the services and side-loading restrictions, without having to ditch the current approach that people like.
Smartphones are in a market, yes...? I can also buy an Android or Pinephone, or use an open source OS like Graphene. That means you have a choice not to use iPhone's garden or use Google's or none... via F-Droid style app stores.
Do you think free-markets means corporations also need to run their business operations and products/platforms like a market? Because that's not what that means. (Even if it did ideological purity is dumb)
Inversely governments forcing companies to all operate with the same business model is not on a free market.
The only thing that would prevent a walled garden from operating in a free market is if Apple et al was a monopoly/oligopoly and you had no other choices. I've already said antitrust laws for things like browser choice is one of the better solutions than the one proposed.
this is a non-sequetor: just because Smartphones and Shoes are a free market has no relevance of whether Apps are a free market. A has no effect on B.
If you want to sell an app, you have to deal with rules of App Store or Play Store, or Windows Store. You can't even sell pornographic apps - this is the definition of an unfree market.
Edit: I'm not saying that the EU can break them up but Apple is not a company with a single field where breaking it up is impossible. I misread the parent a bit.
How does the EU force an American company to break up? (Not a rhetorical question)
Perhaps they might pull a China and require them to open a 51% EU-owned subsidiary to do business here, which would then be subject to all sort of restrictions including company size.
As a EU citizen, I would absolutely love it. But I suspect that the EU is bound by many more and much more comprehensive free-trade treaties than China is, and such a draconian approach would require many of them to be renegotiated or exited outright.
They can tax and fine them unsustainable fees, prohibit them from being used there. Thus they can control them. If Apple found that onerous they could choose not to be in business there.
Monopolistic regulation? This is clearly aimed against existing monopolies, i.e. gatekeepers. Can you explain how ensuring that
1. Making unsubscribing is as easy as subscribing, and
2. Guaranteed interoperability between instant messaging services, and 3. Sharing marketing and/or advertisement performance with business users
> It is monopolistic regulation, as in the people of Europe do not have a choice on another regulation, or no regulation if it doesn't suit them. It affects everyone and can severely harm ones freedom of choice in that area.
What? They have a choice in whom they vote for.
Or you mean that all legislation is "monopolistic"?
Voting for a ruler isn’t really the same as choosing what regulations and standards work for you. First you only have two or three possible rulers to select from. Second, they rarely change, for example every few years or decades sometimes. Third, even if you favorite ruler is eventually in power, you still don’t control their thinking or actions.
Monopolistic regulation kills competition by increasing the cost of entering that market, while established players have the capital and necessary connections for workarounds.
For example imagine a new company trying to build an iPhone with minimal app store, well guess what, now they have to also build support for third party store, developer tools, etc… which increases their cost to launch. Apple on the other hand will have all this taken care of. It will have multiple people making sure regulators are happy (or rich).
While I later found that this will not target small companies, so in this aspect this regulation will likely have minimal impact.
> For example imagine a new company trying to build an iPhone with minimal app store, well guess what, now they have to also build support for third party store, developer tools, etc… which increases their cost to launch.
That new company won't have neither 45 million users nor
over 7.5 Billion EUR turnover in the last 3 consecutive-years.
You are making a false and bad-faith argument against the regulation in question just to promote your laissez-faire ideology.
Sadely it is unlikely unconscious bad faith. It is the type of argumentor that would at the same time defend taxation, and control of movements, and think that it's absolutely necessary to keep education free or at least provide government grants.
It isn't laissez-faire arguments, they would have consistency and merits. It is filled with fallacies formed as souless echoes of the manipulators behind them.
Nothing else. All the comments I've read against the regulation are laughable, but let's see, the number comments will continue to grow some more. It's Popcorn and classical music on my side.
As pointed out in other comments, the regulation applies to companies of a certain size. It isn't clear of course who will get hit by it in perfectly legal and also fairly, but it's crystal clear who have been abusing their market position and that they will have to stop many of their monopolistic practices.
Sometimes I really do wonder whether some commenters, given their counter arguments, work at a facebook/amazong/netflix/google, or that they hope/dream to work for one of those or all one after the othe, or if they naively believe like gospel what these companies tell them as consumers of their products filled with privacy concerns and dark marketing patterns. Or a combination of the 2 out of the 3. The other possibilities are of course sarcasm or generalised brainwashed syndrome.
I'm against all form of regulations. Life is wild and I would rather advocate education. But hey, since we heavily regulated the 99%, let's at least regulate the 1%. They alone have far more damage power than everyone else combined.
This regulation increases freedom for everyone (users and businesses), except for large platform operators.
You as a user are free to continue exactly as you were, and if you are a business that is not Apple or Google you have more flexibility and freedom to choose.
With sideloading, unlocked nfc and alternative stores and payment providers this will likely kickstart whole new markets (eg: a better app store for the iphone).
I always see comments like this and they're so confusing. They just kind of assume that nobody has thought about these questions. Did you even check if they were addressed? If not, why are you asserting that these questioned are opened? For one, it's not about devices, it's about digital market platforms. That's why it's called the digital markets act.
> The compromise text clarifies that the definition of core platform services should be technology neutral and should be understood to encompass those provided on or through various means or devices, such as connected TV or embedded digital services in vehicles.
> “Gatekeeper”, in turn, refers to an undertaking providing core platform services that meets the following qualitative and quantitative criteria, set out in Article 3:
> First, it must have a significant impact on the EU internal market. An undertaking is presumed to satisfy this requirement where (a) it either has achieved an annual EU turnover equal to or above EUR 7.5 billion in each of the last three financial years, or where its average market capitalization or its equivalent fair market value amounted to at least EUR 75 billion in the last financial year, and (b) it provides the same core platform service in at least three Member States.
> Second, it must provide a core platform service which is an important gateway for business users to reach end users. This requirement is presumed to be met where the undertaking provides a core platform service that had on average at least 45 million monthly active end users established or located in the EU and at least 10,000 yearly active business users established in the EU in the last financial year.2 Users are to be identified and calculated in accordance with a methodology set out in an Annex to the DMA.
> Third, it must enjoy an entrenched and durable position in its operations. This requirement is presumed to be met where the threshold points in the paragraph above were met in each of the previous three financial years.
Which specific companies have they been cherry picked for? Are there any set of numbers that you would like more to generally capture the concept of large tech giants?
the first two are very important questions. For example, if I make $500 “unhackablePhone”, where it literally doesn’t run web apps and every app is vetted by top-talent security researchers for weeks, and then I sell billions of these devices, do I then have to open up the ecosystem to allow anyone to be able to take a phone, punch in the passcode, and install a third party App Store? This is synonymous with the current iPhone situation as many people only buy it for the benefit of Apple screening everything that can run on their phone, albeit at a lower security level where some mistakes are fine assuming Apple almost never allows known exploits to exist on the most up-to-date iOS release.
>For example, if I make $500 “unhackablePhone”, where it literally doesn’t run web apps and every app is vetted by top-talent security researchers for weeks, and then I sell billions of these devices, do I then have to open up the ecosystem to allow anyone to be able to take a phone, punch in the passcode, and install a third party App Store?
Well that would depend, are you a "gatekeeper", as defined in the Regulation?
That is, do you have a significant impact on the EU's internal market (a turnover of €7.5bn or a €75bn market cap), provide a core platform service which is important for business users to reach end users (have have 45m monthly active end-users in the EU or 10k monthly active business users), enjoy an entrenched and durable position in your operations or foresee that you will enjoy such a position in the near future (i.e. you meet the above for three consecutive years)?
If you answered "no" to any part of that then you are not a gatekeeper, and these regulations do not apply to you.
It seems clear that the hypothetical company would meet this definition, and the regulation would completely defeat the purpose of the proposed company.
I don’t know how useful this particular hypothetical is, but it’s definitely a “code smell” that the proposed company’s seemingly only options would be to limit sales to retain the “not a gatekeeper” status or stop doing business in the EU.
> This is synonymous with the current iPhone situation as many people only buy it for the benefit of Apple screening everything that can run on their phone
I would love to read some surveys on this matter, because I highly doubt that security/privacy is a significant factor for more than a few percent points of iPhone buyers.
(I base this hypothesis on the fact that, in virtually every field of technology, end users have shown that they will overwhelmingly sacrifice privacy and security in exchange for convenience and cost savings.)
I expect that the main motivations for iPhone purchases are aesthetics, performance, ease of use, integration with the Apple ecosystem, and especially fashion/status symbol factor.
As for the rest of the comment, as other people have already pointed out, you can prevent evil maid attacks by putting the legally-required "open" mode behind a factory reset. Which is roughly what Android phones do with their unlockable bootloaders.
Apple's advertising for the last few years has continuously focused on privacy. There must be some interest from iPhone buyers if Apple spends their advertising money this way.
The App Store is a garbage dump anyway. There are few apps you can pay upfront, the rest are ad-infested or require you to repeatedly do in app purchases to keep using them, to the point that I can't find games for my kids.
But in theory, someone controlling a walled garden could do the same that youtube does with any kind of content. If the app doesn't work in a transparent manner anymore, you can just shoehorn unblockable ads into it.
Sort of, it’d be tough though. YouTube ads aren’t blocked because they’re not using a third party ad vendor. They’re big enough that they run their own auctions. The vast majority of services aren’t capable of creating the auction themselves, so their ads can be blocked.
> Well people who chose to use other app store don't get access to your curated list of apps
This is how Xbox currently works in that you can’t play any regular games if you enable developer mode to run unsigned code. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that, if Apple complied by disabling apps downloaded via their own store when a user is using a 3p store, then the EU would laugh and fine then $x millions of dollars per week.
The selling point for this theoretical device is that, even if someone steals your passcode, it can’t be hacked. This enabled evil maid (or customs processors, nation-state agencies, etc) attacks on the most vulnerable users looking to have defense-in-depth.
To avoid this it seems you’d either be forced to sell it at an insane markup (to avoid having too many users) or means test people to make sure they don’t purchase it if they’re not super vulnerable to attacks that matter.
Or just have a way that prevents those kind of attacks. Like having the trusted bootloader light a LED or show a hash code of the configuration on screen.
I think there are easy to think of solutions to the problem, that let's everyone win.
The obvious solution, for your hypothetical, would be to give a setting to the user, that turns on "safe mode" and make this setting only changeable on factory reset.
So any user could choose, at startup, to have safe mode on or off, on their own device.
You wouldn't need to do anything to prevent people from buying it.
The restrictions inherent in the device (including only having a few apps that have been thoroughly reviewed by security researchers) would keep most people away.
They will still be able to choose the apple ecosystem. Feigning to see? The regulation is to put a stop to walled gardens tynany.
The players this regulation target are pretty obvious. It's those that have gained such market dominance along the years that it has become unfair competition for newer players. It is the outcome of years of consumer pressures and entrepreneurs who are calling out for some government actions because markets are regulated anyway everywhere in the world, and these US based companies (for the most part for now) have lobbied along the years to get away with their practice but the EU has decided their lobbying won't do with them. At least not anymore.
Fortunately for Sony and Microsoft they don't operate the sorts of highly profitable game stores for PlayStation and Xbox that Apple and Google do for iOS and Android.
And I first want to approach it from the "good faith" point of view. The past 20 years have seen a sea change in what surveillance and devices can do. And as such we (society at large) needs to adjust our understanding and approach to this new technology.
Firstly the opportunities are immense. With almost (*) every person having some kind of heart, lifestyle, monitoring and measurement we could see transformational medical and epidemiology breakthroughs. On top of which access to (free, correct!) information, hell GPS is amazing. We know
Secondly there are opportunities for abuse, and there is justifiable concern about privacy, about affect on democracy, truth etc. I personally think these are..the wrong terms to use, but never mind.
I think we have to assume Good Faith from the EU here. They don't know the answers any more than the rest of us do. But they have been upfront abut tackling obvious big problems - the GDPR, for all its many faults was first, and a again big Good Faith step in right direction (pace all the stupid cookie warnings)
As for answers
Which devices apply - which ever ones are "owned" by a Gatekeeper (45 Million users / 7Bn turnover).
Should Sony open up Playstation. Yeah basically. Xbox too. Will that cause problems - I expect so. In 99% of cases a big warning saying "you are side-loading this is dangerous" will prevent most horrors.
I expect this will not lead to an Open source free for all. I expect there will be develop licensing programs and approvals - because I certainly see the walled garden of iOS as a real benefit.
The bank transaction signing thing is interesting. The definition of a gatekeeper (Article 2 in the Act) is fairly specific to things like online search engines, intermediation services, OSes etc. I think its unlikely 45 million users is a big floor for such a thing.
(#) 4.5 Bn smartphones are in use globally, that's almost every adult. In "western" countries there are 10s of millions of people with daily heart rate monitoring.
You are free to buy cars that meet your needs for yourself, such as multiple app stores. So it looks your standards are achievable if your willing to actually pay for it. This is more limiting freedoms and harming others, for example more expensive cars for me to satisfy one your desires. Or less innovation or competition because of higher cost of startup.
Negative interest actually, I sold my tech stocks early this year, while as an app developer the revenue cut we get are likely to increase after this kicks in. I am more inclined to explain the consequences and incentives of these actions rather than their intentions.
> * Make core messaging functionality interoperable. They lay out concrete examples like file transfer
It's entirely possible that to enable compliance with this will require explicit compromises to the security of iMessage, for example by requiring key exchange with startup messaging providers. The other rules seem to prohibit Apple from describing the risks involved in such a compromise.
> * Use existing hardware and software features without competitive prejudice. E.g. NFC
This appears to say that a malicious app can present UX elements that were previously limited to the OS. Read liberally, that would mean that e.g. any app could now get biometric data by presenting a fake privilege escalation screen (e.g. FaceID/TouchID) and then capturing the results from the Secure Enclave. Is this something people really want?
> * Not preference their services. This includes CTAs in settings to encourage users to subscribe to Gatekeeper services, and ranking their own services above others in selection and advertising portals
This will likely make it harder for users to find safe/private services to use. If every offering can find its way into the default browser/App Store/etc. settings page in the OS, scam services will appear to be endorsed and therefore legitimate.
Edit: Limitation of interop is still possible, the EU is just deciding to move decision making from California engineers to Brussels attorneys. From the Act:
> The gatekeeper shall not be prevented from taking strictly necessary and proportionate measures to ensure that interoperability does not compromise the integrity of the operating system, virtual assistant, hardware or software features provided by the gatekeeper, provided that such measures are duly justified by the gatekeeper.
So Apple just needs to explain security & encryption to Brussels attorneys to keep iMessage in a silo, for example. (Obviously making iMessage interoperable with e.g. Discord or ICQ will compromise the integrity of the software features of iMessage.) I don't think this is going to increase the pace of product improvements.
> It's entirely possible that to enable compliance with this will require explicit compromises to the security of iMessage, for example by requiring key exchange with startup messaging providers.
Is that really much worse than the status quo, where all iMessage plaintexts are shared with Apple by default, unless every participant in the thread has disabled iCloud Backup?
> So Apple just needs to explain security & encryption to Brussels attorneys to keep iMessage in a silo, for example. (Obviously making iMessage interoperable with e.g. Discord or ICQ will compromise the integrity of the software features of iMessage.)
Are you arguing that it's impossible for Discord or ICQ to implement the same feature set as the native iMessage client?
Yes, it is. All of the participants in an iMessage chat have consented to have their data stored by Apple. We can all do rough evaluations on how well we think Apple can protect our data.
The wording in the Act appears to not place constraints on exactly what services must be able to interop with iMessage, and it says Apple can't preference iMessage. So presumably the blue bubbles have to go. This means that when chatting in Messages now, one will not be able to know whether it's Apple alone protecting the privacy of the conversation, or whether the weakest link is a company of a single person that started this week using an OSS package to spin up a new messaging app on a Linode VM and was able to achieve parity in iOS messaging simply by virtue of this Act.
That's a very different situation than the status quo.
Similar logic applies to the App Store and payment details, but messaging is egregious because other participants in the chat can make (and potentially change) the security posture of the chat without your knowledge.
(Edit, adding reply to this part.)
> Are you arguing that it's impossible for Discord or ICQ to implement the same feature set as the native iMessage client?
No, I am saying that it's going to be trivial to implement the feature set. I fully expect there to be OSS libraries to implement the iMessage client.
The issue is that when people use iMessage and see a blue bubble, they also know something about how the encryption keys are handled & who does the handling, etc. This Act as written appears to allow any person to install an OSS iMessage server on a VM and achieve OS parity with iMessage, and Apple is prevented from indicating that others in the chat may be compromising the security of the chat. I used ICQ and Discord as examples because Apple exchanging my encryption keys with ICQ is definitely compromising a core feature of iMessage.
> The issue is that when people use iMessage and see a blue bubble, they also know something about how the encryption keys are handled & who does the handling, etc.
Realistically, the average person doesn't even know what an encryption key is and the average tech enthusiast doesn't know anything beyond "Apple handles everything".
> So presumably the blue bubbles have to go. This means that when chatting in Messages now, one will not be able to know whether it's Apple alone protecting the privacy of the conversation
Why can't iMessage to iMessage be blue bubbles with iMessage to anything else being green bubbles? Do you think the average iPhone user understands that green bubbles mean insecure rather than thinking they're "Android bubbles"?
Why are so many people convinced that consumer choice and security are mutually exclusive?
The new law removes that person's ability to even discern this much.
> Why can't iMessage to iMessage be blue bubbles with iMessage to anything else being green bubbles?
This would pretty clearly be Apple preferring its own service over other services, and is prohibited under the new law.
I should be clear here: I think this law is clumsy and will have to be fixed or loosely enforced. But even if one is in favor of these changes, it's fair to acknowledge the reality that the law basically mandates a major change in the security posture of a billion deployed devices. One may still be in favor, but it's important not to lose sight of the fact that there are in fact compromises being made.
> Why are so many people convinced that consumer choice and security are mutually exclusive?
I am 100% not convinced this is true; security and choice can coexist. But this EU law does not aim at the goal of preserving security while increasing consumer choice. Which is strange, given how a consequence of a prior EU Act was the pollution of the Web with cookie banners. (I am aware these banners are not specifically required for many use cases, which is why I said this is a consequence of their Act and not something ordered by their Act.)
> This would pretty clearly be Apple preferring its own service over other services, and is prohibited under the new law.
I don't agree. Green bubbles indicate that messages travelled 100% within Apple's ecosystem. Indicating interoperability with a 3rd party by using blue bubbles doesn't do anything to prevent those 3rd parties from having their own green bubbles within their own ecosystem.
> Indicating interoperability with a 3rd party by using blue bubbles doesn't do anything to prevent those 3rd parties from having their own green bubbles within their own ecosystem.
The entire point of the law is Apple/Google don't get to manage their own ecosystems anymore; EU regulators do that. One read of the intent of the Act is that platforms should not be able to preference their own services over those of third parties. My skim of the Act indicates that it would be in bounds for a regulator to decide that this means no blue/green message distinction, and a direct consequence of that is that anyone in a group chat could be using Facebook Messenger as a client and allowing Facebook to log all the messages.
Engineering decisions henceforth need to weigh what a specific regulator believes the law says, since the law is not very specific about many details. This is not good, especially coming from the people who caused the global cookie disclaimer deluge.
> This would pretty clearly be Apple preferring its own service over other services, and is prohibited under the new law.
Does it really, though? Is it something that that was explicitly brought up in the drafting of this law? Or is this a doomsday scenario that chooses to interpret the law in its most extreme form?
The legislation has been approved. Let us see how regulators actually enforce it. Until the EU bans green vs. blue bubbles, this is nothing more than FUD.
Most of my extended family is unaware that iCloud backups sends your words to apple, not to mention all the other things. There was no rough evaluation
(This is also about the encryption of the communication channel itself.)
I agree with you in general, but it is possible for this evaluation to be done by a simple read of e.g. the iOS marketing page. The Act proposes a regime where it is not possible for a chat participant to determine who holds the encryption keys for the chat. You may consider that better or worse or neither, but it is a significant change in the security posture for billions of deployed devices.
This facile response ignores that Apple Messages is a system, not just an encryption algorithm. Of particular concern is key management: who manages the keys that allow the messages to be decrypted? Currently, it's Apple.
What this Act says is that Apple Messages must interop with any other messaging system. If you spin up a VM running an iMessage-compatible server on Hetzner, Apple Messages must interop with you and cannot privilege Messages (e.g. by continuing to use blue bubbles as a differentiator). That VM may be malicious (for ex: it may log who communicated with whom when), but the Act still requires that it be placed on an even footing with Messages.
Similarly, the Act essentially says that once implemented, anyone using a phone can unintentionally be sending all of their messages to Facebook Messenger, which by law must have seamless interop with Messages. Any group chat could be logged by Facebook by virtue of one person in the chat choosing Facebook Messenger as their default messaging app.
This requirement materially changes the security posture of a billion devices currently in use. You may believe the tradeoff is worthwhile, but it's still not a free tradeoff.
Some of the comments you posted on this thread are completely false, like EU forcing Apple to change bubble color or forcing them to handover encryption keys. Neither of that is even remotely true. If Apple doesn't want other companies to have encryption keys they can (and should) provide an E2E API. They can document their own protocol, or implement an existing open one, like Signal's.
> This will likely make it harder for users to find safe/private services to use.
That's what tech companies like to say. But from experiences with less tech-savy friends, the current way always leads people to share as much as possible. Opt-out is always harder than opt-in.
Safari is possibly the biggest competitor to chrome, since Firefox is falling out of use. It’s important for the ecosystem to have a strong competitor who isn’t dependent on google
Safari is only a competitor because folks don't have a choice. This would force Apple to actually compete against Chrome by giving users a reason to keep using Safari.
You know what Google is doing with Chrome, right? Adding APIs for battery status, USB access, etc. will lead to more information about your device ending up in their possession.
>It’s important for the ecosystem to have a strong competitor who isn’t dependent on google
Why ? Seriously - this competition argument gets brought up and I see 0 benefit. There is almost no innovation in the low level aspects and the foundations are opensource with several tech giants contributing.
The only thing "competition" adds at this point is fragmentation, compatibility issues and slower feature adoption.
This idea that competition beats cooperation is silly - innovation in browser rendering and JS engines is mostly done - the only real innovative effort was Servo and that died - modern variants are there just for political/commercial reasons.
If every browser out there converted to Blink/V8 and development resources were focused the web would be better.
Apps are great for recurring use, it’s a PITA when it’s single/twice use or if you want standard features (accessibility, print/save screen, sharing urls etc.).
For instance parking payment apps, mobile ticket apps etc. that you download when in vacation and could 100% be web only, or a PWA if Apple was onboard with it, instead of their “light app” thing.
Or I had some of the government services apps not exposing text labels as selectable, which is a pain if you need to search for it. Same thing when you want to print/save the screen, you end up with a single screen png instead of potentially a fully scrolled and text including pdf. All these features could be coded in the app, but realistically devs don’t give a damn as it doesn’t bring much praise or money.
> For instance parking payment apps, mobile ticket apps etc
Should just be a payment terminal instead of an app. Beyond that, there's App Clips for one time use, and accessibility is worse on the web than on the iPhone (can't speak for Android). For printing and sharing, might be right, but it's broken on websites often enough, too. There are lots of developers (or their management) not caring about UX at all on both sides..
You need an interface on your phone for remote payment. Most of them have a workable mobile web site, but notifications for instance aren’t available in that case. Yes App Clips cover that case, but it doesn’t look to me that it got much traction.
> accessibility is worse on the web than on the iPhone (can't speak for Android). For printing and sharing, might be right, but it's broken on websites often enough, too.
I see this as the main point for having other browser engines. Mobile Safari is horrible to select text and on many basic features. I took these limitations for granted until I moved to android and the browsers work so much better (not flawless, but pretty close). Basically in this day and age, there’s no reason why a mobile browser should be weaker than its desktop counterpart.
That’s not how it work, is it? You can trick people into installing Chrome, and once that’s done, they won’t switch back, unless Apple tries to trick them. I can already hear the outcry when that happens.
Because it’s a whole can of worm that needs so much more to be discussed.
In a nutshell, I’m not sure Mozilla can still bring relevant change to the landscape, even if its handicap goes away.
As a firefox user, I feel it truely suffered from both Safari locking it out the the emerging mobile web where it had the biggest chance to shine (I actually like firefox mobile even with its current pretty severe limitations), and from Chrome pushing it down from the heavy desktop applications for reasons that aren’t only performance.
So it sits in a tough position, but Mozilla also appears to be shooting itself in the foot time after time, and I wonder if the people that made the magic happen haven’t abandoned the ship long ago.
The problem with all of this shit is that the EU is only measuring sentiment from developers, not end users. End users are happy with Safari. Developers are the only ones who care about any of the rest of this.
The EU is going after Google too. They might require Google to stop adding so many new features to Chrome so Safari and Firefox can catch up. Though would be a very tricky situation
It's a well known problem. Chrome pushes tons of features into "web standards" since they have disproportionate power in the space, and then developers use the features because they are "web standards", and now there are websites that only support Chrome.
Spoken by people who want to eliminate competition of richest corporation on the planet because they're apparently not capable of building a competitive product (despite being the Best at Everything and being able to shove down authentication APIs and payment systems down everyones throat).
You can also list/lookup businesses on Facebook and eg Bebo, but factors that run contrary to user desire and performative obtuseness remove utility from one over time.
Eh? I did my best to understand what you wrote. I honestly found your language difficult to parse.
This is obviously a complex topic with a lot of strongly held views. For me personally it's a rare case where I haven't yet developed firm views of my own.
FWIW, I'm not particularly happy with the way this sub-thread has gone, but I found it stimulating at least. YMMV.
Chrome is becoming the new Internet Explorer. They are adding features the marketers want regardless if it is good for privacy or other ecosystems. We are already seeing websites and services that only work correctly in Chrome. Safari is the only viable competition.
> Chrome is becoming the new Internet Explorer. They are adding features the marketers want regardless if it is good for privacy or other ecosystems. We are already seeing websites and services that only work correctly in Chrome.
Okay. Granted. So what? IE died.
> Safari is the only viable competition.
Is it? It seems to me that it's not competing with Chrome if you can't run Chrome on your iPhone.
Safari has better UI and less battery use on my Mac. On the iPhone and iPad it just has better UI, hard to compare battery use without engine alternative.
I want that crap.
Article 101 and 102 from the "EU Antitrust policy" already protects against anti-competitive agreements and abusive behavior from those holding a dominant market position, I don't think that will change.
Hello, Alphabet world domination. They finally get the chance to get rid of that pesky Safari. Next stop: obligatory sign-in for using a service.
I bet that Chrome adoption on iOS remains under 25% forever. People just don't care which browser they use so long as the default one works. Safari isn't so bad that people are desperate to replace it.
What makes Safari a bad browser? Sometimes it feels like dev forums rate a browser entirely based on the dev tools.
For the average user Safari behaves identically or slightly better (battery life, privacy defaults, integration with the OS for login and payments) then chrome and Firefox.
See. It is frankly pointless. Chrome already has a significant amount of mindshare and will grow even more after this.
The users have already chosen Chrome (and its derivatives). Mozilla has done absolutely nothing to stop it as Firefox has become totally irrelevant today. The EU is about to allow the world domination of Chrome and its derivatives to takeover entirely.
Just like the many choices of a Linux distro, you will have the many choices of Chromium based browsers! All thanks to 'oPEn SoUrcE'.
As a Chrome user I feel obligated to defend my use as: "I like it the most." As long as Google continues to offer a better experience, I don't mind them dominating the market. *As long as they don't use anticompetitive practises to prevent competition.* IE, backed by the most powerful tech company on the planet (at the time), used to be 95% of the internet. If IE can fall, so can Chrome.
IE was replaced because it was a hole-riddled nonstandard mess, and Google used their position to shove Chrome into everyone's mindshare (something this regulation appears to forbid, incidentally). Chrome isn't nonstandard because Google are very careful to comply with standards - which is easy enough when they have many employees involved with designing them and tend to manipulate those committees in their favor, and even if they fail they can just release whatever they want and use the technology's widespread adoption to justify its eventual standardization. Also, as a modern browser, Chrome is patched frequently, so the security angle is also a nonstarter.
Mozilla self-sabotages so frequently and severely, I think you need to be very naive to not suspect the massive amount of funding they get from Google has something to do with it.
Two possible outcomes of Mozilla losing Google's funding: Maybe Firefox evaporates away to nothing, 0% market share, and now Google loses the fig-leaf covering their browser monopoly. Or maybe Mozilla loses their ineffectual but greedy leadership, allowing people who believe in the mission to step into those roles.
I think Google prefers the status quo to either of those scenarios. They prefer it to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars a year, for that is how much they pay to perpetuate it.
While I agree with this, I'm interested in seeing what the long term security consequences are.
These are all the highest risk API and integration surfaces on mobile devices.
Also I hope Microsoft get pulled into this as well because they're slowly turning Windows into a marketing device.
Edit: as an iOS user I'm optimistic that this will lead to complete device network whitelist capabilities though so you can neuter any apps which circumvent the current browser restrictions. That would destroy a lot of tracking capability instantly and completely stop embedded browser side channel attacks.
And it tends to be a bad experience for anyone who doesn’t naturally gravitate towards HN when they eventually get malware or unwanted browser adware extensions.
And the world will continue turning just like it had for the last 50 years of us having general purpose computers without an American at Apple telling us what we're allowed to do with our products.
However mobile devices have a dual role (in many people's lives these days) as being the custodian of all their MFA setup. weakening mobile security (which this arguably may do) could have an impact there.
Also "large format computing devices" are moving more to the lockdown model, at least partially due to the security problems inherent in allowing end users to install/run whatever they want :)
exactly. this law is the EU forcing companies to make phones more like PCs. this is brilliant news and a big step back from the powerless dystopia we've all been wandering towards
I think six months is a pretty unreasonable time frame for Apple. While the security concerns around this sort of thing are often overblown, Apple will need to rework their security model for the iPhone. If there is an API surface between the OS and the App Store, they may need to rework it since it's not been designed with third party stores in mind.
The funny thing is, Apple originally had plans for sideloading all the way back in 2008. An email that came out from the Apple vs. Epic trial last year had none other than Steve Jobs signing off on UI copy for installing apps from outside the App Store! [1]
Obviously, those plans were shelved when they changed strategy for iOS to walled-garden, but it's surprising how in the course of fourteen years the issue went from product roadmap to cultural anathema at Apple.
I think they assumed, like the rest of us to a degree, that "it will never happen". If this kind of "ffs, just effing solve it with a law already" kind of law comes through, I'm seriously considering moving to an EU country.
There is no "if this comes through". The law was adopted, all that's left is a formal step (getting the law signed) and then a standard waiting period (six months to allow companies to adapt).
That's just not true, it's a going concern for anyone working on online projects in Europe. It's come up for me personally in discussions with every client on every project for the last 4 years now. We're even at the point where major companies are being fined for misteps:
not the commenter, but I would imagine they're referring to the stipulation in GDPR that it must be as easy to decline marketing cookies as it is to accept them, which the overwhelming majority of websites don't abide by
We take GDPR very seriously in the EU. Fines are steep. There are difficulties getting foreign companies to comply, and there isn't a one-size-fits-all compliance toolbox for those breaches.
The noises out of government have been that this will happen for a few years now, at least from the perspective of an EU citizen. They should have been preparing.
> Make core messaging functionality interoperable. They lay out concrete examples like file transfer
Google, Apple, and Amazon are supposed to design, ratify, implement and ship a universal messaging standard in 6 months? This won't happen even if they skip the first two steps and use an existing standard.
Apple ships a new iOS version in September, when this timer is supposed to start. Are they supposed to upend their entire release cycle and ship these major changes to their OS by March?
I've used iPhones for years, and I'm totally down with these bullet points. But I think we can all chuckle at the timeline, given the scope of this.
They will negotiate a proper time frame. It will take years till we see the benefits. The EU will charge them a smaller fine and give them some time with that. Not their first rodeo on both sides.
'Negotiate'? No no my good man. That kind of thing gets easily abused by US corporations and they don't work elsewhere:
When Eu put out the 'browser ballot box' requirement for OSes, Microsoft said that it was technically very complicated, near impossible to implement it.
Then the Eu started fining Microsoft ~700,000 Euros a week or something.
Microsoft magically made the ballot box happen within a week.
What timeline do you think the Gatekeepeers would prefer? Is it a reasonable goal to let BigTech drag it's feet making these changes they didn't want to do on their own accord in the first place?
Amazing things are possible when the incentive is right. Given their VAST resources, it's only a matter of focus.
Mandating things that are impossible and then fining companies for failing to achieve them is just a silly and roundabout way to impose a tax, and if the EU just wants to tax a bunch of tech companies they should do so directly instead of this absurd charade.
clearly that's not what they want. they want less anti-competitive practices and they want them quickly. a massive fine that brings in some public money and punishes them for past actions is a nice upside
That was the unbundling of Internet Explorer from PCs.
Which in hindsight looks like small beers compared to Chrome on-every-device usage, and probably why MS are getting away with it, again, bundling Edge and crippling Firefox workarounds.
> Fines are up to 10% of global revenue for the first offense, and 20% for repeat offenses.
For Alphabet (Google) the revenue distribution from 2015 to 2021 was approximately 33% for all of Europe, Middle-east, and Africa. It's unclear to me the actual European numbers since they are combined EMEA.
For Apple in 2021 the revenue was approximately 23% for Europe (no middle-east or Africa).
For Facebook in 2021 the revenue was also approximately 23% for Europe (no middle-east or Africa).
So it's safe to say that a first offense would potential halve the revenue for the region, and a second offense would remove the financial rationale of doing business in the region.
The EU regulations are often quickly adopted in other market places in similar fashions. Leaving the EU might be a calculation worth, but leaving the rest of the world is often prohibitive.
Do not forget here: These are countries which existed hundred of years before FAANG and will exist hundreds of years after FAANG. They have to protect themselves as a society but also as a constitutional body. If you let the monopolies go their way, their own constitutional existence is in doubt (example: these companies have already gigantic control on aspects which are governed by law hate speech, nudity, etc or are normative in the society). Long rambling, short reply: Other countries will quickly adopt these laws to keep long-term relevant.
> example: these companies have already gigantic control on aspects which are governed by law hate speech, nudity, etc or are normative in the society
Yep. Its amazing how the rest of the world tolerated being moderated on the Internet per - mainly American - foreign laws and even cultural norms up until this point.
What would the money even be used for? Why does the government have to profit from enforcing this.
I’d be fine if we take the money and burn it but it’s not gonna be that is it it’s gonna be we take the money and funnel it into organizations that politicians children happen to be on the boards of.
Deflationary fines are a hilarious idea. If you don't comply, we'll take 10% the value of your company and publicly set fire to it, enriching all consumers in the process
Great, if Alphabet, Facebook and Apple leave the EU, it will be a painful few years but finally boost the EU tech sector. It's what China did: Prohibit external services to force local innovation.
Europe’s requirement of those pesky cookie notices have killed the joy of surfing the net. Every goddamn site has this stupid cookie popup show up. It is like playing whack-a-mole. They should have instead only allow necessary cookies and marketing and other cookies should be part of signing up for a specific service and not just visiting the website. The thought is noble but the implementation sucks.
Cookie banners are a brain-dead, malicious compliance way of evading the actual goal, which was to reduce the needless use of tracking and analytics cookies. AFAIK, if you only use cookies strictly when they need to be used to make your application work, you don't even need the banner.
With the right plugin (both mobile and desktop), you can automatically opt out, something that wasn't possible before. And larger ad companies actually enforce compliance here (where possible).
IMHO, extremely low. The DMA has passed final debate and review, so it's not changing now. The last step is basically a formality. The beauty of the EU is that corporate financial influence is far less pervasive than even in the governments of member nations. The level of abstraction is just too large. Apple, Google, Amazon, et al., can wage a PR campaign, but it's highly unlikely to succeed.
> The beauty of the EU is that corporate financial influence is far less pervasive than even in the governments of member nations.
[citation needed]
The reason this regulations went through easily is that they mostly target foreign operators.
It's not the same with all regulations, the EU is a lobbying battleground as much as everywhere else, you can see that in most things, big corps just go through governments when not going through MEPs.
If it's a matter of lobbying aka legal bribery, why are foreign companies disadvantaged? These American companies have no qualms about lobbying in America, they could do the same in the EU. If the EU officials prefer to serve the interests of EU companies despite lobbying from both of them, maybe it's because they earnestly believe EU interests are better served by EU companies?
> The reason this regulations went through easily is that they mostly target foreign operators.
Because 1) foreign operators do the fuck they want in unregulated markets such as the US and 2) there are no such operators in the EU because they have already been regulated
As someone intimately familiar with the underbelly of the system I can add 3) most of the local corrupting pressure historically came from smaller (than big tech) companies outside of tech so less of a spotlight on them in forums like this one. Think auto industry.
EU institutions tend to want to do the right thing but will easily cave to "lobbying" when it comes to regulation that hits too close to home. They will not hesitate to regulate to the benefit of the people when the regulation hits far from home, lobbying be damned.
In fewer words, they will accept to be corrupted by interests close to home and still put the well being of citizens at any other time.
Citation indeed needed strongly because the opposite is likely true. Same principle why retail wants as few suppliers as possible. Easier to assert your influence. It wouldn't even possible with large central entities where only the largest corps have access to. But it would be far easier to influence some key EU members compared to subsidiary institutions.
The high number of institutions taking part in governance is in part responsive for the reputation of EU to be "slow" to act but it also means that it's incredibly hard to bribe because you have to bribe different institutions that don't even share the same mindsets.
Not arguing there that EU is perfect (it's far from it), but it's really better that what most people think about it, which is because local governments always use the "it's the EU rules, we can't do anything". The thing is, they also omit to remind that ministers and head of states are part of two institutions and that they choose the council of the European Commission. So they are the ones making the rules and those rules have to be accepted by the democratically elected European Parliament.
So when a politician in europe blame the EU for anything, they blame rules that they wrote themselves and that have been approved by a democratically elected parliament.
this is not a pertinent distinction: member states aren't a single monolithic single institution either
the "7 institutions" is also not relevant: Putin wouldn't bother bribing Germany's federal constitutional court or government auditors to push his fossil fuels
he'd go after the executive and legislature: exactly the same as if he wanted to influence EU policy
Not all lobbying is bad. That this regulation clearly protects the local tech industry is in the interest of many companies, but also in the interest of many (if not most) of the population.
I think you are completely mad if thy think that corporate financial influence is far less. Where do you think the EU staff come from?
What happens is you are promoted out of the corporate world and into EU council advisory positions (special advisors). So you end up a fill time EU advisory position with part time and contract work for your parent company. Or there's the full time corporate advisors (institutional special advisors)!
Some are academically sourced and the universities are usually bankrolled by corporations who are just buying advisory positions.
Corporate financial influence is far less. Because there is a quite large segment of actual left, and even 5% to 10% actual communists in the Eu parliament. All thanks to proportional representation in the Eu allowing everyone's views to be represented.
And initiatives like this, same with the Microsoft ballot box initiative, are generally brought to Euparl and led by left-wing MPs, especially communists. There is considerable awareness and following of Open Source in Eu political circles, including Euparl.
Incidentally, a Green-Left coalition dominates Euparl right at this moment as far as I know.
> The beauty of the EU is that corporate financial influence is far less pervasive than even in the governments of member nations.
For how long, I wonder, given the megacorps have financial resources on par with entire nations, and the EU has been taking some pretty strong stances on topics of interest to them? Or will the megacorps at some point just decide Europe's no longer worth the trouble to operate in (probably not the worst outcome)?
Considering how they bend to the local rules around the world, they will bend to this too. I remember only Google shutting down news in Spain and leaving China because of censorship. Apple looks at the money. There are too many money in Europe. They'll put on some sort of a fight but eventually we're going to have third party software on iOS that Apple doesn't approve.
Thanks. I'm not a native English speaker but reading again my comment those words have a funny feeling. Your explanation points out why. So "There is too much money" (almost 10 M exact matches on Google.)
That enforcement is pretty much enough for Eu businesses to observe GDPR.
And its way more than enough for large foreign tech companies like FAANG to have obliged with it waaaaay earlier.
Enforcement generally happens upon reporting. So your garden-variety startup or corp somewhere in the US or another corner of the world is unlikely to get reported unless they start to get sufficient userbase in the Eu.
I once requested under GDPR my personal data on a well known dating app. It contained all messages ever sent as well as GPS positions for years (try it yourself). I then requested that data to be deleted permanently and they refused.
I didn't take it to court because I didn't want my dating history to be dragged out in court.
I will not dispute that we need more enforcement, but it definitely exists and helps. For example, Google recently changed their "cookies" dialogue from "More options" to "Reject all".
Agreed about Google, but not only did it tame 4 years for such an obvious breach to be corrected, but I also don’t believe they were even fined for this particular violation - they decided to start complying after the IAB consent flow ruling.
They’ve basically been allowed to willingly and maliciously breach the regulation for 4 years.
Facebook appears to still be getting away with breaching the regulation on so many levels.
The DMA and DSA will be enforced by the Commission, rather than by member states' local authorities which - hopefully - will avoid the problems we've seen with the GDPR.
GDPR changed a lot. From my own experience, European companies think much harder about what data to collect, where to store it and how to distribute it. We're not even close to 100% enforcement, but a huge step forward from where we were.
If this law only reaches 20% of what it envisions, it'll do more for consumers than other laws before.
It doesn't matter how much you ramp up the fines if there's no willingness to enforce them. GDPR's potential fines were already adequate but the actual fines given out were laughable.
* Install any software
* Install any App Store and choose to make it default
* Use third party payment providers and choose to make them default
* Use any voice assistant and choose to make it default
* User any browser and browser engine and choose to make it default
* Use any messaging app and choose to make it default
* Make core messaging functionality interoperable. They lay out concrete examples like file transfer
* Use existing hardware and software features without competitive prejudice. E.g. NFC
* Not preference their services. This includes CTAs in settings to encourage users to subscribe to Gatekeeper services, and ranking their own services above others in selection and advertising portals
* Much, much, more.
After the Act is signed by the Council and the European Parliament in September, Apple, Google, Amazon, and other "Gatekeepers" will have six months to comply. Fines are up to 10% of global revenue for the first offense, and 20% for repeat offenses.