Apple Subject to 'Special Abuse Control' Says German Antitrust Regulator [Updated]

[Gudi]

Germany has far larger issues than this. Let’s prioritize down at the Beer Garden.

Apple's overwhelming market dominance is a decade-old issue finally getting the political attention it always deserved. The iOS AppStore monopoly was already a huge obstacle to a working market economy when Steve Jobs was still alive. If anything German authorities still don't prioritise this problem enough.

 

[ericwn]

Germany has far larger issues than this. Let’s prioritize down at the Beer Garden.

The country has plenty of departments capable of addressing multiple things at once. It’s a country not a startup.

 

[ericwn]

This coming from Germany that over regulates everything and everyone in all aspects of life. Practically and within its own walls, there’s little consumer protection laws to speak of and no ombudsman to aid those in genuine conflict with large companies. Politics will often have hidden agendas when pretending to represent its own people. Rant over.

Let me find a broader brush for you. 😂

 

[ericwn]

If only the Germans had been as aggressive when Volkswagen scammed all those customers with those fake emissions over many years.

If that were only related to the Kartellamt and not a randomly different story about a multinational company that coincidentally originated in the same country. Whataboutism strikes again…

 

[constructor]

Seems like it'd be a hell of a lot cheaper to just allow third party developers to do all the things that Apple's own internal dev teams are allowed to do.

That would be a bad idea, because those are mostly things which would be highly problematic if any app could do them, such as execution of unsigned binary code (which only WebKit can do in iOS)!

Basically frameworks and/or calls which require a depth of trust which can't be assumed with external developers but inhouse at Apple where it is clear that Apple's entire reputation is on the line and internal teams are under Apple's own control their use is feasible responsibly.

This investigation is about "App Tracking Transparency" which simply requires app developers to publicly summarise whatever tracking they do. Apple can simply order their own app dev team to do the same thing (and as far as I can tell, Apple does that - search Messages in the App Store for example, and you can see the same privacy card as, say, Facebook messenger... except of course Apple's app does a lot less tracking).

Yes, it seems they are generally consistent about it.

Where it gets more iffy is with the ads sold by Apple in the App Store app – Apple uses some knowledge of user behaviour and app usage there, as far as I know nothing beyond what they need to know to even run their customer relationship to the users, but enough to make this somewhat problematic...

 

[constructor]

governments, when technology improves their surveillance capabilities: 😍🥰😘
governments, when technology is used to hide from their eyes:

That is not what this is about!

The german government is just as subject to GDPR and needs to defend data collection just as much, if not more so due to its position – the Bundesverfassungsgericht (the german supreme court) is regularly asked to review governmental overreaches of all kinds and very often mandates changes in the interest of citizens, consumers, minority parties and sometimes businesses.

And in the new, current government the two biggest of the three coalition partners (social democrats and greens) have a pretty good record of civic rights advocacy and even the smallest partner FDP is mostly libertarian with a focus on individual freedoms, just with a significant pro-corporate bent at the same time.

 

[SpringKid]

This is why doing business in the EU is a giant bag of hurt. You have the EU itself, but then you have politicians in member states that still want to implement their own rules as well.

This is why doing business in the USA is a giant bag of hurt. You have the USA itself, but then you have politicians in member states that still want to implement their own rules as well.

 

[constructor]

Apple's overwhelming market dominance is a decade-old issue finally getting the political attention it always deserved.

That does not exist in Germany. Android and Windows have overwhelming market shares here!

But Apple is significant enough by the number of market areas they are active and successful in to merit special attention.

Whether that attention will lead to any regulation remains to be seen and depends on potential abuses, both on the german and on the european level.

The iOS AppStore monopoly was already a huge obstacle to a working market economy when Steve Jobs was still alive. If anything German authorities still don't prioritise this problem enough.

It is all about abusing their multi-market position, and as long as they don't they should be okay.

Their somewhat two-faced stance about advertising in apps vs. their own App Store app is an issue there, for instance...

 

[constructor]

This is why doing business in the USA is a giant bag of hurt. You have the USA itself, but then you have politicians in member states that still want to implement their own rules as well.

Plus the completely insane litigation risks in the US – doing business there is extremely expensive and dangerous compared to Europe!

 

[Mrkevinfinnerty]

"Bring back in-app tracking!"
- Nobody

Yeah the apps still track you but Apple got lots of lovely PR

 

[constructor]

Yeah the apps still track you but Apple got lots of lovely PR

If they do despite the user refusing it, they can get into trouble for deceptive practices, and Apple has already enforced that in several cases.

It could still be better (something like Little Snitch on iOS!) but it's a lot better than nothing, as the balance sheets of Facebook and others have shown!

 

[Mrkevinfinnerty]

If they do despite the user refusing it, they can get into trouble for deceptive practices, and Apple has already enforced that in several cases.

It could still be better (something like Little Snitch on iOS!) but it's a lot better than nothing, as the balance sheets of Facebook and others have shown!

Which ones?

Snapchat, Meta and Google all have workarounds. Apple and privacy is entirely peformative.

 

[AdonisSMU]

MSFT is worth over a trillion dollars. Why havent they been subject to it? Windows has far more than 2 billion devices in operation. They operate on 80-90% of computers.

 

[cocky jeremy]

It's unsurprising, but still a little strange to me when governments take the position to move against policies that attempt to protect privacy. It's probably a healthy blend of stupidity and corruption.

It shouldn't surprise you. Governments want people to be easy to spy on.

 

[floral]

I don’t have anything to add to this discussion. Just always wanted to be able to comment on such a restricted post. Happy to be part of the club. ☺️

Yeah. I don't even know what antitrust means or why I hear it so much... I trust everyone I meet :3

Well, except those white vans with the candy of course.

 

[Chazak]

Roughly 40% market share for iOS in Germany. That’s a big number for the maker of a proprietary solution in said market.

Roughly 60% market share for Android in Germany and even bigger on a global basis. That's a much bigger number. Less security, less privacy, more corrupt.

 

[Chazak]

Part of why that wasn't pursued more urgently was the Merkel government's lax to negligent attitude towards corporate malfeasance.

The Scholz government is exactly now tightening some of those screws, even if this is not exactly the same thing.

And similar to the european competition oversight this applies to both domestic and to foreign corporations.

One thing that is evident from your comments is you have an issue with Apple that seems to prevent an even handed and unbiased evaluation of anything Apple. The other thing that is evident is you believe in excessive regulation as a way to correct your perceived inequities in tech markets and it is your first thought for a remedy after, in your mind, you have convicted a company. The second item is a disease so many in the EU suffer from. Don't like something a business does? Call in the government. They will fix it and restore your version of economic justice.

 

[JTK Awesome]

Germany: Tech companies must give users control over their data

Also Germany: We're going after Apple for allowing users to have some control over their data

 

[Unregistered 4U]

the Bundeskartellamt says that Apple's two billion device active install base gives it a "strong power" to create rules for third parties

Today I learned: Apple has a two billion device active install base in Germany…

 

[bsolar]

Germany: Tech companies must give users control over their data

Also Germany: We're going after Apple for allowing users to have some control over their data

It's more like this:

Apple: Third-party applications and services on our platform need to comply with our App Tracking Transparency Framework to ensure end-user privacy protection.

Germany: That's great! What about first-party applications and services though? Are your own applications and services subject to the same App Tracking Transparency Framework to ensure the same end-user privacy protection as the third-parties are in force?

Apple: Nope.

Germany: Interesting double standard...

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Yeah. I don't even know what antitrust means or why I hear it so much... I trust everyone I meet :3

Well, except those white vans with the candy of course.

And the black vans you see every time you check your phone and see a “MobileVan” hotspot available.

 

[Vref]

Android has 60% ?
Does Android give options for customers to not track ?
is Germany asking Apple to follow Android ?

I’d wager it’s easier for the state to use android phones or their use, breaking into them, spyware, etc, plus the hardened encryption option for iCloud angered a few regimes

Apple has a track record of angering governments who look to snoop, one of the reasons I like Apple

Id wager this is much more of a factor than the sales pitch they are trying to push about being “competitive”, IMHO that argument, as you clearly stated, doesn’t hold water

 

[Kar98]

Some countries can chew gum, walk, defy russian energy blackmail, support Ukraine, push for climate neutrality, clean up from 16 years of Merkel, generally tighten corporate oversight and a lot more at the same time, actually!

Yeah but Germany isn’t one of them.

 

[Vref]

That is not what this is about!

The german government is just as subject to GDPR and needs to defend data collection just as much, if not more so due to its position – the Bundesverfassungsgericht (the german supreme court) is regularly asked to review governmental overreaches of all kinds and very often mandates changes in the interest of citizens, consumers, minority parties and sometimes businesses.

And in the new, current government the two biggest of the three coalition partners (social democrats and greens) have a pretty good record of civic rights advocacy and even the smallest partner FDP is mostly libertarian with a focus on individual freedoms, just with a significant pro-corporate bent at the same time.

[Laughs in 14 eyes]

Fourteen eyes surveillance alliance explained - SecurityMadeSimple.org

A surveillance alliance is an agreement between multiple countries to share their intelligence with one another. This includes things like the browsing history of any user that is of interest to one of the member countries. Five eyes and Fourteen eyes are two alliances of 5 and 14 countries...

www.securitymadesimple.org

 

[d686546s]

The other thing that is evident is you believe in excessive regulation as a way to correct your perceived inequities in tech markets and it is your first thought for a remedy after, in your mind, you have convicted a company. The second item is a disease so many in the EU suffer from. Don't like something a business does? Call in the government. They will fix it and restore your version of economic justice.

Not for nothing, but the list of pressing (and potentially life destroying) global issues caused by regulation is a lot shorter than the list for deregulation.

The market was supposed to sort out so many things and somehow always ends up prioritising shareholder value over anything else. To preempt your question, no regulation isn't always the answer, but that doesn't mean that it's never the answer either.

Big tech as a whole is ripe for regulation.