Brazil Recommends Sanctions for Apple Over App Store Rules

[MacRumors]

Apple is facing renewed antitrust scrutiny in Brazil, where the country's competition regulator has formally recommended sanctions against the company over its App Store rules.

The recommendation was issued by the General Superintendence of Brazil's Administrative Council for Economic Defense (SG/CADE), the technical body of the federal antitrust authority. In a public statement translated from Portuguese, SG/CADE determined that Apple's conduct with iOS constitutes a violation of Brazilian competition law and urged CADE's internal tribunal to impose penalties, including financial fines and mandatory changes to Apple's policies.

The investigation started in 2022 after formal complaints were submitted by Latin American e-commerce platform MercadoLibre and other digital service providers. The companies alleged that Apple engaged in anti-competitive practices by requiring in-app purchases to be made exclusively through its own payment system and by restricting developers from informing users about alternative purchasing options — a practice known as anti-steering. In a statement to the Brazilian technology publication Tecnoblog, Apple said:

For more than 16 years, the App Store has provided our users in Brazil with a safe and trusted marketplace to discover new apps and has helped Brazilian developers build successful businesses. We are concerned that CADE's proposed measures would harm the experience our users love and trust, while also introducing new risks to their privacy and security. We will continue to engage with CADE to defend the rights of users and developers on our platform.

According to Reuters, CADE's technical body has now concluded that Apple's enforcement of these restrictions creates artificial barriers to entry for competitors and harms both developers and consumers. In its ruling, CADE wrote that Apple's practices "artificially preserve its dominant position" in iOS-related markets and reduce the availability of competing digital payment solutions. CADE's internal tribunal must now decide whether to accept the recommendation and proceed with formal sanctions.

Note: Due to the political or social nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Political News forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Article Link: Brazil Recommends Sanctions for Apple Over App Store Rules

 

[UliBaer]

...getting popcorn ready. 🍿

 

[surfzen21]

BRICS is flailing and failing.

Just another attack on American companies in hopes to hurt the Dollar.

 

[63W]

Slap Apple with a $100million fine per incident.

 

[masterhiggins]

Sure, we'll open up our ecosystem to your garbage. Sure.

 

[tennisproha]

I agree with open NFC access, but not open App Store access and side loading. Open NFC spurs competition. Open App Store invites malware and is a security and privacy risk.

 

[ProbablyDylan]

The investigation started in 2022 after formal complaints were submitted by Latin American e-commerce platform MercadoLibre and other digital service providers. The companies alleged that Apple engaged in anti-competitive practices by requiring in-app purchases to be made exclusively through its own payment system and by restricting developers from informing users about alternative purchasing options — a practice known as anti-steering.

Wow, yet another country investigating and concluding that Apple's behavior is anticompetitive! How many are we up to?

 

[Timo_Existencia]

Per stat counter, the iPhone has 9.1% marketshare in Brazil.

These governments hungry to increase revenue are abusing the idea of “anticompetitive.”

 

[digimc]

Apple stands to lose a lot of money with fines already from the European Union and now possible fines from Brazil. Interestingly the EU was going after Apple's profits with their fines. Apple faced a $500 million dollar fine and then 5% daily fine on all profits. Simply put the more money Apple made, the higher the fines. There is no indication from this article that Brazil plans to do the same, only issue broad sanctions and fines based off a set dollar amount.

Apple was compelled to comply with the EU's decision, because the fines were progressive in their nature. I wonder if Brazil plans to impose daily fines or just one fine per decision.

 

[WarmWinterHat]

Apple stands to lose a lot of money with fines already from the European Union and now possible fines from Brazil. Interestingly the EU was going after Apple's profits with their fines. Apple faced a $500 million dollar fine and then 5% daily fine on all profits. Simply put the more money Apple made, the higher the fines. There is no indication from this article that Brazil plans to do the same, only issue broad sanctions and fines based off a set dollar amount.

Apple was compelled to comply with the EU's decision, because the fines were progressive in their nature. I wonder if Brazil plans to impose daily fines or just one fine per decision.

The sanctions Brazil talked about previously were banning imports and sales in the country.

 

[RemedyRabbit]

Lets face it the writing is on the wall for the locked App Store. Apple should do themselves a favour and try to get ahead of it by opening the platform up, much better to take ownership of it on their own terms than have it forced upon them.

TBH I can’t wait, it’ll be great for innovation to go back to a time whereby people can install whatever the hell the like on their devices. I want to be able to use my iphone like I use my mbp.

Everything in tech has become way too locked down and corporate, I miss the early days of the internet before big tech dominance. That’s not coming back any time soon, but this sort of thing is a step in the right direction.

 

[now i see it]

before I clicked on the Mac rumors website - I said to myself, "another day, another Apple lawsuit"". And here we are - I was right!

 

[turbineseaplane]

Uh oh ... another Country that's "wrong", but Apple is "right".

Soon they may have to pull out of doing business on Earth.

 

[ifxf]

I agree with open NFC access, but not open App Store access and side loading. Open NFC spurs competition. Open App Store invites malware and is a security and privacy risk.

I don’t need a nanny protecting me, I can make my our decisions on what to load. I recently downloaded loaded an updated version of a game and it is now loaded with ads, would love to go back to the previous version.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

The iPhone marketshare is so tiny in Brazil, they, like China and Indonesia are likely more after how to get what they want rather than playing regulatory games.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Uh oh ... another Country that's "wrong", but Apple is "right".

Soon they may have to pull out of doing business on Earth.

If Brazil wants Android to be 100% instead of 93% of their market, that wouldn’t be unlike how most of the world prefers Android.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

I don’t need a nanny protecting me, I can make my our decisions on what to load. I recently downloaded loaded an updated version of a game and it is now loaded with ads, would love to go back to the previous version.

You’re saying that you bought a device not understanding how it works? Hopefully you’ll be buying a more appropriate device next time!

 

[AppliedMicro]

Any day with more antitrust and anticompetitiveness action against Apple is a good day. 🥳

Interestingly the EU was going after Apple's profits with their fines. Apple faced a $500 million dollar fine and then 5% daily fine on all profits

No, not on all profits - but 5% of "turnover":

Quote: "5 % of the average daily worldwide turnover in the preceding financial year per day"

👉 And so far - more precisely: given Apple's behaviour and obstinate noncompliance - it's looking quite good that the EU will eventually impose period penalties on them. 😎

 

[turbineseaplane]

Any day with more antitrust and anticompetitiveness action against Apple is a good day. 🥳

No, not profits.
5% of daily turnover!

Lately that means "day that ends with Y"

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Everything in tech has become way too locked down and corporate, I miss the early days of the internet before big tech dominance. That’s not coming back any time soon, but this sort of thing is a step in the right direction.

You miss the days before the iPhone. When carriers ran the app stores and charged devs up to 70% meaning a severely crippled version of “Office” could cost $99. On a phone. OK!

 

[ProbablyDylan]

Uh oh ... another Country that's "wrong", but Apple is "right".

Soon they may have to pull out of doing business on Earth.

Maybe that's what Tim and Elon were talking about when they were at Apple Park together. When is Mars getting an Apple Store?

 

[WarmWinterHat]

You miss the days before the iPhone. When carriers ran the app stores and charged devs up to 70% meaning a severely crippled version of “Office” could cost $99. On a phone. OK!

I'd prefer no store, and just download/install apps directly. I don't need nor want a middleman, Apple, the carriers, or otherwise.

I don't even care if the App Store is default. Just me let take an .ipa and do with it as I wish.

...then, maybe, I can get Firefox with plugin support.

 

[AppliedMicro]

You’re saying that you bought a device not understanding how it works? Hopefully you’ll be buying a more appropriate device next time!

Consumers have a choice of mobile device to purchase.

But they have little to no choice of mobile application store to sign up with and download/buy apps from.

Nor (getting back to topic here) choice of digital payment system on phones.

 

[klasma]

You miss the days before the iPhone. When carriers ran the app stores and charged devs up to 70% meaning a severely crippled version of “Office” could cost $99. On a phone. OK!

I miss the days when phones weren’t the majority computing platform. And I had a Palm device that didn’t have an app store and just allowed normal installation of programs.

 

[tennisproha]

I don’t need a nanny protecting me, I can make my our decisions on what to load. I recently downloaded loaded an updated version of a game and it is now loaded with ads, would love to go back to the previous version.

Making a strong case for why you do in fact need a nanny lol