EU Approves Landmark Legislation to Regulate Apple and Other Big Tech Firms

[shplock]

Its crazy how some people are confused by the idea of an government that actually works for the people, instead of against them.

It's crazy how some people still think the EU works for the people and not for themselves!

 

[shplock]

Great news!
Thank you EU.

Bad news!
F**k off EU!

 

[shplock]

Won't affect you and I (UK). Our govt is way to busy sorting out its own internal issues to worry about passing laws to regulate huge tech companies.

Actually they have started going down that road already, it is just that our government are currently distracted with Bozo's pitiful attempts at pretending he can act like an adult!

 

[Stromos]

There's won't be a second year with that plan.
After the first measure the number of iOS developers will drop like a hammer(it will also create for Apple a huge amount of bad PR so basically suicide).

They will save all that money they have to pay now having to give big bad Apple a cut of sales and having to use all that free infrastructure monster called the appstore!

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Antitrust laws are largely designed to make sure "dominant" companies don't engage in anticompetitive behavior that could stifle competition one way or another. Once a company achieves some sort of dominance in an industry/segment, they are open to more scrutiny from regulators as their business activities can have a much bigger impact and influence on the market in question and/or related markets.

Apple, Google, Microsoft, Meta, etc. deserve to be scrutinized here IMO. I think the debate comes in as to whether or not their activities meet the illegal antitrust/anticompetitive behavior criteria and if so, whether or not the "punishment" fits the "crime." Clearly, people on this forum have differing opinions on much of this.

Historically, they were to ensure that ACTUAL dominant companies (not dominant in quotes, but, in some real way, the dominant force in a related market) don’t engage in anticompetitive behavior. And, those antitrust laws were applied to markets that were not defined by a company’s trademarked properties. Oil, gas, electricity, telecommunications, search are all reasonable market definitions. McDonald’s Big Macs is not. Defining a market as “Apple iPhones” and then being shocked that “APPLE HAS 100% of the APPLE IPHONE MARKET!” is not what antitrust was for. BUT, as we’ve seen, regions are free to redefine whatever they want in order to obtain the needed fees.

 

[shplock]

Europeans don't really bother to sue. Its more likely that most people will not even be made aware of this or care.

Once they are hacked and have all their data exposed, sold and bank accounts emptied they absolutely will sue....especially when lawyers get involved and convince the citizens they can get a big fast cash payout.
That pretty much gets ANYONE anywhere in the world interested.
Also once the EU politicians get hacked and have all their details and data stolen they will suddenly change their mind!

 

[shplock]

I assume it will be like e-mail. Companies will have to make their protocols available to everyone, such the yes, you can DM someone from Instagram to Apple Messages.

This is probably the biggest benefit I see here to the actual users. Everything else mainly benefits other companies.

Wrong! This is dumb!

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Maybe the EU should have tried to save those weaker companies all those years ago. Then there might be some competition today.

What I find most interesting is that they have taken ZERO actions in order to actually increase competition in the smartphone market. Instead, they’re setting up for Apple and Google to be the market leaders in the EU indefinitely.

 

[shplock]

Another example of Tim Cook's failure of leadership and lack of foresight. It was clear where this was headed years ago.

Instead of playing along and offering some concessions, he refused, kept telling countries their rules didn't matter, preferred to pay fines, and now they slap Apple with something this broad. Its his own fault. Most users who were demanding some things open up were asking for reasonable things. And now he's going to have a gigantic patchwork of laws around the world as a result of this that Apple has to comply with.

This is what happens with a weakling like Cook in charge rather than the T-Rex that Jobs was!
Steve would have battered the EU into withdrawing and not even daring to ask again!

 

[shplock]

Does what you said really make sense?

Yes, the EU on the other hand make no sense at all!
They call Apple a monopoly but have no clue what the word means, quick someone hand them a dictionary!

Clue: The word Mono means one!
Do we ONLY have one tech firm?
Is Apple the only tech firm to exist?

Point made!

 

[shplock]

We will see what the reality behind all thse regulations will be. I'm guessing Apple is a lot smarter than most of the over dramatic comments here and have planned for this years ago. Regulations like this don't get decided on the day and neither will Apple's response be something cooked up in a few minutes.

Apple under Cook aren't smart as if they were they would have stopped this!

 

[shplock]

Because.

Because, there is nothing there to state that the OS must automatically allow an app access.
Your iPhone always asks you if you want an app to be allowed access to your photos, your microphone etc. nothing here states that the OS must not do that.

Actually it allows all the above regardless of what the owner wants!

This is the dumbest move from the EU since they appointed a former Third Reich member as it's first leader!

 

[shplock]

If other industries are mostly controlled by dominant companies, yes. The problem with big tech is that for better or worse, various segments are often controlled by two or three major players e.g., mobile OS (Android and iOS have nearly 100% share), desktop/laptop OS (Windows and OS X have around 91% share), browsers (Chrome and Safari have around 84% share), etc.

The EU are being contradictory even if your point is true.

 

[Ethosik]

I fully expect iOS 15/16 whenever this takes place to be the most exploited operating system ever. I don’t believe Apple has security locked down compared to Windows and Android. Those have been attacked more (no forced walled garden) and in the case of windows, about 8-9 times the marketshare.

If you believe iOS is secure after you remove the walled garden, you are buying in to marketing.

 

[shplock]

That American company sells on the EU market. That means the EU should have a say in those companies interacting with its consumers, just as I would expect Americans to do the same with a company that sells on the US market.

That also means the corrupt self serving EU politicians should stop insisting we all bow down to their facist demands and should also then allow the U.K government to tell EU fisherman what to do!
No, did not think so!

 

[shplock]

Great decision

The only one really hurt by this will be Apple.

Microsoft, Google, Samsung already are way more open for years and they already comply with all of this today.

Also keep in mind that all these things are OPTIONAL.

If you want to keep using default iOS apps, default AppStore, default browser nothing really changes for you with this regulation. Only for the people and other developers wanting to use these things there will be a benefit.

Also congrats to Tim Sweeny. He beat the other Tim, without realizing it lol

This is dumb and will result in less security and criminals having a field day. Tim Cook has lost the plot and should be sacked for allowing this!

 

[shplock]

Comply or go to jail, Tim !
In practice, Apple will do the strict minimum and act in bad faith as much as they can, exploiting loopholes, dragging their feet, be annoying as much as possible, invoke security privacy and "think of the children", claiming that they are acting solely for the greater good of humanity, etc.
Hopefully, EU legislators will not particularly enjoy Apple usual ******** when it comes to interpreting the law.

The EU should go to jail first!

 

[pastrychef]

I fully expect iOS 15/16 whenever this takes place to be the most exploited operating system ever. I don’t believe Apple has security locked down compared to Windows and Android. Those have been attacked more (no forced walled garden) and in the case of windows, about 8-9 times the marketshare.

If you believe iOS is secure after you remove the walled garden, you are buying in to marketing.

Have any evidence to back this up?

I'd like to see viruses, worms, and backdoors, not trojans or phishing attacks because no OS can protect against stupid users.

 

[shplock]

Well, just live in the walled gardens and don’t pick those fruits that you yourself deem forbidden and all shall be well. It is of course, still more to chose from rather than not having the proposed choices at hand.

The EU has just made it impossible for anyone to live in the walled garden by destroying it and allowing any murderer, thief and evil into the garden leaving us with NO protection at all!

Sounds more like WW2 EU!

 

[shplock]

A competing OS would be born in no time if that were to happen, which is not going to happen anyway. There is fantastic talent in Computer Science and Programming in Europe, the reasons they don’t have big tech companies the size of Apple or Google are not related to that.

No it would not as once that OS got successful it too would be torn apart and destroyed because EU hate success!

 

[Ethosik]

Ah yes, the old paradox. By adding options, you take away the option to have fewer options. Does man truly have free will if he cannot freely choose to not have free will? This statement is false.

While you're enjoying your debate with Plato, maybe just don't use sideloading if you don't want to?

Apps will leave the App Store. This is 100% guaranteed. Therefore, we can no longer “still use the walled garden”. I can’t stick to a walled garden on windows or Mac or even Android as some stuff isn’t on the stores.

 

[shplock]

I think you misunderstood the entire thing…

By the way, nothing in this law seems to affect what you want, you’ll be fine.

I think you have no clue as you think we have an option....Laughing my *** at you!

 

[Ethosik]

This is both good, and bad. And 100% Apple's own fault for being so staunch in their resistance to giving any ground to third party payment providers.

The App Store open-ness is good and will ultimately result in a better, more secure platform for those that stay within the App Store bounds.

The messaging inter-op is very bad and going to be a nightmare if actually attempted. But again, Apple shot themselves in the foot by not just slightly loosening App Store rules when world governments started looking into this.

How is apple 100% at fault here? Their (they coded it) iOS is meant to be a closed system. Essentially what is being asked is to get rid of iOS and have Apple make something else.

If this heads to consoles, will you also say Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft are 100% at fault too?

 

[Ethosik]

View attachment 2026547
Source:https://www.w3counter.com/globalstats.php

Chrome is approaching too much marketshare IMO. We should not be advocating for more chrome usage. We should be advocating for the opposite. I already see sites say “optimized for Google Crome, use it instead”. We are getting back to the IE days if it keeps up. All it will take is Google to come up with some chrome only standards and here we are again with the IE days.

 

[shplock]

Huh, people can now use WhatsApp to read their SMS texts...?! Why? Why would you want WhatsApp to be interoperable with your SMS app? Why would you want your SMS app to be interoperable with Facebarf Messenger?

Should each app that can receive a message fire off a notification? Great, so now I'll get notifications for the same message from Messages, WhatsApp, Facebarf Messenger, Signal, Telegram...

Does it mean when WhatsApp introduces some new feature like animated smileys, Apple has to do the same? If they don't implement it within say, six months, do they get fined? Are SMS within WhatsApp backed up within a WhatsApp backup? What are the legal ramifications of this?

Should I be able to book an Uber with a London black cab app? How about we just have apps that do what they're built to do? Apple has Messages which does SMS and iMessage. FBM does FBM messages. WhatsApp does WA messages.

This is a massive can of worms, and I don't see how it helps anyone. All it will do is take engineering and testing time away from companies making sure their own stuff works, and there'll be no secrecy in new features because everyone will already know about them because they've had to implement them.

1 thing the supporters and moronic idiots fail to grasp from their basements is the security implications of this. I promise you that the secret squirrels will create a front end messaging system that is then plugged into every messaging app and thus they will finally be able to read every message from any user wether we like it or not.
Whilst the basement dwelling adult virgins will all shout that if we have not done anything wrong then we have nothing to worry about- wrong!
We have plenty to worry about such as safeguarding our private data that is not illegal.
For instance many people around the world may be homosexual and be in a family, community or religion where that is not allowed.
What if that info gets out? What if some rogue operative uses that info for blackmail(happens more than you think Google the UK case of an MI5 agent who used his position to control and blackmail his partner).
What about if people are having an affair, what if they have some medical condition they wish kept private?

I could do this all day long, the bottom line being that this weakens security and privacy to the nth degree!

I am all for catching the bad apples in life such as terrorists etc but not if it means we have to live in a police state to get them!