Then nothing nothing wrong in asking Apple to build its own country so that it can have laws that it likes.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
EU Approves Landmark Legislation to Regulate Apple and Other Big Tech Firms
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
If Apple doesn’t lift restrictions in the EU regarding sideloading, app stores, payment systems, browser engines and other things being identified as anticompetitive behavior, they will continue to face regulatory scrutiny, lawsuits, etc. Same goes for other market dominant (as they’ve defined) companies doing business or looking to do business in the EU. This legislation is about more specifically defining the rules, not changing them.
Yes, but if it stated it up front, I could bypass downloading that garbage and move on to the next one.
But, they won't be honest about it. How many times has Alphabet be caught trying to circumvent Apple's 'do not track me' measures?
In this case, it was kind of time sensitive (like a 3 minute window). So having to root through that nonsense is frustrating. Personally, I find the lack of transparency by App developers far more frustrating than the ecosystem issue - which is exactly WHY I am in the ecosystem.
Android devs want the Apple users because they are more willing to pay for software. The reason I am willing to pay is to avoid exactly that, and I personally believe a lot of other users feel the same way.
Their "specific definitions" are (1) they must have a certain amount of revenue and market cap in the EU, (2) they must have certainty number of users, and (3) they must have been successful for certain number of years. These criteria were put in place to specifically target Apple and Google. They could have simplified things a just said this only applies to Apple and Google.
By their definition, restricting side loading, app stores, payment systems, browser engines, and other thing being identified as anti competitive behavior is not wrong or illegal unless your revenues are €7.5B and market cap is €75B and have 10,000 users or more for three years or more.
Everyone is free to engage in all these practices as long as they do not become overly successful at doing so.
This is a double standard against the successful.
Last edited:
Why would they do that and then have to modify the law again later if other companies become the large successful ones? Better to set general metrics and be done with it.
Anti-trust laws generally apply to the most successful. This is nothing new.
I think you’re wrong on three accounts.
Companies are just assumed to be such gatekeepers if they fulfill these criteria they don’t necessarily have to.
Nope, see above.
They could still be considered gatekeepers subject to the regulations.
Also, I don’t see what’s so wrong with these criteria, if the EU is only concerned about companies that significantly impact the functioning of the internal market?
I see nothing about "assumed". I just see "that meets the following qualitative and quantitive criteria".
That wouldn't make any sense since they can't predict what companies will meet the criteria in the future.
Which is how antitrust laws and regulations typically work and have long worked. They focus on companies that have notable market power (often a monopoly or part of an oligopoly) because it's those companies that can/will have the greatest undesirable impact on the particular market(s) IF they engage in anticompetitive behavior.
Exactly, I agree. If Apple does not like the laws and regulations that the EU makes, there are two choices for Apple. Either build its own country so that it can enact laws and regulations it likes or exit the EU.
What on earth are you talking about here? Who said anything about banks making phones?
You're going to have to be more clear on the difference here... Which competitors need to be protected against Apple's hegemony and which don't? What constitutes a natural death and what constitutes using a dominant position in one market to restrict competition in another?
You just said that there's little barrier to entry in a bank issuing a card. They have access to the market. They aren't being forced to open their platforms to Apple's services. Apple's card is really not their card, it's a Goldman Sachs card. Airlines have cards, Amazon has a card, department stores have cards that all carry some small tie back to their core services.
You seem awfully obsessed with this NFC chip in your phone, but I've got 6 NFC chips in my pocket (2 credit cards, two bank cards, a transit card and my phone)-- they're not a restricted resource.
Seriously, rather than just declare something anti-competitive unilaterally against one of those chips, lay out your defining principles here. What is competition and differentiation in the market versus anti-competitive? Why is NFC such a big deal? Who is being threatened and how?
I wasn't being condescending, you seemed confused about how Apple found their way into the smartphone business.
If only allowing one carrier access to the platform, only allowing one OS, and giving preference to first party apps isn't anticompetitive, than what are we talking about here? They didn't have zero market share in the computer ecosystem around the smartphone, and they held a dominant position in music when they entered the market.
And, as you point out, there wasn't really much of a mobile app market before Apple essentially turbo charged it with their AppStore, so it's a heavy lift to argue that Apple somehow held it back.
Ok, so you agree it will be harder to setup and use an iPhone under this new regime. I either need to juggle multiple wallets or change banks. That's a significant additional burden on me as a consumer.
That's not the same reality people face today for two reasons: the fragmentation is new because all banks that want to go through electronic payments on iPhone need to support Apple Wallet today, after this they won't. Second, I'm already set up today with banking services I'm happy with but now you're saying I need to change issuers only because of this law.
Why is it ok for a bank to use their dominant position in the market in an anti-competitive way against Apple by not supporting their wallet?
Yes, I interpret "allow" to mean enable, not require. If it was written as "require developers to integrate their digital services directly..." then I'd expect convergence of messaging platforms. As written it's a one way street-- Apple has to surrender their service, but nobody has to cooperate with Apple.
So much for taking the high road on snark...
I was pretty explicit: it will fail because the site benefits from its failure. I mean, unless you think the EU wanted us to have to keep clicking through layers of menus to choose our cookies every time we visit a site, I think there's a track record of failure on this point.
😄 Ah, so because you think nothing has changed since iPhone4, we should ensure that no future innovation is permitted by codifying it in law. By making Apple a public utility, we're pretty much ensuring that the next new thing can't do to Apple what Apple did to Nokia and RIM.
If nothing has changed since iPhone 4, why are we arguing about NFC at all?
And what force has been working against this fragmentation? Apple. The AppStore is a common point of integration among all content producers through a single distribution channel. It was pro-consumer by encouraging a common set of standards and single point of access and it was pro developer by giving small devs equal access to users as the big guys.
That is being undermined by this law. We finally had someone trying to do it right, and the government is ensuring that we go back to the old way of fragmented services.
Seems you did not read the actual proposed text of the law…
https://www.consilium.europa.eu/media/56086/st08722-xx22.pdf
…then but cite what’s merely simplified explanatory information.
Last edited:
Apple was found guilty in the Netherlands for anti competitive Practices.
Eu have launched Two probes, with the preliminary ruling they are guilty of anti competitive practices. And will be brought prosecuted in the same way google was prosecuted.
Antitrust: Commission sends Statement of Objections to Apple on App Store rules for music streaming providers
The European Commission has informed Apple of its preliminary view that it distorted competition in the music streaming market as it abused its dominant position for the distribution of music streaming apps through its App Store.
One’s common point of integration (and single point of access) is another’s lack of choice.
One’s fragmentation is another’s competitive market and consumer choice.
Charging 30% on a third-party service you don’t provide (streaming video, dating service) isn’t pro-consumer.
Disallowing categories of apps or certain functionality (not talking about IAP) in apps isn’t pro-consumer either - and I already provided examples for these.
The fact that Apple can, arbitrarily, exclude any developer or consumer from their “single-point” app download service is neither pro-consumer nor pro-developer.
Lack of interoperability/reachability of iMessage, the included, self-preferenced messaging client with Android devices/users isn’t pro-consumer either (especially not when considering Apple clearly has the capability and will to provide Android apps where convenient and its executives having gone on record that they won’t do it to prevent switching).
They’re all anti-consumer.
Nothing (or very little) is stopping Apple from operating their services, such as the App Store or Apple Pay, as before - and provide them with superior pricing/user experience than competitors. That would be pro-consumer.
Seems that Adobe and Microsoft have been successfully working against fragmentation, haven’t they?
Isn’t that ease-of-use (of not having to learn and use different tools to edit Word/Photoshop documents) very pro-consumer?
Last edited:
And how would you circumvent it? Not have revenue in EU?
These are measurements of influence. The law uses an objective standard. The company can argue their case of why they shouldn’t be classified as a gatekeeper.
The DMA defines the concept of “gatekeeper” by reference to three subjective criteria: (1) a significant impact in the internal market; (2) an important gateway for business users to reach end users; and (3) an entrenched and durable position in its operations. The DMA presumes that a core platform service satisfies these criteria if it meets the following thresholds:
DMA do’s and don’ts
The key obligations for gatekeepers under the DMA include:- providing end-users—upon request and free of charge—effective portability of data and the tools to do so;
- providing business-users—upon request and free of charge—with “effective, high-quality, continuous and real-time” access and use of aggregated and non-aggregated data, including personal data;
- allowing effective interoperability of hardware and software with third parties (including messaging services);
- allowing “sideloading,” i.e., permitting app users to install and use apps that are downloaded from third-party app resources—but gatekeepers may take “duly justified” measures to prevent endangering the integrity of their hardware or operating systems;
- permitting business users to access advertisement information on a daily basis, as well as access to the gatekeeper’s performance measuring tools;
- permitting advertisers and publishers to run their own verification and measurement tools to assess performance on gatekeepers’ platforms; and
- allowing business users to promote offers and conclude contracts with end-users outside the gatekeeper’s platform.
- combine or use personal data between their different core platform services, unless the end-user has provided GDPR-style consent;
- restrict business- and end-users’ ability to raise complaints;
- request business- and end-users use the gatekeeper’s own identification services, web browser engine, or payment services;
- use business-users’ data to leverage a competitive advantage;
- treat their own services and products more favorably in ranking (and related indexing and crawling) than similar services or products offered by third parties on the gatekeeper’s platform;
- prevent consumers from linking up to businesses outside their platforms; and
- prevent users from uninstalling any pre-installed software or app.
I’m not going to bother going in-depth on re-explaining this point for you. Simply put, Apple not giving card issuers the same access to NFC on the iPhone that Apple gives itself is anti-competitive toward banks because banks don’t have their own phones for consumers to buy and people typically only have one phone anyway. Banks not making the NFC chips in their cards do myriad things is not anti-competitive because credit cards are a commodity-type item that are extremely cheap to make, generally free for consumers to receive, and as you yourself admit are carried by people in multiples on a regular basis.
How did Apple restrict competition in the point and shoot camera market?
What “platform” does a bank have that Apple could need access to? They offer bank accounts, I’d be hard pressed to call that a platform.
Indeed they’re not a restricted resource, but in a world where folks have moved to having only a digital wallet, they may have moved to carrying just a single NFC chip, the one in their phone. With digital state ID’s having launched in Arizona and Maryland, that’s a possible reality today for folks in those states and soon others as well. You don’t see how dictating what banks and other businesses can do with the only NFC chip consumers may carry can be a big deal? You don’t see how Apple can today allow themselves to do things with the chip that they won’t allow others to do?
It seems that you’re under the false impression that Apple held all the power over carriers when launching the iPhone when in fact it was the other way around, with Apple having to all but beg AT&T to allow the iPhone on their network.
Project Vogue: Inside Apple's iPhone Deal With ATT
English: Steve Jobs shows off the white iPhone 4 at the 2010 Worldwide Developers Conference Español: Presentación del iPhone 4 por Steve Jobs en la Worldwide Developers Conference del año 2010 (Photo credit: Wikipedia) In early 2005, Steve Jobs was poised to convince AT&T to buy into an...
www.forbes.com
Who is offering only one OS on a piece of hardware anti-competitive toward? Not having third-party apps isn’t anti-competitive when you have zero market share. And it’s funny that you proceed to ignore that Apple then launched the App Store a year after the iPhone’s initial release. So even if you want to portray the original launch with no third-party apps, even though that was still a nascent industry in the first place, Apple rectified that a year later. A potential court case on that being anti-competitive wouldn’t have even had its first hearing by the time Apple launched the App Store.
Apple didn’t hold it back in the early days. They do now, as the market has shifted and matured substantially over the last 15 years.
Things may not change for you, we don’t know. Your bank could continue to only support Apple Wallet. They may move to support only their own wallet. They could decide to support both and give their customers options.
Which bank doesn’t support Apple Wallet? Which bank has a dominant position in the market? Even the biggest banks have market shares only in the high single digits to low double digits. Unlike smartphone OS’s, banking is a highly competitive field with many relevant players.
What do you mean by one way street and nobody being forced to cooperate with Apple? If WhatsApp can now communicate with iMessage, that will work both ways.
You can use all the snark you’d like, however preferably you wouldn’t use it to the point of hindering clear communication.
If the websites would benefit from its failure, then the EU should mandate those website’s participation in a regime of categorizing their cookies.
Last edited:
I read the following:
Digital Markets Act—The New Era of EU Digital Regulation for Big Tech
In late March, EU lawmakers provisionally agreed to new EU rules to curb the market power of big technology platforms acting as “gatekeepers”. The DMA will ban large digital platforms designated as gatekeepers from engaging in certain practices, which are deemed unfair or which otherwise limit...
www.akingump.com
But even in your link, I found nothing about "assumed".
Deliberately lowering revenue is always possible.
I'm not arguing what the do's and don'ts are. I'm looking for clear definition of what they deem a gatekeeper is.
Imagine spending time and money to build your dream house. Then, after completing it and living in it for more than a decade, the government changes plumbing and electrical wiring regulations and says your building is no longer compliant to new building codes and that you would have to redo it all...
Last edited:
Apple was found guilty in the Netherlands for anti competitive Practices.
Eu have launched Two probes, with the preliminary ruling they are guilty of anti competitive practices. And will be brought prosecuted in the same way google was prosecuted.
Antitrust: Commission sends Statement of Objections to Apple on App Store rules for music streaming providers
The European Commission has informed Apple of its preliminary view that it distorted competition in the music streaming market as it abused its dominant position for the distribution of music streaming apps through its App Store.ec.europa.eu
That's the proper way to punish anti competitive behavior. The outcome was that Apple changed the App Store rules to comply.
This is what the EU commission should be doing. Instead, they are changing the rules.
🤣
Are you serious??
1: Annual turnover of €7.5 billion within the EU or a worldwide market valuation of €75 billion.
2: Have at least 45 million monthly individual end-users and 100,000 business users.
3: Control one or more core platform services such as marketplaces and app stores, search engines, social networking, cloud services, advertising services, voice assistants and web browsers.
Which of those seems to be so baffling to you?
When Apple’s business decisions effect them and only them (much like the homeowner) you might have a salvageable analogy…
Exactly. Something we can agree on. If the cost to doing business in the EU whittles away apples brand image, brand value and revenue, they might have to make some decisions. Let the citizens of the EU use android.
Last edited:
In either case, "presumed guilty" and/or "assumed guilty" are very different from "is guilty".