EU Plans to Hit Apple With Antitrust Charges Over Apple Pay

[I7guy]

Apple can fight (aka pay lobbyists and lawyers), but at the end of the day they're at the mercy of whatever the EU decides. Also, there's zero chance that disabling Apple Pay in the EU results in less of a hit to the bottom line than allowing third-party's access to NFC. Not only does Apple take the immediate revenue hit, but they also cease being a competitor in the second largest market in the world in what appears to be an area worth billions of dollars and growing.

I can't speak for Apple so I don't know what their plans are. They may roll-over and capitualte (not likely) or they may come out swinging. What legal remedies they have and what their action plan is are yet to be seen.

 

[vipergts2207]

I can't speak for Apple so I don't know what their plans are. They may roll-over and capitualte (not likely) or they may come out swinging. What legal remedies they have and what their action plan is are yet to be seen.

Yes, that we don't know the future should be an obvious given, not something that needs to be explicitly stated every time there's a discussion on events that have yet to fully unfold or resolve. Like I said, at the end of the day Apple is at the mercy of the EU when operating in that market, regardless of any swinging may they do.

 

[LV426]

I think that is the case everywhere

Exactly. Which is why it is pointless raising the argument that someone can vote out a policy they disagree with.

 

[LV426]

Your vote doesn't guarantee the outcome you desire. It would appear a majority of people have regularly disagreed with your position. That sometimes happens living in a democratic society. Not voting on single-issue matters is beside the point. You can still vote for people who hold the positions you do. If those positions are popular, your candidate of choice will win.

Not at all. In the U.K., for example, most people do not want the government we have. The voting system (first past the post / boundary selection) heavily favours the current rightwing incumbents. The majority of voters do not want this government and their policies. And, yet, we are lumbered with them.

Things are rather different in places having proportional representation democracy. Your vote is much less likely to be completely wasted in those elections.

 

[vipergts2207]

Agreed, certain voting systems would allow democracy to function more efficiently. Unfortunately, some people have a vested interest in tilting the scales of democracy by keeping antiquated processes like FPTP voting or allowing politicians to essentially draw their own districts.

 

[Nuno Lopes]

IMO, they are entitled to every $$$ from their intellectual property.

Agreed. But there is indeed a difference between being payed for their intellectual property and using their intellectual property to get leverage over other businesses that are not intrinsically related with such property. Including leverage over the decision ability of the owners of the material property.

In my opinion the relationship between intellectual property and material property seams to be lacking in policy in order to protect the rights and benefits of the owners of the material property. This rights aren’t all left on the table once the material property was aquired. In fact, are usually expanded., not shrank.

IMHO Apple has been abusing its intelectual property to get power over the material property of its customers and their relationship with other businesses. The modus operandi is the same either we are talking about the App Store, Electronic Payment or indeed Right to Repair.

 

[Altivec88]

I don't get this line of thinking. Am I not allowed to invent a NFC credit card device which is equivalent to Apple Pay but that is all it does. I tell everyone that if you buy this device, I've only designed it to use my one payment provider. People end up buying it and it becomes successful even though there are many alternatives devices/cards/money. Would I then be forced to open up my device to other pay platforms? Would I be forced to figure out and pay for all the security implications/programming/etc because my competitors want in on my action? It makes no sense to invent anything now a days.

 

[gregmancuso]

Apple does actually allow NFC use over Apple HomeKit. To unlock doors for instance. If they want to keep their Apple Pay monopoly (and I’m sure they do) Apple should at least implement the access to NFC via Apple Wallet.

Edit: it turned out, that NFC within Apple Wallet requires a special entitlement and permissions from Apple. Companies like Starbucks have signed a legal agreement and NDA and therefore no open API’s exists for Apple Wallet.

Yes there are special entitlements that ANY developer can register for. The API is open and published, but only accessible with a registered entitlement. No different that needing a license key to access a public web service (like moving data payloads with MuleSoft).

As for Starbucks having the entitlement - what do they do with NFC? My Starbucks card is in my wallet and it is a QR code. There is no Starbucks branded contactless anything using NFC that I can see. If there is something better than the QR code that would be great. SBUX is about the only thing I pull my phone out for anymore since using the QR code in the Apple Watch wallet is awkward at best.

 

[Nuno Lopes]

I don't get this line of thinking. Am I not allowed to invent a NFC credit card device which is equivalent to Apple Pay but that is all it does. I tell everyone that if you buy this device, I've only designed it to use my one payment provider. People end up buying it and it becomes successful even though there are many alternatives devices/cards/money. Would I then be forced to open up my device to other pay platforms? Would I be forced to figure out and pay for all the security implications/programming/etc because my competitors want in on my action? It makes no sense to invent anything now a days.

Well that is not what Apple sells to the common man. To the common man it sells a smartphone, an internet communicator, unraveling the wonders of progress and creativity. If they sold it as a payment processing thingie requiring further payments would sell jack … the all thing is based on leverage over the material property.

From a “regular” business perspective there is absolutely no relationship between making great cinema like videos and paying for goods using the smartphone except for the smartphone. There is none … yet here lies the power of conglomerates and the way it can leverage or even dilute one business into another to take the competition out. This has been fundamentally Apple business strategy when it comes to expanding their non device business portfolio while further controlling users material properties. This is fundamentally what Anti Trust is looking at.

 

[vipergts2207]

I don't get this line of thinking. Am I not allowed to invent a NFC credit card device which is equivalent to Apple Pay but that is all it does. I tell everyone that if you buy this device, I've only designed it to use my one payment provider. People end up buying it and it becomes successful even though there are many alternatives devices/cards/money. Would I then be forced to open up my device to other pay platforms? Would I be forced to figure out and pay for all the security implications/programming/etc because my competitors want in on my action? It makes no sense to invent anything now a days.

Yes, because if you can’t artificially lock out competition it’s totally not worth making billions of dollars. And Apple invented neither contactless payments nor NFC.

 

[gregmancuso]

What you call fragmentation is indeed open competition. Requiring every single kind of business from digital goods and services to banking build their own smartphone is an anti-competitive practice. That would, even if possible which is not, would indeed lead to device fragmentation.

This is Apple goal and will not be allowed to enforce it regardless of how popular are their devices. Which in effect it what is the popular part of the all thing. Everything else has been forced through a mechanism of technological levers and closed policies while pretending to be open.

The point of the comment, I believe, is application / function fragmentation - not saying that the banks should build their own phone. That would be insane. The likelihood is that most banks will add NFC payment to their apps and pull support from ApplePay. No more having all your cards in our Wallet. No more having a single place to select and use a credit card. No single and consistent process as each app will be different. No more double-click the home button to access a Wallet of all your cards. You'd have to open and unlock the phone, find and open the desired bank app, log into that banking app and access the payment processes. Then you can charge something.

Changing banks or credit cards is not always easy to do. If none of your current credits cards will work with ApplePay since they all now have their own apps you have to apply for another card that does support ApplePay. Are you even able to qualify for another card? Will that new card be supported forever, or just until the bank's app is ready?

This is actually harder than moving between phone platforms.

 

[vipergts2207]

The point of the comment, I believe, is application / function fragmentation - not saying that the banks should build their own phone. That would be insane. The likelihood is that most banks will add NFC payment to their apps and pull support from ApplePay. No more having all your cards in our Wallet. No more having a single place to select and use a credit card. No single and consistent process as each app will be different. No more double-click the home button to access a Wallet of all your cards. You'd have to open and unlock the phone, find and open the desired bank app, log into that banking app and access the payment processes. Then you can charge something.

Changing banks or credit cards is not always easy to do. If none of your current credits cards will work with ApplePay since they all now have their own apps you have to apply for another card that does support ApplePay. Are you even able to qualify for another card? Will that new card be supported forever, or just until the bank's app is ready?

This is actually harder than moving between phone platforms.

That last statement is going to vary wildly from person to person. I could open dozens of credit cards in the time it would take me to move from iOS to Android.

 

[gregmancuso]

Not to anthropomorphize Apple, but sometimes there is a game-theoretic strategy in which corporations make a sub-optimal shorter term choice to fight something, in order to discourage future actions against them. An example would be choosing expensive defenses against nuisance lawsuits. I don't see such a play here, offhand, but I'm not a corporate strategist, so I haven't spent much effort analyzing this.

I think I read about this - a game company of some renown leveraging game theory - making a sub-optimal short-term choice to fight for ... something. I don't recall all the details, but I don't think it worked out for them.

 

[gregmancuso]

Apple is not an open platform. If Apple banned all third party apps and services from their phones they could. It is their business.

I can't buy a Whopper at McDonalds. You just drive down and go to Burger King or skip the Apple store and buy Android. There is an alternative it is called Android which is much bigger. People know they can't use other services it is consumer choice.

Until the EU lets me buy a Mercedes with a BMW engine shut your trap.

The EU will allow that now. What you need is this same logic applied to their various automakers and mandate by parliamentary fiat that all Mercedes vehicles must open their design models up and allow for the choice of first-party engine (Daimler) or third-party (BMW, Fiat).

 

[gregmancuso]

That last statement is going to vary wildly from person to person. I could open dozens of credit cards in the time it would take more to move from iOS to Android.

Not everyone has stellar credit and could do that. Also, each card you open will impact your credit score. Down a bit for the hard pull. Down a bit for the new line of credit. Down a bit for reducing the average age of accounts. Up a bit for reducing percent of used credit. It would be a net down. And after two or three of these new accounts opened within a few hours or days the number of hard pulls will be quite detrimental. But let's say you succeed in opening dozens of accounts before your score and the number of pulls triggers every fraud system around. What then? You have dozens of credit cards and an absolutely horrible credit score. Better not need a new car loan anytime soon. Or a mortgage. Or even a new mobile phone plan or some other new utility account. You would be considered a credit risk for quite a while.

Moving from iOS to Android (or the reverse) only takes minutes. Get any unlocked Android (or IOS for the reverse) phone and swap the SIM card. Boom. Done. Oh, you mean apps? Sure - that might take a little while. Many, many apps are cross-platform and rely on subscriptions which may often be paid outside of the pp Store. You probably have some already - Netflix, Spotify, Office 365, Hulu, and so on. Yeah, there will be some that are iOS-specfic where you would need to find a comparable Android app. There may be a little cost involved in those replacement apps. But, hey, the vast majority of mobile app profit is on the iOS platform, so I have to assume that most Android apps are free or virtually free anyway.

 

[I7guy]

Agreed. But there is indeed a difference between being payed for their intellectual property and using their intellectual property to get leverage over other businesses that are not intrinsically related with such property. Including leverage over the decision ability of the owners of the material property.

In my opinion the relationship between intellectual property and material property seams to be lacking in policy in order to protect the rights and benefits of the owners of the material property. This rights aren’t all left on the table once the material property was aquired. In fact, are usually expanded., not shrank.

IMHO Apple has been abusing its intelectual property to get power over the material property of its customers and their relationship with other businesses. The modus operandi is the same either we are talking about the App Store, Electronic Payment or indeed Right to Repair.

The hardware is yours, the software is licensed. No one has to buy an iphone if they don't like the licensing agreement. Government stepping in to dictate how Apple should develop it's software is overarching abuse of power.

 

[I7guy]

Yes, that we don't know the future should be an obvious given, not something that needs to be explicitly stated every time there's a discussion on events that have yet to fully unfold or resolve. Like I said, at the end of the day Apple is at the mercy of the EU when operating in that market, regardless of any swinging may they do.

They may not be as much as the mercy as you believe, until you see what their action plan and response is.

 

[vipergts2207]

Not everyone has stellar credit and could do that. Also, each card you open will impact your credit score. Down a bit for the hard pull. Down a bit for the new line of credit. Down a bit for reducing the average age of accounts. Up a bit for reducing percent of used credit. It would be a net down. And after two or three of these new accounts opened within a few hours or days the number of hard pulls will be quite detrimental. But let's say you succeed in opening dozens of accounts before your score and the number of pulls triggers every fraud system around. What then? You have dozens of credit cards and an absolutely horrible credit score. Better not need a new car loan anytime soon. Or a mortgage. Or even a new mobile phone plan or some other new utility account. You would be considered a credit risk for quite a while.

Moving from iOS to Android (or the reverse) only takes minutes. Get any unlocked Android (or IOS for the reverse) phone and swap the SIM card. Boom. Done. Oh, you mean apps? Sure - that might take a little while. Many, many apps are cross-platform and rely on subscriptions which may often be paid outside of the pp Store. You probably have some already - Netflix, Spotify, Office 365, Hulu, and so on. Yeah, there will be some that are iOS-specfic where you would need to find a comparable Android app. There may be a little cost involved in those replacement apps. But, hey, the vast majority of mobile app profit is on the iOS platform, so I have to assume that most Android apps are free or virtually free anyway.

That one went way over your head apparently. It would take me hours to apply for dozens of credit cards. Similarly, it would take me hours to move to Android. iTunes library. Photo library of 12 years. Dozens of apps to not only download, but login to. Services to shop for to replace iCloud and Apple Music. This doesn’t even factor in the cost. Hundreds of dollars on a new phone. A now useless Apple Watch. A $60 app that I have to rebuy. Thousands of dollars in smart home devices that are centered around HomeKit. At least a credit card app is free. Clearly your broad statement that swapping to Android from iOS is easier than applying for a new credit card is nothing short of laughable for a lot of people. For some people I’m sure that would be the case, but certainly not everyone. And someone with that bad of credit should probably worry about things other than if their credit card company supports Apple Pay.

 

[vipergts2207]

They may not be as much as the mercy as you believe, until you see what their action plan and response is.

Their responses are clearly limited unless you want to be intentionally obtuse. Assuming the EU succeeds here, Apple has three options. 1. Comply. 2. Don’t comply and be hit with fines and who knows what else. 3. Leave the market. That’s it. There’s no magical fairy hiding behind another door.

 

[I7guy]

Their responses are clearly limited unless you want to be intentionally obtuse. Assuming the EU succeeds here, Apple has three options. 1. Comply. 2. Don’t comply and be hit with fines and who knows what else. 3. Leave the market. That’s it. There’s no magical fairy hiding behind another door.

There is no certain outcome in this. It seems they would have to win the anti-trust indictment before Apple will do anything. And sure if they (Apple) loses that's another can of worms.

 

[I7guy]

Well that is not what Apple sells to the common man. To the common man it sells a smartphone, an internet communicator, unraveling the wonders of progress and creativity. If they sold it as a payment processing thingie requiring further payments would sell jack … the all thing is based on leverage over the material property.

This is about control. EU doesn't want Apple to control the iphone, the EU wants to control the iphone.

 

[danpass]

I wonder if the EU respects patents.

The whole point of a patent is profitability.

Are parents their next target?

The EU needs to be dissolved.

.

 

[avz]

The EU needs to be dissolved.

.

I think this is inevitable at this stage. The question is what part of the EU(if any) will be controlled by the Little Britain.

 

[Applefan4]

Disgusting - and yet completely expected. Europe is corrupt to the core. Apple should completely pull out of European market just to make a point.

 

[Scoob Redux]

Perhaps a lawyer can jump in for this question: when a company is accused of antitrust behavior, isn't there a requirement that consumers are forced to use the product, or are at least significantly disadvantaged if they don't?

I mean it in the context of, no one is really forced to buy an iPhone, anyone can easily switch to Android. I contrast that with Microsoft's antitrust in the 90s, where they had 90% market share and much of the software was only available on Windows, which de facto forced everyone onto Windows.

The antitrust behavior is not related to consumer's choice to use another platform, it is in how the accused restricts access to their platform to crush competition. In Microsoft's Ineternet Explorer case, they were found guilty of monopolization - using market dominance and bundling Internet Explorer with Windows to crush competitive browsers. Users of Windows could install other browsers, but the tight integration and pre-installation of Explorer constituted the monopolistic behavior. In the ApplePay case, users can't even use another NFC service, so in that respect, it's more constraining.