Report: Apple Nearing Agreement With EU Over App Store Rules

[Madhatter32]

Your whole strategy here is to ignore the any real arguments in favor of your strawman. Even going so far as to equate the left in the US to Marxists despite the fact that the left is overwhelming centrist in it's policies.

My strategy? LOL. Anyway, I did wrongly presume that you understood the meaning of the term strawman argument.

Putting that aside, on the substance, I use the term "leftist" in the common parlance, which is someone who tends to support socialist or marxist ideas -- as opposed to liberal. Leftists (or the extreme left if you prefer) are as far as can be from advocating traditional centrist policy. What's worse is that these people spew their ideas with religious forment which is devoid of evidenced-based data and riddled with inconsistencies and double standards. I could cite an endless litany of examples, which would deviate substantially from the topic of this thread. But let me assure you, the policies advocated by socialists and marxists in the United States are radical -- not centrist -- on the classical liberal American political spectrum.

Have a great day.

 

[SBlue1]

The irony is the EU is acting as a gatekeeper itself and its fine structure is absolutely bananas - the idea daily fines amounting to 5% global revenue is just insanity, massive overreach.

Calling the EU nice is overly generous, they just using bully tactics to bring companies to the negotiating table - possibly even worse than how Trump has done it.

The only difference is the EU is protecting the consumers. The US is protecting the big companies.

 

[surferfb]

The only difference is the EU is protecting the consumers. The US is protecting the big companies.

The DMA has nothing to do with protecting consumers. Protecting EU companies from having to do work, sure. But not consumers.

 

[turbineseaplane]

The DMA has nothing to do with protecting consumers. Protecting EU companies from having to do work, sure. But not consumers.

I love this group and this debate ... truly
I worry we won't have anything to all get riled up about if the situation is ever resolved!
😂 ✌️

 

[SBlue1]

The DMA has nothing to do with protecting consumers. Protecting EU companies from having to do work, sure. But not consumers.

What?? LOL! I couldn't care less where the company that makes my devices has its HQ. I do care that my government is protecting me from any companys unlawful practices.

 

[surferfb]

What?? LOL! I couldn't care less where the company that makes my devices has its HQ. I do care that my government is protecting me from any companys unlawful practices.

I’m sure you don’t care, but the EU does (or perhaps more likely, the EU companies that lobbied for this do).

I’m not going to get into it a 700th time, but I’ll give the TLDR:

Just because the EU retroactively declared a bunch of Apple’s practices (that had been in place for almost 20 years) unlawful doesn’t mean the policies were bad or that the policies harmed consumers.

Given the EU’s track record when it comes to regulating tech, I’d argue it’s a pretty safe assumption that the regulations will actually make things worse for everyone. See: cookie popups, Crowdstrike outage, etc.

 

[ProbablyDylan]

Just because the EU retroactively declared a bunch of Apple’s practices (that had been in place for almost 20 years) unlawful doesn’t mean the policies were bad or that the policies harmed consumers.

Things being commonplace for a long time does not make them harmless. Imagine saying this about coal - we burned that for a few hundred years, what's the big deal?

 

[BaldiMac]

Putting that aside, on the substance, I use the term "leftist" in the common parlance, which is someone who tends to support socialist or marxist ideas -- as opposed to liberal. Leftists (or the extreme left if you prefer) are as far as can be from advocating traditional centrist policy..

It's not "common parlance" to equate the left with the extreme left. That's a political choice that Republicans make to pretend that the left is just as extreme as they are. To be clear, the far left has little to no political power in the US. Not even the Democratic Socialists on the left of the Democratic Party qualify as "far left" or "Marxist" on the political spectrum.

Here's a good summary.

Understanding the Political Spectrum from Left to Right | AMPLIFY XL

Navigating the complicated landscape of political ideologies is akin to embarking on a journey through a diverse and often contentious terrain. From the

amplifyxl.com

 

[BaldiMac]

What?? LOL! I couldn't care less where the company that makes my devices has its HQ. I do care that my government is protecting me from any companys unlawful practices.

So the DMA protects you from unlawful practices by making the practices unlawful, but only for a few companies. That's a strange twist of logic.

 

[eifelbube]

No, but their regulations directly led to the outage. It's an indisputable fact. Had the regulation not been in place, Crowdstrike wouldn't have had the access TO cause the outage. No regulation, no outage.


"Our regulations introduce security issues that is on you to fix, and if it introduces issues that you or we don't foresee, then that's your fault, not ours" is definitely how the EU thinks, but in the rest of the rational world everyone knows it'll be the regulations' fault, not the regulated companies'.


The DMA says Apple has to give access to any iOS software innovation to its competitors for free. I don't think you need to go to business school to understand why that discourages innovation.

And while it's not DMA related, the USB-C mandate will chill innovation in charging ports (It massively changes the ROI calculation in developing a better port if it can't be used on any device in the EU).

I agree. And therefore, the EU will eventually cause Apple’s downfall. All these regulations will force them to sell all iOS software and hardware. The EU will allow Apple to keep the Mac because the AppStore is not the only place where Mac users can buy software Apple will happily comply because there have never been serious security and privacy vulnerabilities in MacOS and Mac software since software distribution moved from physical media to online download.

 

[eifelbube]

The EU said to Microsoft, “Give everyone the same access to the kernel as you have.”
Microsoft let them know that was a bad idea.
The EU said “DO it and we’ll let you off the hook, don’t and we’ll fine you.”
Microsoft did what the EU said.

Crowdstrike happened.

CrowdStrike Crash: Regulators, Please Don’t Interfere

A botched CrowdStrike software update might seem to justify regulatory "oversight" for security's sake. The opposite is true.

cepa.org

Now, if the EU understood tech (of course they don’t) they would have understood before asking how insane of an ask that was and would have let Microsoft do the OTHER things and would have had regular reviews noting Microsoft’s progress towards making changes that wouldn’t make it an automatic bad idea.

That would have prevented Crowdstrike.

Did the EU Regulators understand where they were off track, learn from their mistake and release a statement indicating they will exhibit more caution in the future?


Nope, nothing’s ever wrong with the regulation!

I appreciate your effort trying to explain. The EU asked Microsoft to give unprotected access to the kernel?

 

[MilaM]

Just because the EU retroactively declared a bunch of Apple’s practices (that had been in place for almost 20 years) unlawful doesn’t mean the policies were bad or that the policies harmed consumers.

This law does not work retroactively. Companies had plenty of time to prepare for compliance between the passing and the first enforcement.

 

[Nekronos]

The only difference is the EU is protecting the consumers. The US is protecting the big companies.

Protecting consumers from what exactly? That's certainly the guise but whether that's effective is debatable.

The US has been arguably the center of innovation for decades, i can promise you it's not due to the kind of heavy regulation the EU is pushing.

 

[surferfb]

This law does not work retroactively. Companies had plenty of time to prepare for compliance between the passing and the first enforcement.

It came in after the fact and said “these practices are no longer allowed” despite not following typical antitrust procedure and proving that they cause harm before prohibiting them.

Let’s review the hopelessly biased impact assessment used to justify the law:

• The EC admitted the quantitative comparisons in the assessment were done after the preferred option was picked. (In other words, they decided on the path forward without evidence)
• The EU’s Regulatory Scrutiny Board originally rejected then impact assessment, then 30 days later changed their mind after the EC restructured the report (not added new evidence). Even then, they “approved it with reservations”, while saying the EC should “more convincingly demonstrate” harm was being caused by the policies that were going to be outlawed.
• Large portions of the text of the law leaked before the Impact Assessment was compete, and even before its was rejected by the RSB the first time. In other words, the EC’s preferred rule-set was drafted before the document meant to justify the need for the law was complete.

The justification for the DMA wasn’t on the up and up. It was policy-based evidence, which is exactly backwards - evidence should inform policy, not vice-versa. The EC said “this is what we want to do”, cherry picked evidence to justify it, and still got called out by the EU’s own watchdogs for doing a really bad job of justifying it.

If we replaced “the EC” with “the Trump administration” above, and changed the topic from “big tech” to something like “vaccine schedules” I promise you the same people defending the DMA would (correctly, IMO) be calling that out as cooking the books to achieve an outcome that isn't backed up by the evidence, but I guess the ends justify the means when the EC does it.

 

[surferfb]

Things being commonplace for a long time does not make them harmless. Imagine saying this about coal - we burned that for a few hundred years, what's the big deal?

Yes, but we generally should prove something is harmful before banning it, which was not done in this case.

 

[Madhatter32]

It's not "common parlance" to equate the left with the extreme left. That's a political choice that Republicans make to pretend that the left is just as extreme as they are. To be clear, the far left has little to no political power in the US. Not even the Democratic Socialists on the left of the Democratic Party qualify as "far left" or "Marxist" on the political spectrum.

Here's a good summary.

Understanding the Political Spectrum from Left to Right | AMPLIFY XL

Navigating the complicated landscape of political ideologies is akin to embarking on a journey through a diverse and often contentious terrain. From the

amplifyxl.com

My use of the term "leftist" is generally correct and common parlance (and it's not just a so-called "Republican" thing).

Leftist = Leftists, a group mainly comprised of socialists, communists, and anarchists, are usually anti-capitalist.

Liberal = Liberals are seen as center-left or centrist by leftists, but seen as just generally-on-the-left by people on the right. Liberals embody incrementalism, reform, pragmatism, and compromise.

Also, I was simply using the term to convey its actual meaning. I do not quibble with your point about framing of terms for political purposes but it is off in this context. For example, leftists/liberals throw around terms like Fascist and Nazi everday to denigrate political opponents that are completely devoid of original meaning. So it's a widespread abuse of language but it is not helpful to derail a debate over such semantics (like you have chosen to do here).

The Difference Between Liberals and Leftists

Nothing fuels online discourse like fights over language. New terms will popularize in a subculture then trickle into the zeitgeist until…

medium.com

 

[BaldiMac]

My use of the term "leftist" is generally correct and common parlance (and it's not just a so-called "Republican" thing).

Leftist = Leftists, a group mainly comprised of socialists, communists, and anarchists, are usually anti-capitalist.

Liberal = Liberals are seen as center-left or centrist by leftists, but seen as just generally-on-the-left by people on the right. Liberals embody incrementalism, reform, pragmatism, and compromise.

Fair enough, though the dictionary defines leftist as left of center, and Democrats are regularly referred to as leftists, so I don't think the majority of the country is aware of this academic distinction.

Also, I was simply using the term to convey its actual meaning. I do not quibble with your point about framing of terms for political purposes but it is off in this context. For example, leftists/liberals throw around terms like Fascist and Nazi everday to denigrate political opponents that are completely devoid of original meaning. So it's a widespread abuse of language but it is not helpful to derail a debate over such semantics (like you have chosen to do here).

Whereby "throw around" you're implying another "both sides" argument. The current MAGA Republican Party does arguably have fascist characteristics and is a actually a far right party.

The 14 Characteristics of Fascism, by Lawrence Britt, Spring 2003

The current Democratic Party is not Marxist, or leftist if you prefer. So why do we have to create a fake "both sides" comparison that waters down the extreme politics of the right?

 

[Madhatter32]

The current Democratic Party is not Marxist, or leftist if you prefer. So why do we have to create a fake "both sides" comparison that waters down the extreme politics of the right?

You must not be aware of what is going in New York -- the largest city in the United States. Fringe? Maybe. But maybe not -- as there is a group of like-minded U.S. Representatives. Following your reasoning, if they look like leftists and smell like leftists ....

 

[I7guy]

Things being commonplace for a long time does not make them harmless.

Harmless and harmful are all up for debate and are lines in the sand.

Imagine saying this about coal - we burned that for a few hundred years, what's the big deal?

Way off. There is scientific evidence that burning coal is not the greatest. Is there scientific evidence of gatekeepers harming consumers? Where the evidence is outside of the regulations?

 

[BaldiMac]

You must not be aware of what is going in New York -- the largest city in the United States. Fringe? Maybe. But maybe not -- as there is a group of like-minded U.S. Representatives. Following your reasoning, if they look like leftists and smell like leftists ....

I am aware of what's going on in New York. But again, Democratic Socialists are not Marxists. And Democratic Socialists are not the mainstream Democratic Party.

Do you, like me, want to stop the rise of far right and far left politics in the US? Then support policies that improve democracy in the US. First and foremost, end gerrymandering. When you create safe seats for a party, you move the party towards the fringes.

More important reforms: Overturn Citizens United. Get rid of the electoral college. Support ranked choice voting, so more than two candidates have a chance of being elected. Get rid of the filibuster. Create term limits and ethics requirements for SCOTUS.

I'm a conservative, but Democrats now support the issues I care about. Free speech, religious freedom. democracy, law and order, equal opportunity, science, and academic freedom.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Nice tale. If MSFT thought it's such a bad idea back then, why did they not plug the hole everywhere else? Crowdstrike happened everywhere, not just in the EU.

That’s literally how forcing an OS vendor to give everyone security access to their kernel works. If they had NOT forced that, Crowdstrike wouldn’t have happened.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

The DMA has nothing to do with protecting consumers. Protecting EU companies from having to do work, sure. But not consumers.

Vestager even admitted in an interview it was primarily about reducing the profits of the gatekeepers. That’s why so much of it doesn’t make logical sense (plus the fact that it was rushed, unlike the more solid GDPR regulations). It was a simply political play by someone who THOUGHT they had a straight shot to higher political office.

Those currently in office are stuck with it and, more than anything else, have no desire to politically grandstand every other week. They will come to a resolution, (those that don’t like the Core Technology Fee… will have to deal with a Core Technology Fee that’s been approved by regulators) and they’ll be putting their focus in other areas.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

I appreciate your effort trying to explain. The EU asked Microsoft to give unprotected access to the kernel?

Yes, this was, on its surface, about “competition” and “interoperability”. As a part of the agreement, third-party security vendors were required to have the same access as Microsoft’s own products. The problem is, at the time, Microsoft’s own products had kernel access. There were no appropriate third-party API’s in place. So, that requirement was saying “give third-party security vendors kernel access.” The regulators heard Microsoft’s concerns but, because they have very little experience with tech companies (as they’ve driven all the successful ones out of the region), they likely took it as, “They just don’t want to do what we’re telling them!” and forced the issue, causing Microsoft to, of course, comply. It was the only option the regulators provided to get out of the situation they were in, so Microsoft took it.

If the regulators had been listening, they would have understood that, while Microsoft has lots of experience and plenty of tools which enable them to work more safely at the kernel level, many third-parties won’t have had the experience of securing an OS for decades OR testing and making sure changes can be implemented in a way to cause the least impact. They would have then worked with Microsoft to allow their current situation to stay in place (to avoid things like Crowdstrike), and have regular meetings about Microsoft’s progress on providing out-of-kernel API’s which would help third-party security vendors avoid causing a Crowdstrike situation.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

The only difference is the EU is protecting the consumers. The US is protecting the big companies.

Think about it, though. If the US wasn’t protecting those big companies that the EU desperately DEPENDS on for technology, what would the EU be using? Olivetti? Nixdorf? Siemens? Nokia?

 

[MilaM]

The justification for the DMA wasn’t on the up and up. It was policy-based evidence, which is exactly backwards - evidence should inform policy, not vice-versa. The EC said “this is what we want to do”, cherry picked evidence to justify it, and still got called out by the EU’s own watchdogs for doing a really bad job of justifying it.

What you write about the Regulatory Scrutiny Board is interesting. But I don't think it's really that relevant. To be honest, I have never heard about this institution before, and I'm interested more in politics than the average person on the street. This legislation has been created with the approval of all member countries (Council of the European Union) and the European Parliament has voted on it. It's real and its binding TODAY.

The affected companies can appeal to the EU Courts of course, as I'm sure all designated Gatekeepers will do. What are the chances of success of an appeal? I honestly have no idea.