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EU Digital Markets Act, aimed at Google, Apple, Amazon, approved

consilium.europa.eu

361–370 of 1001 posts

Re: EU Digital Markets Act, aimed at Google, Apple, Amazon, approved

#361
post #320

This is easily one of the most expansive Acts regarding computing devices passed in my lifetime. The summary is in the link. As an iPhone user, this will enable me to: * Install any software * Install any App Store and choose to make it default * Use third party payment providers and choose to make them default * Use any voice assistant and choose to make it default * User any browser and browser engine and choose to…

While I am in the camp of apple allowing side-loading, i am not a fan of monopolistic regulations like this. It opens all kind of questions, like 1. What devices have to comply? 2. Who decides what device has to comply? Should playstation open their system too. What about a niche bank transaction signing device that internally uses an android capable hardware. Is this illegal now? 3. What about a car infotainment sys…

I very much welcome this legislation (and I use an iPhone).

How would you approach this otherwise? The EU probably can't break up Google or Apple (how would this even look like?) and the walled gardens are clearly a market failure, including apples fat margins. You mention details, but regulation can be well made and just continuing the status quo is also bad. All regulations open up questions but it's not the wild west here, we have rules and they regulate the economy, even for big multinational giants like apple. Sometimes companies even get nationalised (or nationalised companies get sold)!

Re: EU Digital Markets Act, aimed at Google, Apple, Amazon, approved

#362
post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's entirely possible that to enable compliance with this will require explicit compromises to the security of iMessage, for example by requiring key exchange with startup messaging providers. Is that really much worse than the status quo, where all iMessage plaintexts are shared with Apple by default, unless every participant in the thread has disabled iCloud Backup? > So Apple just needs to explain security & en…

Yes, it is. All of the participants in an iMessage chat have consented to have their data stored by Apple. We can all do rough evaluations on how well we think Apple can protect our data. The wording in the Act appears to not place constraints on exactly what services must be able to interop with iMessage, and it says Apple can't preference iMessage. So presumably the blue bubbles have to go. This means that when cha…

Most of my extended family is unaware that iCloud backups sends your words to apple, not to mention all the other things. There was no rough evaluation

Re: EU Digital Markets Act, aimed at Google, Apple, Amazon, approved

#363
This should have been named the Law of Unintended Consequences.

In the most abstract, opening up mobile and messaging platforms is a Good Thing. Unfortunately it is going to cause a mass of real world problems and will have significant negative consequences.

Requiring alternate App Stores will mean Facebook, Epic (Tencent), TikTok, and Scams R Us will all set up their own app stores. Their apps will slowly move to those stores where there are zero restrictions on the collection of personal data. Even if the OS requires user permission to access personal data people are just going to smash that accept button like they've been conditioned to do with GDPR dialogs.

Forcing alternate browser engines will just see Google use its enormous influence on the web to coerce everyone into using Chrome. The current "web standards" are ridiculously complicated. Google's "standards" are also privacy nightmares as they're perfect for fingerprinting. Web standards have gotten so complex Microsoft threw in the towel and just uses Blink. This legislation is just going to accelerate a Blink (and thus) Google monoculture on the web. If Microsoft can't maintain a viable browser engine against the complexity of web standards, driven primarily by Google, there's no hope for a plucky upstart to come along with a new browser engine. I guess learn to enjoy WebIrisScanner and WebAttention APIs when they're rolled out to help Google's ad business.

Messaging interoperability is going to be a clusterfuck. Messaging protocols and back ends are complex. The law doesn't seem to specify what messaging interoperability means at an implementation level. It's going to impose a huge cost on all messaging platforms to carry (and spool for delivery) traffic from third parties. While obviously the EU wants to impose cost on US companies, EU mobile carriers will end up subject to these laws and need to spend money supporting Facebook and iMessage traffic.

If history teaches us anything about sweeping technological regulation it's that we're not pessimistic enough about unintended consequences.

Re: EU Digital Markets Act, aimed at Google, Apple, Amazon, approved

#364
post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I am in the camp of apple allowing side-loading, i am not a fan of monopolistic regulations like this. It opens all kind of questions, like 1. What devices have to comply? 2. Who decides what device has to comply? Should playstation open their system too. What about a niche bank transaction signing device that internally uses an android capable hardware. Is this illegal now? 3. What about a car infotainment sys…

the first two are very important questions. For example, if I make $500 “unhackablePhone”, where it literally doesn’t run web apps and every app is vetted by top-talent security researchers for weeks, and then I sell billions of these devices, do I then have to open up the ecosystem to allow anyone to be able to take a phone, punch in the passcode, and install a third party App Store? This is synonymous with the curr…

Well people who chose to use other app store don't get access to your curated list of apps. They still remain your selling point

Re: EU Digital Markets Act, aimed at Google, Apple, Amazon, approved

#365
post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> User any browser and browser engine and choose to make it default Hello, Alphabet world domination. They finally get the chance to get rid of that pesky Safari. Next stop: obligatory sign-in for using a service.

If that’s really how it rolls out, doesn’t it also mean that Safari wasn’t viable on itself and nobody wanted to use it in the first place ? Apple is no underdog anymore, if their browser couldn‘t compete on its own merit I won’t be crying a river over it. Firefox, while mired with its own problems, is another story; but I don’t see Mozilla losing from this decision.

“This website only works on Chrome.”

Re: EU Digital Markets Act, aimed at Google, Apple, Amazon, approved

#366

One would think that if there is truly a Europe wide market for such an unlocked device a competitor should be able to challenge Apple and Google dominance. Europe could even subsidize it. But instead, it’s more engineering by bureaucrats. Why is Europe so afraid of competing in the open market?

The "invisible hand of the free market" doesn't work when manufacturing a device requires such a huge infrastructure around it, and benefits so much from economy of scale. "Exploitative business practices must not be that bad or the free market would step in" is a painfully naive take.

You're totally right. How ever will a tiny company like Apple compete against Blackberry with their massive marketshare advantage and extensive supply chain...

Re: EU Digital Markets Act, aimed at Google, Apple, Amazon, approved

#367
post #330
post #192

What HackerNews thinks will happen: "zomg, I will finally be able to run Arch on my iPhone!" What will actually happen: "honey, something is wrong with my phone, whenever I unlock it, a popup jumps up that says 'Please update the Adobe™ Updater™ to get up to date Adobe™ Software Updates', could you take a look at it?"

It sounds like you don't understand what's actually in this regulation. There are some good summaries posted in this very comment thread.

I believe they are simply observing the predictable divergence between the intention and the outcome of said regulation.

Re: EU Digital Markets Act, aimed at Google, Apple, Amazon, approved

#368
post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> User any browser and browser engine and choose to make it default Hello, Alphabet world domination. They finally get the chance to get rid of that pesky Safari. Next stop: obligatory sign-in for using a service.

If that’s really how it rolls out, doesn’t it also mean that Safari wasn’t viable on itself and nobody wanted to use it in the first place ? Apple is no underdog anymore, if their browser couldn‘t compete on its own merit I won’t be crying a river over it. Firefox, while mired with its own problems, is another story; but I don’t see Mozilla losing from this decision.

Safari is possibly the biggest competitor to chrome, since Firefox is falling out of use. It’s important for the ecosystem to have a strong competitor who isn’t dependent on google

Re: EU Digital Markets Act, aimed at Google, Apple, Amazon, approved

#369
post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> User any browser and browser engine and choose to make it default Hello, Alphabet world domination. They finally get the chance to get rid of that pesky Safari. Next stop: obligatory sign-in for using a service.

If that’s really how it rolls out, doesn’t it also mean that Safari wasn’t viable on itself and nobody wanted to use it in the first place ? Apple is no underdog anymore, if their browser couldn‘t compete on its own merit I won’t be crying a river over it. Firefox, while mired with its own problems, is another story; but I don’t see Mozilla losing from this decision.

The problem with all of this shit is that the EU is only measuring sentiment from developers, not end users. End users are happy with Safari. Developers are the only ones who care about any of the rest of this.

Re: EU Digital Markets Act, aimed at Google, Apple, Amazon, approved

#370

This is easily one of the most expansive Acts regarding computing devices passed in my lifetime. The summary is in the link. As an iPhone user, this will enable me to: * Install any software * Install any App Store and choose to make it default * Use third party payment providers and choose to make them default * Use any voice assistant and choose to make it default * User any browser and browser engine and choose to…

Does this ban Microsoft from using their privileged position to sabotage Firefox and to push their spyware browser?
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