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

consilium.europa.eu

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

#971
post #346
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…

Sony's market capitalization exceeds €75bn (the threshold over which the regulation applies).

Fortunately for Sony and Microsoft they don't operate the sorts of highly profitable game stores for PlayStation and Xbox that Apple and Google do for iOS and Android.

Otherwise they'd be in trouble.

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

#972

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, so now nobody can ever launch any new messaging features without reaching a consensus in a standardization body. Progress!

Nope, that's not how standardization works. I'd refer you to the process of HTML/CSS/JavaScript if you want to see how it can work in a global manner that also works for innovation too (unless you'd argue that HTML/CSS/JavaScript is exactly the same in terms of "innovation" since they each first were created). In short, the process is something like this: 1) a browser implements a new feature they think is useful 2)…

So now, instead of websites breaking from browser to browser. My messages will fail from each app? Browsers show how global standards fail and the only thing preventing 99.99% market share of chrome is the walled garden that is apple & safari

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

#973

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…

This will also apply to Xbox, Switch and Playstation, among other devices - unless I'm understanding the legislation wrong. The impacts are staggering.

Nintendo may not be big enough. Microsoft certainly is.

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

#974

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could be as early as winter. Things are not very bullish for the EU right now given their energy situation.

We’re fine, don’t worry. Well most of us are

Copium.

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

#975
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?"

The security on iPhone comes from the app sandbox, not from App Store review. There are lots of scam apps on the App Store, despite Apple's review. Apps from 3rd party stores will be sandboxed just like apps from the App Store are today.

>The security on iPhone comes from the app sandbox, not from App Store review.

Some of it. But Apple has the real-world identity of developers/organizations, and will ban them from the App Store for malicious behavior.

And next to no privacy protections are from App Sandbox. You can turn off things like advertising identifiers, but there are a million other unique hardware identifiers as well as things like IP addresses which can be used to track someone.

The way Apple solves this is - you need to get user consent to track, which will also hand you the advertising identifier. But if the user does not consent, you can't work around it by correlating other data from the phone. Or we will kick you out of the store.

> There are lots of scam apps on the App Store, despite Apple's review.

Just imagine how bad it would be without review.

> Apps from 3rd party stores will be sandboxed just like apps from the App Store are today.

Will they? Without someone reviewing/approving entitlements for side-loaded apps, they can all effectively seek out as many entitlements from the menu as they want.

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

#976
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…

You mean "anti-monopolistic" regulations. That also answers all of your questions. > This looks like it will kill competition and harm European innovation I don't really understand how you got from "you are not allowed to stifle competition" to having less of it?

It is monopolistic because it comes from a monopoly (the regulator) with no way around it for Europeans that disagree.

Well rent control is also supposed to lower rents but usually what it does is make them more expensive and lower the quality on the long term.

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

#977
post #684

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not a popular opinion around here, but the reason I like my iPhone is _because_ it’s a walled garden. It just works, reliably, without surprises, for years on end.

I'm not quite understanding this argument. If you prefer to stay behind a "walled garden", then you still can. The difference being that you will personally enforce your own preferences for all things dictated or suggested by Apple versus Apple imposing what they want upon everyone. The "walled garden" will be your own mentally imposed constraint. Though you and various others might prefer the "walled garden", that i…

And this law is taking away my preference. I WANT to pay through Apple, because they make it easy. Subscriptions through Apple are super easy to cancel. That will for certain be gone, because now they get away with all their shady schemes that make it close to impossible to cancel. I want to pay with Apple Pay, because it is rock solid. I don't want to be forced into the banks half-baked crap app.

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

#978
post #975

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The security on iPhone comes from the app sandbox, not from App Store review. There are lots of scam apps on the App Store, despite Apple's review. Apps from 3rd party stores will be sandboxed just like apps from the App Store are today.

>The security on iPhone comes from the app sandbox, not from App Store review. Some of it. But Apple has the real-world identity of developers/organizations, and will ban them from the App Store for malicious behavior. And next to no privacy protections are from App Sandbox. You can turn off things like advertising identifiers, but there are a million other unique hardware identifiers as well as things like IP addres…

App Sandbox offers a lot of privacy protections. For example, you can't access bluetooth / GPS / etc. without the OS asking the user for permission. Apple has also started to require entitlements for local networking, and so on.

There's really no point in having Apple check those permissions. It would be much better if the user could check entitlements.

What Apple currently offers (the privacy information and the tracking consent) is all based on goodwill from the publisher -- if the publisher says they don't track you, but they still do, it's going to be very hard to prove.

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

#979
post #976

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean "anti-monopolistic" regulations. That also answers all of your questions. > This looks like it will kill competition and harm European innovation I don't really understand how you got from "you are not allowed to stifle competition" to having less of it?

It is monopolistic because it comes from a monopoly (the regulator) with no way around it for Europeans that disagree. Well rent control is also supposed to lower rents but usually what it does is make them more expensive and lower the quality on the long term.

Haha, "democracy=monopoly". Haven't heard that one before.

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

#980
post #613

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, and that unsecured Linux is destroying the world! It’s not about making products less secure. That’s what apple makes you wanna think. It’s about giving customers choice. They can stay in Apple ecosystem (I will for example). Or they can not. Companies like Apple will have to work much harder now, to give both users and developers enough value to justify being locked in.

> They can stay in Apple ecosystem Nope, Adobe will make sure all its apps require Adobe App Store. Same for Facebook with Whatsapp. No more stupid Apple store restrictions, yay!!

Wouldn't the reasonable outcome here be that Apple will make their app store rules less authoritarian so that Adobe wouldn't want to leave the app store? The market for app stores would mean apple would have to actually adjust to complete. Isn't that the market competition most people claim to love?
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