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Apple violated antitrust ruling, judge finds

wsj.com

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Re: Apple violated antitrust ruling, judge finds

#141

Post by leptons »

echelon wrote: post #35
autobodie wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

About time for what? Another company to get charged with something that they don't get punished for? The fines are always less than the companies' net gains from the practice. Gains are often indirect, risk-related, and/or part of a larger strategy, so they cannot be calculated. Everything short of prison is a waste of time, waste of tax dollars, and spits in the face of decent citizens.

100%. This doesn't deserve a fine. This deserves Apple to be given an ultimatum about their mob boss behavior with mobile. Apple and Google quickly built up their duopoly such that everyone doing anything with mobile phones has to pay them a tax. You can't even deploy your own apps at your own cadence, without strict review, using your own technology. You have to jump through unplanned upgrade cycles, you're forced t…

I'm fine with Google and Apple having App stores, so long as I'm not forced to use them. They should compete like everyone else. The walls of the walled garden have to be torn down. They still get to have a garden, they just can't lock unwitting people inside of it.

Re: Apple violated antitrust ruling, judge finds

#143

Post by socalgal2 »

Aloisius wrote: post #76
socalgal2 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not. The majority of phone users replaced their computers with a phone. They are using their phone for everything they used to use their computers for. Almost no one is using an XBox to replace their computer.

> The majority of phone users replaced their computers with a phone Source? I can't find anything that backs that up.

https://intelpoint.co/insights/only-2-2-of-internet-users-wo...

Are you pushing back on the word "majority" or on the concept that many people use their phones for nearly everything they used to use their computers for but that next to no one does the same with an Xbox?

Re: Apple violated antitrust ruling, judge finds

#144

Post by socalgal2 »

ribosometronome wrote: post #112
socalgal2 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One has billions of users, the other has millions. One has 100s of thousands of companies trying to to do business with that platform's users, the other has 100s of companies trying to do business with that platform's users. scale and usage matters. Apple has > 50% market share in the USA (the place relevant to USA law). So, being a monopoly they get treated differently than a non-monopoly. Even if they had less than…

No, it doesn't. They're not enforcing this under anti-trust law.

they aren't? The title is "Apple Violated Antitrust Ruling, Judge Finds"

the first sentence in the article is:

> A federal judge hammered Apple for violating an antitrust ruling related to App Store restrictions and took the extraordinary step of referring the matter to federal prosecutors for a criminal contempt investigation.

Seems like it's about antitrust law

Re: Apple violated antitrust ruling, judge finds

#145

Post by TheDong »

arresin wrote: post #114
m463 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

also, you can't install software on your own device. Even when you can, you have to ask apple permission.

The broader consumer base will install anything a bad actor wants them to and then blame the manufacturer for not stopping them with some draconian rule.

Please, side-loading is usually an annoying involved process targeted at developers which the average consumer cannot accidentally do.

A bad actor would have better luck telling a victim "just ship me your phone and login password for some emergency maintenance" than instructing a user through sideloading an app onto their smart fridge.

I, personally, would be happy if iOS had android-style side-loading where you have to enable developer mode, promise you're not an idiot, and go from there.

Re: Apple violated antitrust ruling, judge finds

#146

Post by notpushkin »

snowwrestler wrote: post #96
echelon wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100%. This doesn't deserve a fine. This deserves Apple to be given an ultimatum about their mob boss behavior with mobile. Apple and Google quickly built up their duopoly such that everyone doing anything with mobile phones has to pay them a tax. You can't even deploy your own apps at your own cadence, without strict review, using your own technology. You have to jump through unplanned upgrade cycles, you're forced t…

I understand people like this ruling and want Apple and Google to open up. But this is just silly rewriting of history: > Apple and Google quickly built up their duopoly such that everyone doing anything with mobile phones has to pay them a tax. Long before Apple and Google made phones, a huge mobile device ecosystem already existed, including app stores, and it was way more locked down and expensive than what we hav…

Sure, 100% web apps will never work. It should be 95% web apps.

Re: Apple violated antitrust ruling, judge finds

#147

Post by ribosometronome »

socalgal2 wrote: post #144
ribosometronome wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it doesn't. They're not enforcing this under anti-trust law.

they aren't? The title is "Apple Violated Antitrust Ruling, Judge Finds" the first sentence in the article is: > A federal judge hammered Apple for violating an antitrust ruling related to App Store restrictions and took the extraordinary step of referring the matter to federal prosecutors for a criminal contempt investigation. Seems like it's about antitrust law

Fair enough, I replied poorly, but the judgment doesn't appear to be based on Apple being monopoly or size of the business, as far as I can tell. The issue appears to be of anti-steering, more than the number of customers/its market share. Epic notably failed to prove Sherman act violations, didn't it?

The actual judgment: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/25924283-epic-v-appl...

>After a bench trial, this Court entered judgment on September 10, 2021, finding thatcertain of Apple’s anti-steering rules violate the California Unfair Competition Law (“UCL”)under its unfair prong. ... As to the merits of Apple’s UCL violations, Apple did not directly challenge this Court’s application of the UCL’s tethering and balancing tests, instead arguing that(i) the UCL’s “safe harbor” doctrine insulates its liability because Epic failed to establish Sherman Act liability ... As to Apple’s “unfair” practices under the UCL, the Court explainedthat Epic could demonstrate unfairness under either a “tethering” test or a “balancing” test. Id. at1053. The “tethering” test required Epic to “show that Apple’s conduct (1) ‘threatens an incipientviolation of an antitrust law,’ (2) ‘violates the policy or spirit of one of those laws because itseffects are comparable to or the same as a violation of the law,’ or (3) ‘otherwise significantlythreatens or harms competition.’” Id. at 1052 (quoting Cel-Tech Commc’ns, Inc. v. Los AngelesCellular Tel. Co., 973 P.2d 527, 544 (Cal. 1999)). While the Court held that Epic’s claims basedon app distribution and in-app payment processing restrictions failed to state a claim of unfairpractices, the Court held that Apple’s anti-steering provisions were severable and constitutedunfair practices under the UCL

I'm not sure that the scale or usage really matters.

Re: Apple violated antitrust ruling, judge finds

#148

Post by [deleted] »

scarface_74 wrote: post #138
TheDong wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Will walmart open your packaging, review all text in the manual, and tell you that you need to reprint your manual because it has a link to your homepage "company.com" and on that page you can find a pricing page with lower prices? Will walmart prevent you from selling, say, a fishing pole that allows you to buy fishing hooks from another store? Apple's app-store review would reject any app that linked the company pr…

The parent poster just said that customers can pay on his website so I’m assuming it’s a service surfaced by his app.

[deleted]

Re: Apple violated antitrust ruling, judge finds

#149

Post by spencerflem »

zelphirkalt wrote: post #118
mil22 wrote: post #4

About time. I'm tired of apologizing to customers who purchase subscriptions in my app only to discover they could have purchased the exact the same thing from my website for 15% less. "Why didn't you tell me?" Excerpt from the filing: "In stark contrast to Apple’s initial in-court testimony, contemporaneous business documents reveal that Apple knew exactly what it was doing and at every turn chose the most anticompe…

And what happens now to those who lied under oath? Can we get those people properly punished and send some signals? Or are they above the law somehow?

The USA is an oligarchy

Re: Apple violated antitrust ruling, judge finds

#150

Post by dbetteridge »

brudgers wrote: post #105
DecentShoes wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they refuse to comply, why don't we just... arrest them? Like, you know, we do for someone who was poor and starving and stole 10$ of food?

You can’t arrest a fictitious person.

Why not?

If a company is a person, it can go in jail.

Freeze their ability to do anything above basic life support without the permission of the judge or court.

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