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Apple violated antitrust ruling, judge finds

wsj.com

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Re: Apple violated antitrust ruling, judge finds

#351

Post by whatnow37373 »

pornel wrote: post #232
xuki wrote: post #107

> Internally, Phillip Schiller had advocated that Apple comply with the Injunction, but Tim Cook ignored Schiller and instead allowed Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri and his finance team to convince him otherwise. The bean counters won. I guess Tim Cook does care about the bloody ROI after all. https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2014/03/07/why-tim...

This worries me beyond anti-competitive stuff. If Tim Cook is willing to lie and cheat for extra revenue, I can't trust that Apple is honest about their privacy commitments. Services revenue line must keep going up, and their ad business is a growth opportunity.

> I can't trust that Apple is honest about their privacy commitments

Oh, no! Who would have thought? What could we possibly do other than keep shoving money into their faces?

Re: Apple violated antitrust ruling, judge finds

#352

Post by ginko »

resource_waste wrote: post #307
caseyy wrote: post #272

Many people blame the EU for targeting US companies when it passes anti-monopoly and pro-consumer laws, or penalizes the companies for breaking them. Now that US courts are doing it more, it seems that corporations abusing their monopoly powers are the problem, not EU laws. But what do I know.

I don't really know this issue, I don't study it. But from afar: >An EU law stiffles all companies, not just the trillion dollar companies. I've essentially not considered EU audiences because I'm small and focus on the engineering + product directed toward 'everyone except Europe' because it feels like near anarchy. >This is precision work. These companies get too big and anger the wrong person, so they get knocked.…

>An EU law stiffles all companies, not just the trillion dollar companies. I've essentially not considered EU audiences because I'm small and focus on the engineering + product directed toward 'everyone except Europe' because it feels like near anarchy.

The DMA specifically only applies to platforms with more than 45 million active users.

Re: Apple violated antitrust ruling, judge finds

#353

Post by tremon »

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #291
kubb wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But weren't people here supposed to be intellectually curious, and have the cognitive tools to overcome things like instinctive tribalism?

Intellectually curious doesn't necessarily overrule base human tendencies. They may be more likely to have the capacity, but no way it's amy kind of guarantee.

That's a curiously limited form of curiosity, if it doesn't even examine the base tendencies of the operating human.

Re: Apple violated antitrust ruling, judge finds

#354

Post by mytailorisrich »

avar wrote: post #349
troad wrote: post #278

The court decision itself is worth reading for a revealing look behind the curtain. [0] >> In Slack communications dated November 16, 2021, the Apple employees crafting the warning screen for Project Michigan discussed how best to frame its language. Mr. Onak suggested the warning screen should include the language: “By continuing on the web, you will leave the app and be taken to an external website” because “‘exter…

The most shocking thing to me about that isn't the malicious compliance, but that even after a court injunction, and fully knowing that there could be subsequent discovery, they have people putting something like that in writing . Seriously, this is one of the top 10 largest companies in the world, and they're playing chicken with the court in order to preserve their ongoing revenue. These weren't random employees, b…

People put everything in writing and in videos nowadays and don't even think about it. Often it's "not so smart" criminals but we see again and again that even people are the highest levels do the same...

Re: Apple violated antitrust ruling, judge finds

#355

Post by scarface_74 »

larsnystrom wrote: post #350
hajile wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless the judge actually specified the type of language to be used, this seems completely compliant. Are they supposed to say "Please use our competitor. You'll find your experience with them far superior to what we provide" or something similar?

Why are they using any language at all? Why not just let the app maker open the payment screen directly?

Because users will then blame Apple when they get scammed.

There are a lot of websites that give you a warning when you click on a link outside of their control.

Re: Apple violated antitrust ruling, judge finds

#356

Post by whatnow37373 »

joshkel wrote: post #320
drooopy wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple is a for-profit business, and like most such entities, its primary concern is its bottom line. If promoting privacy aligns with that objective, so be it. However, the company does not have an inherent inclination toward acting ethically beyond what serves its business interests.

That's not universally true, at least. From https://www.macobserver.com/news/tim-cook-rejects-ncppr-poli... : > “When we work on making our devices accessible by the blind,” he said, “I don't consider the bloody ROI.” He said that the same thing about environmental issues, worker safety, and other areas where Apple is a leader. > As evidenced by the use of “bloody” in his response—the closest thing to public profanit…

The point is not they lack values at any point in time, the point is they can switch them faster than you can say “capitalism”.

Re: Apple violated antitrust ruling, judge finds

#357

Post by larsnystrom »

scarface_74 wrote: post #355
larsnystrom wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are they using any language at all? Why not just let the app maker open the payment screen directly?

Because users will then blame Apple when they get scammed. There are a lot of websites that give you a warning when you click on a link outside of their control.

But this is from a non-Apple app. You’re already on a page outside of Apples control.

Re: Apple violated antitrust ruling, judge finds

#358

Post by scarface_74 »

lazide wrote: post #302
Jensson wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now we will have corporate training programs teaching us to say "inform the user" when we mean "scare the user", and then this wont show up in court. Just like how Microsoft taught us to never say "crush the competition". They will do all the same things though.

Then that training will get called into evidence (like Google’s prior training re: anti competitive training) to prove they were being intentionally anti-competitive, and rinse repeat.

I’ve worked for one BigTech company in my career and there were a list of banned words we couldn’t say in writing. The one word I remember we couldn’t say was “moat”.

Re: Apple violated antitrust ruling, judge finds

#359

Post by jlokier »

snowwrestler wrote: post #343
clhodapp wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Phil Schiller was one of the strongest voices against cross-platform messaging interoperability. He's just as bad as the rest of them.

You can’t guarantee E2E across messaging networks. Apple still doesn’t do it, and neither does Signal, WhatsApp, Messenger, etc.

Sure you can. The services just need to agree protocols. The tech & cryptography part is not difficult these days. We've had guaranteed E2E for email since PGP in 1991, though not many people cared enough to use it.

None of the services you listed do it, but that's because they don't want to, not because it can't be done. It's a business decision problem, not a technical problem.

Re: Apple violated antitrust ruling, judge finds

#360

Post by llm_nerd »

rafaelcosta wrote: post #251

There's a whole class of sh*t-software that only exists (and is profitable) because users subscribe to them and then forget – primarily because the subscription fee is charged as "Apple" on their Credit Card. I wonder what's gonna happen with this type of scam.

Apple sends a specific, detailed receipt on the billing of every such item. Apple has some of the most user-friendly subscription management options of anyone. Apple lets you cancel a subscription immediately without cancelling the service immediately, and so on.

There is a lot to criticize Apple for -- the 30% fee is disgusting, and the subject of this order where they bar external payments without fees is criminal -- but the subscription complaint has always been weak.

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