Apple violated antitrust ruling, judge finds • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple violated antitrust ruling, judge finds

#381

Post by DannyBee » Thu, May 01, 2025, 1:14 PM UTC

hajile wrote: post #339

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…

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?

Lawyer here - that's not how these things work. This is definitely non-compliant.

Injunctions are, intentionally, required only to "describe in reasonable detail the act or acts restrained or required". The key being "reasonable". They are not required to specify every detail, or every wrong or right thing, especially when the party being enjoined knows more of the details of how things work than the court does.

You seem to believe the court must specify language, etc, and they are absolutely not required to do so. It is your job to figure it out, and if you need more information, shockingly, you can ask the judge for the information, or whether your proposed approach would be compliant.

You are also required to make good faith attempts to comply with a court order. The evidence here is overwhelming bad faith - they were not trying to figure out how to actually ensure the court's goals were carried out, they are instead trying to figure out how to thwart them. That is pretty much the definiton of bad faith.

The injunction has reasonable detail. This is neither good faith, nor did they ask.

You seem to think this is game of try to find legal loopholes. That is a good way to get thrown in a jail by a judge.

It's not. Once you are found guilty and injunction entered, the adversarial process is done. You lost.

Your job is to do what the court requires of you, in good faith, as best you can.

Even if you appeal it, unless it is stayed, you are still required to do it.

Re: Apple violated antitrust ruling, judge finds

#382

Post by cwmma » Thu, May 01, 2025, 1:15 PM UTC

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…

they did try to hide some of this stuff, by abusing attorney client privilege, which is one of the reasons the judge is SO pissed at them.

Re: Apple violated antitrust ruling, judge finds

#383

Post by rfrey » Thu, May 01, 2025, 1:15 PM UTC

brudgers wrote: post #183

rfrey wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is your comment asserting that there are no people poor enough to steal food? Or are you claiming that poor people do not get arrested and are in fact treated with kindness and compassion by the various police agencies?

The “them” of Apple is a fictitious person. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/fictitious-person Your assumptions are absurd.

Thanks and apologies, I totally misinterpreted your comment.

Re: Apple violated antitrust ruling, judge finds

#384

Post by graemep » Thu, May 01, 2025, 1:16 PM UTC

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…

> 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.

Maybe that is a result of the attitudes that made them one of the largest companies in the world?

Re: Apple violated antitrust ruling, judge finds

#385

Post by Wobbles42 » Thu, May 01, 2025, 1:16 PM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #365

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?

Same (perceived) reason my bank and brokerages (and I think even my kid's school website does this) pop up a warning every time I click on a link that will take them outside their website. I think there's a valid reason to think "if it's OK and common for banks and brokers to do it, it's OK for me to do it" and also to think "this will help protect users from being scammed by other apps who might pop open random link…

There is probably nothing whatsoever the judge could have done about this action by itself. The issue is the conversations around it, which established intent. The chat logs provide hard evidence that it was done in bad faith and with criminal intent.

Now that I think about it, I wonder how much of the current backlash against remote work is to avoid this exact situation. Face to face conversations don't end up in evidence. Written conversations do, and video chats are increasingly being summarized and recorded by AI.

Re: Apple violated antitrust ruling, judge finds

#386

Post by DannyBee » Thu, May 01, 2025, 1:17 PM UTC

hajile wrote: post #367

jkirsteins wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Malicious compliance is a thing. They're supposed to use neutral language.

Malicious compliance is only illegal if it doesn't actually comply.

This is also wrong.

Good faith is a requirement. Act in bad faith, and you can still be sanctioned.

Do you have any background in this, or are you just asserting what you want reality to be?

Because you are just spouting wrong information that, even for a non-lawyer, would take you 10 minutes to go find and read right information.

Re: Apple violated antitrust ruling, judge finds

#387

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 » Thu, May 01, 2025, 1:17 PM UTC

Gareth321 wrote: post #297

caf wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The phrase "incandescent with rage" comes to mind when reading that order. A couple of choice quotes: To hide the truth, Vice-President of Finance, Alex Roman, outright lied under oath. This is an injunction, not a negotiation. There are no do-overs once a party willfully disregards a court order. Time is of the essence. The Court will not tolerate further delays. As previously ordered, Apple will not impede competit…

She also referred Alex Roman's actions and everyone else complicit for review of contempt of court, which carries a possible prison sentence. I never thought Apple would outright defy the courts to the degree they'd risk a prison term for the executives.

They'll defy the courts for profit but not for warrants and surveillance requests. Telling

Do they defy the courts in China or just in the US?

Re: Apple violated antitrust ruling, judge finds

#388

Post by scarface_74 » Thu, May 01, 2025, 1:18 PM UTC

larsnystrom wrote: post #357

scarface_74 wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It doesn’t matter. The app came from the App Store.

Re: Apple violated antitrust ruling, judge finds

#389

Post by n4r9 » Thu, May 01, 2025, 1:22 PM UTC

willchang wrote: post #362

What was Alex Roman's lie? I'm having a hard time figuring that out.

It's not very clear in OP, but is reported better in other places.

> Apple employees attempted to mislead the Court by testifying that the decision to impose a commission was grounded in AG’s report. The testimony of Mr. Roman, Vice President of Finance, was replete with misdirection and outright lies. He even went so far as to testify that Apple did not look at comparables to estimate the costs of alternative payment solutions that developers would need to procure to facilitate linked-out purchases.

> The Court finds that Apple did consider the external costs developers faced when utilizing alternative payment solutions for linked out transactions, which conveniently exceeded the 3% discount Apple ultimately decided to provide by a safe margin. Apple did not rely on a substantiated bottoms-up analysis during its months-long assessment of whether to impose a commission, seemingly justifying its decision after the fact with the AG’s report.

> Mr. Roman did not stop there, however. He also testified that up until January 16, 2024, Apple had no idea what fee it would impose on linked-out purchases […] Another lie under oath: contemporaneous business documents reveal that on the contrary, the main components of Apple’s plan, including the 27% commission, were determined in July 2023.

> Neither Apple, nor its counsel, corrected the, now obvious, lies. They did not seek to withdraw the testimony or to have it stricken (although Apple did request that the Court strike other testimony). Thus, Apple will be held to have adopted the lies and misrepresentations to this Court.

https://9to5mac.com/2025/05/01/a-senior-apple-exec-could-be-...

Re: Apple violated antitrust ruling, judge finds

#390

Post by graemep » Thu, May 01, 2025, 1:22 PM UTC

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

That is true of some EU laws. Many have a disproportionate impact on smaller companies. GDPR for example, and the early versions of VATMOSS in terms of things I have dealt with.

Also, non EU laws such as the UK's Online Safety Act.

Not just in technology. It is also true of UK licensing laws for pubs - an example my attention was drawn to by comments made by the SEO of a big pub company as giving it an advantage.

On the other hand the EU's DMA and a lot of competition regulation gets that right.