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Apple violated antitrust ruling, judge finds

wsj.com

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Re: Apple violated antitrust ruling, judge finds

#391

Post by poincaredisk »

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…

>“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.

...and you believed him? I'm sorry, I'm trying to be less cynical in life, but he said exactly what people - apple fans - want to hear.

Is he above lying? We were just discussing how one of the apple executives straight up lied in court.

Re: Apple violated antitrust ruling, judge finds

#392

Post by DannyBee »

90s_dev wrote: post #8
stillatit wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what is the punishment for outright lying under oath?

Generally none, the DA must choose to pursue perjury charges, which basically never happens. In reality, nearly everyone commits perjury. Thomas More would not approve. Both versions (1966 and 1988) of A Man For All Seasons are highly worth watching several times and practically memorizing. "Would you benefit England by populating her with liars ?" [edit] in retrospect, there is one inescapable consequence of lying u…

This is mostly true - but it will be used against you in future civil proceedings as well.

IE this person is now useless as a witness pretty much forever.

Re: Apple violated antitrust ruling, judge finds

#393

Post by Wobbles42 »

A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 wrote: post #373
raincole wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not even sure how "external website" is malicious compliance. Yes, I know the intention is to sound scary. But external website is the correct, neutral term which means... external website.

To you and me, sure. On the other hand, I wonder if is intended to scare people who like and want the safety of the apple ecosystem and perceive everything as outside of it as dark web. Come to think of it, that is kinda how I see dark web.. is there a scarier place on line than that?

I think it would be easy to argue that the term "external website" is neutral rather than scary sounding, if not for actual chat logs in evidence saying "let's use this term because it's scary sounding".

It kind of surprises me that people working in that environment haven't been better trained about what not to write. I have zero legal background, but even twenty years ago at my very first corporate job I received a training module about legal discovery and the consequences of poorly worded emails -- and that was at a company that I genuinely believe was trying to follow the law in good faith, and was simply worried about liability due to misperception of careless language.

For a team specifically working on a legal compliance project, I am with the poster above that mentioned legal teams providing oversite. If nothing else, every one of these chats should have had a lawyer logged in to provide a mental reminder to participants that the conversation really isn't private.

Re: Apple violated antitrust ruling, judge finds

#394

Post by intrasight »

thealexliang wrote: post #44

"Apple willfully chose not to comply with this Court’s Injunction. It did so with the express intent to create new anti-competitive barriers which would, by design and in effect, maintain a valued revenue stream; a revenue stream previously found to be anti-competitive. That it thought this Court would tolerate such insubordination was a gross miscalculation. As always, the cover-up made it worse. For this Court, the…

There will be a fine. Nobody will go to jail. Apple will appeal. They will likely prevail on this "steering" complaint on a freedom of speech basis. It is their platform afterall.

My concern is more about having private companies control platforms upon which we depend. I do often wish that I had a crystal ball to peer a decade or several into the future to see what the future holds for humanity in this regard. Our legal system seems ill-equipped to manage this risk.

Re: Apple violated antitrust ruling, judge finds

#395

Post by DannyBee »

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…

"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."

Keep in mind that once you lose, the process is no longer adversarial. In ~all cases you will be required to provide evidence and status updates and such on implementation of an injunction, among other things.

So you do practically have to keep records of what you are doing to comply. These are the kinds of records you would normally see as a result. The only shocking thing is that they didn't lie :)

They often do try to hide bad stuff through privilege anyway - I believe they tried here and lost but i will go back and look - but that doesn't often work.

Re: Apple violated antitrust ruling, judge finds

#396

Post by Wobbles42 »

DannyBee wrote: post #381
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?

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…

Would this still be clear bad faith had these chat logs not been created?

In other words, could Apple have done these exact same actions and successfully argued that the language ("external website") was in fact neutral, if not for the direct written record that established their intent to do otherwise?

Everything you just said makes sense, but the details of how the courts manage to enforce orders like this are interesting, and it seems like enforcing notions of good faith must be extremely difficult.

Thanks for writing this though, this is a window into a space I have never played in. The legal system is very mysterious to me.

Re: Apple violated antitrust ruling, judge finds

#398

Post by lcnPylGDnU4H9OF »

eddyg wrote: post #321
Mayzie wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Odd. That is not there for me and I cannot add it :( I have the same problem as OP. I wish it were simple.

The “News” icon (to open a paywalled article in Apple News) only appears in the Share sheet in Safari.app proper.

It’s a bit amusing to me that this sounds like another, different anti-trust issue. Apple’s browser having this feature, which other browser vendors (presumably) can’t add, to open another app would also look bad to an EU judge.

Re: Apple violated antitrust ruling, judge finds

#399

Post by Wobbles42 »

DannyBee wrote: post #386
hajile wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Non-lawyer here. This information is surprising to me (to be clear, I believe you, I just would have guessed otherwise).

Is some degree of malicious compliance not extremely common when companies deal with the courts? From the outside it seems like the incentive would be to comply with a court order to the minimum degree required to avoid further legal consequences, but no more. Is compliance more enthusiastic that that in practice? Again, I have zero experience, but the idea of a company losing a lawsuit and then actually acting in good faith is a strange one to me.

An individual might be intimidated to act in actual good faith to avoid serious consequences, but Apple as an entity can't be tossed in jail for contempt of court, right? So it would seem that it is incentivized to push it's employees to take risks like this, with the understand that they can be replaced by employees who will if they refuse.

Re: Apple violated antitrust ruling, judge finds

#400

Post by GeoAtreides »

kubb wrote: post #240
openplatypus wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN is mostly US audience. EU = bad US = good

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

"Intellectually curious" on hn is either the soft glove on the fist of moderation or a thought terminating mallet against opposing views.
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