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Apple violated antitrust ruling, judge finds

wsj.com

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Re: Apple violated antitrust ruling, judge finds

#541

Post by int_19h »

sosull wrote: post #330
marcus_holmes wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's actually the effect of anti-trust/anti-monopoly laws. There's a point where companies get "too big to fail"/"too big to jail" and have outsize effect on the country (especially if the country is stupid enough to pass a Citizens United law that explicitly allows them to do this). Anti-trust laws are the main way that the government tries to prevent this, and haven't really been used since Reaganomics de…

With only a passing knowledge of the field, I'm aware that the standard of monopolistic effect varies between the EU and US (neither specifically uses financial size as the standard). In the EU it's about whether there is sufficient competition in the market, whereas in the US it's about whether the price is sufficiently competitive.

In US it's basically "whether there's harm to the consumer", which is so nebulous that large monopolists can often successfully argue that their abusive practices are a net benefit (usually by arguing that prices are lower).

It wasn't always like that, though. We used to have antitrust with serious teeth in this country. And then it literally got borked: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Antitrust_Paradox

Re: Apple violated antitrust ruling, judge finds

#542

Post by stale2002 »

hajile wrote: post #529
stale2002 wrote: post #519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> so it must continue to exist with the implication that it is good The purpose and reason why these concepts are absolutely good would be specifically because people like you, with your attitude exist. The purpose of the law isn't to play this game of bad faith find the loophole. Instead, the purpose is to make people follow both the letter and the intent of it. And The reason why vague concepts like this are good,…

Then we should just eliminate all the laws and instead pass one law that says "don't be evil" and just let the judges/juries make it up as they go. The truth is that you don't believe your own argument. You want LOTS of laws specifying all kinds of unacceptable behaviors in great detail. You only differ from me in where that line should be drawn.

No, we don't have to do that. The current system works well as it is.

> You want LOTS of laws specifying all kinds of unacceptable behaviors in great detail.

I don't have a problem with detail. Instead, I am rejecting the idea that mass amounts of details is always necessary, or that the law somehow completely collapses when it doesn't have detail.

No, the law is perfectly able to handle vague situations all the time, and you are the one trying to claim that it all falls apart for some reason. It doesn't. It works out quite well, and it worked out quite well in this case.

> You only differ from me

No, you are demanding that a completely pervasive and common concept of "reasonableness", which exists in all parts of the law be changed.

No, we don't need to do that. The law deals with that concept all the time and isn't falling apart.

Re: Apple violated antitrust ruling, judge finds

#543

Post by firloop »

jillyboel wrote: post #428
AntonyGarand wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe this is a way to use their own apple news subscription to access the article instead of using the archive version: It only redirects if you're not logged in to apple news.

So it's spam in the eyes of everyone who doesn't happen to subscribe to their service of choice? If they want to read an article through their news app they are of course free to do so, but why spam that link?

I’m sorry for posting it.

Re: Apple violated antitrust ruling, judge finds

#545

Post by jimbokun »

Wobbles42 wrote: post #375
Gareth321 wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Is it surprising? If the revenue realized by the ongoing defiance of the courts exceeds the cost of replacing the executive (including any risk premium caused by the risk of jail time in that job) then it seems rational for Apple as an entity to continue to defy the law. Even if these executive positions carried a guarantee of a several year term in minimum or medium security prison, for the salaries involved they sh…

You seem to be ignoring the question of why any executive would be dumb enough to risk actual jail time to further the interests of the inhuman, soulless entity that is Apple Computer.

Re: Apple violated antitrust ruling, judge finds

#546

Post by syndeo »

bigyabai wrote: post #485
jnwatson wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's the OS. It's the OS that requires apps to get permission before accessing my location, it's the OS that isolates apps from each other, it's the OS that provides an easy way to install/uninstall packages. Sorry, you're just wrong. Only by analyzing the apps can Apple enforce several policies that many folks think contribute to users' security. The prohibition against dynamic code, lying about the reason that an…

> Only by analyzing the apps can Apple enforce several policies Or they could secure the runtime and quit giving developers dangerous entitlements in the first place. Make no mistake, Apple doesn't need the App Store to develop meaningful security for their users. The Mac is living proof.

Without those entitlements, they would get slammed for being anticompetitive by not allowing 3rd party devs the privilege of building the things they want to build on the platform.

Re: Apple violated antitrust ruling, judge finds

#547

Post by syndeo »

Wobbles42 wrote: post #418
Tarq0n wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly the openAI debacle has undermined faith in those kinds of structures as well.

This is probably a good thing -- faith in such structures was never justified. Any relationship with a corporate entity is transactional in nature. A great deal of effort is often expended to manipulate us into feeling otherwise, but that is all it is. Companies don't have feelings. They aren't conscious entities with a capacity for guilt or morality. They are, in essence, software applications designed to execute on…

The end of that comment took me pretty quickly from "software applications?? nah" to "oh wow, y'know that's actually a pretty apt analogy"

Re: Apple violated antitrust ruling, judge finds

#548

Post by jimbokun »

malwrar wrote: post #491
jnwatson wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's the OS. It's the OS that requires apps to get permission before accessing my location, it's the OS that isolates apps from each other, it's the OS that provides an easy way to install/uninstall packages. Sorry, you're just wrong. Only by analyzing the apps can Apple enforce several policies that many folks think contribute to users' security. The prohibition against dynamic code, lying about the reason that an…

> The prohibition against dynamic code, lying about the reason that an app needs a certain permission, and all the trust and safety policies are all stuff an OS can't do. It _is_ something a community of people empowered to control their devices can organize and achieve, but we were stripped of this capability when a small set of private concerns unilaterally locked us out. They just told us that they were the only o…

It's not impossible according to the laws of physics or anything, but is there a real world example of a non-profit community run repository of software similar in scale to the App Store, with similar guarantees of quality and security that the App Store provides?

Re: Apple violated antitrust ruling, judge finds

#549

Post by jimbokun »

bigyabai wrote: post #485
jnwatson wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's the OS. It's the OS that requires apps to get permission before accessing my location, it's the OS that isolates apps from each other, it's the OS that provides an easy way to install/uninstall packages. Sorry, you're just wrong. Only by analyzing the apps can Apple enforce several policies that many folks think contribute to users' security. The prohibition against dynamic code, lying about the reason that an…

> Only by analyzing the apps can Apple enforce several policies Or they could secure the runtime and quit giving developers dangerous entitlements in the first place. Make no mistake, Apple doesn't need the App Store to develop meaningful security for their users. The Mac is living proof.

> The Mac is living proof.

Is Mac as secure as iOS?

Re: Apple violated antitrust ruling, judge finds

#550

Post by syndeo »

amelius wrote: post #430
Wobbles42 wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think there are any companies that care one way or the other about taking away your freedom. Companies are revenue maximizers, period. The ones that aren't quickly get displaced by ones that are. The simpler test is to stay away from any company that has anything to gain by taking away your freedom. THAT unfortunately is most of them. The depressing reality in consumer tech is that anything with a CPU doesn't…

I've been running Linux on Intel/AMD boxes for decades without any such problems.

Heard of the Intel Management Engine? https://www.zdnet.com/article/minix-intels-hidden-in-chip-op...

Little doubt AMD has something similar.

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