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Facebook reportedly prepping antitrust lawsuit against Apple on App Store rules
- chairmanwow1 6y agoWow. I didn't realize that all we needed to bat back the absurd monopolistic practices of the tech giants was a big tech civil war. The absurdity is compounded by the fact regulators never had the gumption to hunt the tigers themselves.
- jswizzy 6y agoThe pot calling the kettle black
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- benrapscallion 6y agoAs if we needed further proof of exactly what kind of a company Facebook is and what their core business is.
- eznzt 6y ago>the iPhone-maker abused its power in the smartphone market by forcing app developers to abide by App Store rules that Apple’s own apps don’t have to follow Yeah... So?
- damagednoob 6y agoThat could be seen as abusing their monopoly. Judges tend to take a dim view of that.
- dleslie 6y agoApple does not have a monopoly any more than Ford or Toyota do.
- damagednoob 6y agoUsing your analogy, Ford/Toyota would own the roads. IANAL but this strikes me a lot like the lawsuits Microsoft was being slapped with in the 90s/2000s[1]. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Corp._v._Commission https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Corp._v._Commissio...
- roywiggins 6y agoFirst Apple needs to be found to have a monopoly.
- izacus 6y agoDidn't Apple fans happily report that Apple collects 120% of all mobile profits? That majority of phones sold in US are iPhones? That Apple market share became majority last year in US?
- roywiggins 6y agoI'm not saying it is or isn't, just that arguing Apple really is a monopoly is going to be a large part of Facebook's case.
- viscanti 6y agoSecond, consumer harm needs to be proven.
- eznzt 6y agoWhere is the consumer harm in not allowing Facebook to track users between apps?
- heavyset_go 6y agoNo, it doesn't. Colloquial definitions of monopoly do not matter when it comes to antitrust laws[1]: > Courts do not require a literal monopoly before applying rules for single firm conduct; that term is used as shorthand for a firm with significant and durable market power — that is, the long term ability to raise price or exclude competitors. That is how that term is used here: a "monopolist" is a firm with significant and durable market power. [1] https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/competition-guidance/guide-antitrust-laws/single-firm-conduct/monopolization-defined https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/competition-guidance/guide-a...
- jandrese 6y agoFacebook is fighting the good fight for evil reasons. They complain that Apple's restrictions on apps are not applied to their own apps, given them an unfair advantage and also preventing people from developing real QoL improving apps for iPhones. That sounds reasonable. But then the stated reason is that Facebook wants to be able to better track what people are doing with their phones, so now I want both sides to lose.
- lmilcin 6y agoLet's not forget, that Facebook also owns its own platform. And Facebook has long tradition of doing basically the hell they want with it including whatever they want with user data, offering products aimed at influencing election results, building products to compete with existing businesses on their platform and then deplatforming competitors, etc.
- jandrese 6y agoYes, it would be deliciously ironic if Facebook won the case and was then forced to abide by the same mandate of openness.
- zpeti 6y agoShame on people for downvoting you. You are 100% correct factually, and imo morally too.
- sjwright 6y agoApple apps don’t do what Apple is restricting other developers from doing here, so any claim that these restrictions aren’t applied to their own apps is moot.
- mrtksn 6y agoAny chances of having juicy revelations like those we had with Apple v.s. Samsung? I loved the early prototypes and Samsung "Apple did this, we did this, fix it to make ours the way Apple is" documents that came out as evidence in the court.
- davzie 6y agoApple are a private company and can do whatever they want...
- ziftface 6y agoWhy is hacker news full to the brim with this exact comment? This is a flawed worldview. Private companies cannot do whatever they want. When they are as big and their reach is as far as Apple's they have a further responsibility to society. What that is exactly can be decided in court, but the limit to their power isn't "whatever they want".
- zepto 6y agoI’d like to see Facebook’s ‘responsibility to society’ examined first.
- davzie 6y agoI was being contrarian hoping that someone posted the gold that was the person you replied to. The irony in that comment is incredible!
- ziftface 6y agoI aim to please. Now tell me: what about my comment is wrong?
- username90 6y agoWe can examine both at the same time. You don't have to defend Apples practices just because Facebook is worse.
- ziftface 6y agoI completely agree with this and didn't mean to imply otherwise.
- akmarinov 6y agoFacebook: “Your honor, Apple implemented a prompt to ask people whether they want 3rd parties to track them, using their own data.” Judge: “Case closed.”
- ardit33 6y agoif apple does similar tracking themselves, but don't allow third parties, then FB might actually have a case there...
- zepto 6y agoThey don’t
- m00x 6y agoSource?
- zepto 6y agoIt’s widely known that Apple asks for an opt-in explicitly for user data collection. It doesn’t require a ‘source’ to check this. If you have a source showing that they are doing tracking without consent, that would be relevant, and would indeed favor facebook’s case.
- shuckles 6y agoNone of their apps use data for tracking according to their nutrition labels.
- izacus 6y agoWell, it can be more like "Your honor, Apple demanded that all their competitors implement a prompt to ask people whether they want tracking, but their own tracking is hidden under "System services" [macOS] or under another separate, by default enabled, switch [iOS]. They also demand that our Messenger discloses list of collected data, while apple's iMessage messenger does not disclose the data collected by Apple corporation as part of their iCloud service suite." Facebook is a scummy company. But Apple is hiding their own tracking under default opt-in switches and using double standards as well. It's funny that their own apps don't disclose all the data that iCloud collects and uses for basic functionality like messaging. Having BOTH corporations honestly disclose what they collect would be the biggest win for us.
- loceng 6y agoLet Facebook and Apple fight to educate the masses on their bullshit - while hopefully one or more strong competitors start scaling?
- ve55 6y agoNote that it is possible for these accusations to have some merit even if the accuser has engaged in similar things on their own. There's no need to group every interaction into political dichotomies.
- zepto 6y agoYes, but in this case it’s obvious that the only reason they are doing this is because of Apple’s requirement for people to consent to tracking. There is every reason to believe that this case is being shaped either a shakedown or to shape the market to facebook’s wishes, and not to serve an idealistic public good. Pretending this is not the case would be willful ignorance that nobody should engage in.
- ve55 6y agoIt may be in FB's best interest, but I would prefer we approach it by asking "Will this help consumers, users, and independent developers?", instead of "Will this help FB? Because if so, count me out".
- zepto 6y agoIt’s not going to help consumers and independent developers. Facebook and a preparing the case and does not care at all about either group, except perhaps to be able to take a slice of the action themselves. If the Facebook app was also an App Store, we’d be in a much worse situation than we are now. Some kind of intervention in the market might help those groups. This has absolutely nothing to do with that. It’s just dressed up in that language to mislead people about what it’s intent is.
- dhnajsjdnd 6y agoOne can just as easily say “Apple doesn’t care about the users, they’re just trying to make money selling phones and getting a bigger cut of transactions that happen on the phone”. These sorts of statements are somewhat true, but ultimately not relevant to law or public policy. In reality you’d find that companies are composed of individuals with a diverse range of motivations. If you find yourself unable to contemplate that the thousands of people at company X as something other than a unified blob of evil, it might be a useful exercise to seek other perspectives and practice some empathy. It’ll make the world easier to understand.
- zepto 6y agoEach time the issue of action to force Apple to open the App Store comes up, I usually mention that Facebook will be the first to open a store. If Facebook prevails, at the very least every developer and every user will have to deal with both Apple’s store and Facebook’s store. We know that Facebook will permit apps which do tracking without consent. This situation is objectively worse for both consumers and developers than what we have now. It’s also worth pointing out that Facebook would be unaffected, or indeed May even benefit if the overall app marketplace contracted due to erosion of user trust.
- chairmanwow1 6y agoDev's taking a 30% slice of revenue is abject absurdity and multiple stores would force competition on this front.
- zepto 6y agoThat may be true, but this remedy would still harm both developers and users much more than the 30% does. Having to support multiple stores will cost small developers much more than it does large ones. And having to deal with more scammy apps, and the loss of any tracking prevention will be a pure step backwards for users. Nobody should support this move by Facebook, even if you believe the app market needs reform. A Facebook App Store is obviously not the solution. There is actually no reason why the 30% couldn’t just be regulated directly, e.g. in the way that music performance royalties are regulated.
- mdoms 6y agoI currently have Steam, Epic Game Store, Origin, Battle.net and GOG Galaxy installed on my Windows PC and I don't seem to be running into the problems you describe. What I have is a lot of choice and a bunch of stores competing for my dollar in really interesting and innovative ways which largely benefit me and, often, the smaller developers.
- mr_toad 6y ago
- shuckles 6y agoFacebook is more popular than iOS, and they maintain a developer platform as well. What kinds of distinctions could they draw which force Apple to open up its platform without also having to open up the Facebook SDK? Should courts force Facebook to allow apps that populate newsfeed?
- ogre_codes 6y agoFacebook is more prevalent/ ubiquitous than iOS. I'm not sure I'd agree it's more popular.
- shuckles 6y agoSure. My question still stands with your framing.
- ogre_codes 6y agoIt's a neat question, I wish I had a good answer.
- dleslie 6y agoIndeed. Where is my ability to run my own ad service, payment processor, et cetera through Facebook's servers?
- shuckles 6y agoI’m sure Google would love to let users choose whose ad network delivers them ads on Facebook properties. There might even be room for innovation here.
- axlee 6y agoThis is a bad faith argument: an operating system is fundamentally different from an application.
- ogre_codes 6y ago
- msoad 6y agoI think this is going to protect Apple from antitrust lawsuits. Nobody like Facebook in the current government. They certainly won't help Facebook in this case. This is all on top of how absurd and unpopular this lawsuit is to begin with.
- fossuser 6y agoThe best analysis of this is from Stratechery: https://stratechery.com/2020/privacy-labels-and-lookalike-audiences/ https://stratechery.com/2020/privacy-labels-and-lookalike-au... -- "Amazon, meanwhile, is increasingly where shopping searches start, particularly for Prime customers, and the company’s ad business is exploding. Needless to say, Amazon doesn’t need to request special permission for IDFAs or to share emails with 3rd parties to finely target its ads: everything is self-contained, and to the extent the company advertises on platforms like Google, it can still keep information about customer interests and conversions to itself. That means that in the long run, independent merchants who wish to actually find their customers will have no choice but to be an Amazon third-party merchant instead of setting up an independent shop on a platform like Shopify. This decision, to be clear, will not be because Amazon was acting anticompetitively; the biggest driver — which, by the way, will also benefit Facebook’s on-platform commerce efforts — will be Apple, which, in the pursuit of privacy, is systematically destroying the ability of platform-driven small businesses to compete with the Internet giants." -- FB has a point here, but I'm still hoping Apple wins - I'd rather the tracking model not be viable.
- echelon 6y agoThe solution is this: 1. Apple iPhone needs to be an open platform. Users can install apps from wherever and don't have to go through Apple distribution. (But Apple can still provide this for convenience and discovery, and still charge a fee.) 2. Installing apps includes a strong permissions API. The filesystem, sensor access, GPS, etc. can be cordoned off and requires user intervention. Heuristics and isolation can prevent apps from sharing data for tracking/identification. The reality is that Apple outgrew their platform and it can't continue to exist as a walled garden without being a monopoly. They can't have their cake and eat it too. Otherwise Facebook has a case. Epic has a case. Etc.
- fossuser 6y agoI don't agree with this or want this. I like that Apple has leverage to tell app developers to adhere to their platform rules in ways that benefit Apple's users. If Apple was wielding this to harm users that'd be one thing, but they're not, they wield it to prevent spammy crap, to make it easy to subscribe and unsubscribe, to prevent spying and tracking, etc. That's why I value and buy Apple products, if someone wants an open platform they can buy something else. They're not a monopoly and they don't act in a way that harms their users.
- dleslie 6y agoBesides payments, this is essentially over Apple's privacy demands isn't it? If so, I sincerely hope that Facebook loses.
- utiac 6y agoPlease don't link to paywall information.
- rtx 6y agoYes, this is great for my specific use case.
- newbie578 6y agoWhile I might not like Facebook, I am supporting them on this decision. It is dire time to get rid of the App Stores, Google's and Apple's, they are a net negative for everyone except them. If you are a small developer, you can get review bombed and your app download rate can take a drastic hit, while if you are cozy with the big players (wink wink RobbingHood) Google will take down your 100k negative reviews. They keep reaping the rewards for doing absolutely nothing, except having the app be searchable. You do your own marketing, you develop your own app, you design your own app, you have nothing from Apple except that you need to ask for their permission to push your product on their walled garden. Of course I would love not to push it on the App Store, but they do not allow competition on iOS, which is the prime case for anti-trust. iOS does not make the smartphone experience, the apps make the smartphone experience. The order of priority should not be forgotten. If Spotify, Facebook, Google, Netflix and Amazon disappeared overnight from the App Store, I would love to see how willing would people be for their "eco-system" (walled garden)??
- birdyrooster 6y agoThere is a symbiosis between Apple and its developers, both are responsible for the experience and Apple reviews apps and maintains submission standards for that reason.
- ralmidani 6y agoI try to evaluate these BigCo vs. BigCo battles individually rather than always dissing one company or being a fanboy for another. In that vein, I support Apple in its attempts to clamp down on FB’s egregious tracking and data collection. At the same time, I support Epic’s attempts to break up Apple’s stranglehold on in-app payments. On that last issue specifically, I am even sympathetic to FB’s claim against Apple.
- root_axis 6y agoI appreciate your appeal to nuance.
- xiphias2 6y agoAs long as they are suing eachother, there’s a balance kept. The problem is that we already see content moderation oligopolies forming between Facebook, Google and Twitter.
- vineyardmike 6y ago1) What is the problem with the moderation of these three? 2) How is it an oligopoly? Anecdotally, i appreciate the efforts towards their moderation and hope to see more in the future. It makes me more likely to use their products. I'm voting "with my attention" (to paraphrase a oft-used quote)
- xiphias2 6y agoThey have network effect and can destroy a great legal and valid business just because an advertiser doesn’t like it. As long as they moderate separately, the businesses have chance to survive. Black Mirror had an episode with social scoring system that looks like the future, but is already happening on a small scale. Also if you want to see a movie with moderation turned on by multiple parties, watch the new Mulan and compare to the old one.
- Closi 6y ago> As long as they moderate separately, the businesses have chance to survive. Absolutely, although dispositions have shown that they do collaborate. Also collusion can still happen if companies create separate decisions and have no communication (see petrol prices).
- outside1234 6y agoSounds great. Let's break up Facebook AND unbundle the iOS app store.
- woah 6y agoSo refreshing to see Facebook fight for the little guy for once
- wayneftw 6y agoI just want to be able to build an app and put it on my phone, which I supposedly own, without having to jump through any of Apple's hoops. Is this lawsuit going to help me in any way?
- mrkramer 6y agoI still don't understand is Apple conservative about AppStore because of security reasons or like Zuck said they prefer their own apps and services. I mean if Google open sourced Android why wouldn't Apple ease their AppStore policies?
- sjwright 6y agoApple sees privacy as a marketable point of differentiation to its competitors. I for one appreciate that Apple’s approach is a choice available to me as a consumer. Meanwhile, the arc of Google’s Android platform has been steadily bending away from open source, not towards it.
- mrkramer 6y agoI understand that privacy is point of differentiation but on Android you can still load any .apk file on any Android device on iOS devices not so much.
- sjwright 6y agoEffective privacy protection means that app developers need strong incentives to follow strict rules. I for one appreciate that Apple’s approach of enforcing strict rules is a choice available to me as a consumer.
- _kbh_ 6y agoYou can install any .ipa on a iOS device you just need to jump through a bunch of hoops to get it onto your device signed in a way that will make it valid.
- stretchcat 6y agoCan I do this without MacOS?
- _kbh_ 6y ago
- ogre_codes 6y agoI think Facebook has 2 or 3 targets here. They want to force Apple to open up the restriction on the App Store. Apple has been slowly turning the screws making it more and more difficult to get information out of the phone. I'm not sure Facebook is going to be able to get that, but I suspect they have a plan B which is iMessage. iMessage is Apple's secret "Social Network". When I quit Facebook, it's what I turned to, and I know a lot of people who rely on it as their primary way of keeping in touch with friends/ family and the increasing functionality of iMessage is becoming more of a threat to FB. While Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and all the other messaging apps have to beg to get access to Photos, Location, ApplePay, cameras, FaceId, etc, with iMessage everything is permitted out of the box. Apple has a whole mini-App Store for iMessage which isn't really possible with Facebook. Finally, I'm sure Facebook would absolutely love to open up their own Ad-supported App Store which tracks everyone to their hearts content. Piles of money building an App Store, particularly when someone else is building the whole tool-chain to make it work and you just have to serve up the content.
- asiachick 6y agoYou must only have privileged friends and family. None of my family has an iPhone. They are all android. So they can't run iMessage. It seems improbable that 100% of your family and friends are all iPhone. Or maybe you just decided if they didn't get an iPhone they weren't worth connecting with?
- ogre_codes 6y agoI have friends with Android. I just use SMS talking to them... which is accessed via iMessage as well. The experience is a little bit less nice.
- mr_toad 6y ago> Or maybe you just decided if they didn't get an iPhone they weren't worth connecting with? Anecdotally I have heard of kids and teenagers doing that. Sending a green message marks you out as a scrub.
- tech234a 6y ago
- mercurialshark 6y agoIt is entirely appropriate to consider Apple's conduct as anti-competitive and/or acting as part of a cartel, without asserting that the appropriate remedy is an injunction allowing Facebook to utilize user's unique device ID's to the benefit of Facebook's ads systems for ad targeting. In other words, this particular case may help elucidate Apple's dominance/influence on the market, but that does not necessarily mean that the privacy changes in and of themselves are the foundational antitrust issue.
- sjwright 6y agoThat makes no sense. Apple is guilty for doing the right thing? If you want to demonstrate market dominance, write a clear definition into the law and enact it.
- mercurialshark 6y agoI'm not addressing guilt, but to your point, it may be but one way to demonstrate their market dominance (even if the consequences are beneficial for consumers). If you spent illicit funds on a good cause, it can still be used as proof of your control over the funds. So Apple's position and influence over the market may raise antitrust concerns, but that doesn't mean I don't want privacy protections (I do!). As an example, a drug dealer can give money to their community and while it's going towards a good cause, that doesn't change who/how they are donating. Companies can have similar conduct in hopes that an enforcement action would be perceived as harming the consumer/retail investors.
- Mc_Big_G 6y agoMakes sense that Facebook would fight anything that helps people realize how many ways they track and manipulate users.
- mrfusion 6y agoSo who do I root for ...?
- sanguy 6y agoI dislike Facebook and even without using their platform (account was deleted years ago) my PiHole #1 DNS queries are all related to Facebook. They are the cancer of the web. If I want a moated ecosystem for my smartphone I am happy to have this option with Apple. If I wanted open I can go with any of the Android options. I have a choice. I do not need Facebook to remove that choice for me in their efforts to violate my privacy further.
- chappi42 6y agoAll power to Facebook! I can (and do) block Facebook and be almost not affected with what they do, but iPhones as part of a duopoly cannot be avoided. I like and use Apple hardware but hope that Facebook and Epic rip them into pieces. It's completely inacceptable that a single company holds the sole power to access such a widespread platform. There needs to be a side-loading choice and alternative app stores.
- local_dev 6y ago> It's completely inacceptable that a single company holds the sole power to access such a widespread platform. Why? What about Apple's practice is unacceptable? What is the difference between Apple's behavior and how Nintendo or Sony run their platforms? Personally, I do not want another store outside of Apple's because I value the review process. Compare Apple's app store to the Microsoft Windows Store. The relative quality of apps on Apple's store is significantly higher than on Windows Store.
- stale2002 6y ago> Personally, I do not want another store outside of Apple's because I value the review process. Then feel free to not install apps from different stores? And let everyone else choose to use those other stores, on their own phone, if they choose to do so.
- rfd4sgmk8u 6y agoIt's not this simple, and security isn't about an individuals choice. It is about ecosystem security. The platform is considered secure because folks can't (easily) install malware from sketchy app stores. With an iphone talking to another iphone, one can be more confident that the other parties device is not compromised by garden variety trojanized apps, etc.
- detaro 6y agoI thought the platform was considered secure because Apple is good at making a secure OS with working sandboxes. Their app moderation is bad enough that I would not want to rely on app store policy alone.
- jeffrogers 6y agoAll of this presupposes the current flavor of programatic advertising is something worth protecting. IMO, the cost of the current targeting methods -factoring in the actors and practices of the attached data economy- is simply not worth it. Not even close. I applaud Apple's intentions, but I’m afraid they’ve made a tactical error that will only serve to cement bad practices at the end of all the lawsuits and government inquiries. Fingers crossed.
- mark_l_watson 6y agoI am heavily on Apple’s side on this. People like my wife and me want a safe, privacy environment and Apple delivers. (I have two Linux laptops for out-of-the-garden use). Apple does deserve a little criticism for the App Store, but their softening fees for most developers helps. Compared to Facebook (a blight on civilization, IMHO) Apple is couth indeed.
- objc 6y agoIf you want saftey and privacy, don't use Facebook in any form. The App Store does not protect you, the operating system does.
- mark_l_watson 6y agoI don’t use Facebook anymore, except that I use it to enjoy my Oculus Quest. I am not ready to have a “burning my Quest” experience, as satisfying as that might feel.
- jjcon 6y ago> People like my wife and me want a safe, privacy environment and Apple delivers. I’m not sure that Apple persevering privacy also requires them to also break antitrust laws.
- heavyset_go 6y ago> People like my wife and me want a safe, privacy environment and Apple delivers Yet iOS exploits are cheaper than Android exploits because iOS exploits are so plentiful[1][2] in comparison. There's no reason you'd have to use anything but Apple's App Store if Apple's monopoly on mobile app distribution was broken. [1] https://www.theregister.com/2020/05/14/zerodium_ios_flaws/ https://www.theregister.com/2020/05/14/zerodium_ios_flaws/ [2] http://zerodium.com/program.html http://zerodium.com/program.html
- _kbh_ 6y agoThere plentiful because some many people where looking at them, because they where so expensive in the past IMO. There are other advantages as well, less device fragmentation makes it a lot easier to sell exploits that work on all phones. I would not be surprised if over all android phones where less secure. One of the reasons being the device fragmentation. Apple has also recently taken decent strides to make one of the main 0 click vectors (Messages) harder to exploit with iOS 14.
- throwawayboise 6y agoAnymore I just opt out of the game. I don't use any Apple tech. I don't use Facebook. I don't use Amazon.
- huitzitziltzin 6y agoPeople claiming that Apple can do "whatever it wants" are definitely wrong, but in all of the discussion on this article I don't see anything like the following: which current antitrust law is Apple violating with this behavior? There are a very small number of such laws (Sherman Act, Clayton Act, Celler-Kefauver, Hart-Scott-Rodino, Robinson-Patman, plus three or four others). Someone who wants to make a case that this is a "clear" antitrust violation (definitely the attitude of some in this thread!) should point to which law has been violated. Even better: point to similar case law from earlier decisions. Just arguing that this behavior is "bad" is not going to be that persuasive to a court You can think Apple is right or wrong on this issue, but to say that the antitrust case against Apple is clear is quite different. Why is it a clear case?
- reddog 6y agoWow. People in glass houses...
- ben_w 6y agoThere was a story; when Google+ was released, Zuckerberg started saying “Carthage must fall”, seeing it as an existential threat to Facebook in the same way as Cato saw Carthage as an existential threat to the Roman Republic. If that story was true about Google+, he’s probably saying something similar about Apple today. Given what happened in DC a few weeks ago, given what happened in Myanmar since late 2016, given that what FB is suing to prevent is a thing which I read as legally required for operation in the EU (GDPR requires genuine opt-in IIUC), given the monopolistic behaviour FB is demonstrating with Oculus and other purchases? Facebook delenda est.