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This is easily one of the most expansive Acts regarding computing devices passed in my lifetime. The summary is in the link. As an iPhone user, this will enable

This is easily one of the most expansive Acts regarding computing devices passed in my lifetime. The summary is in the link. As an iPhone user, this will enable me to: * Install any software * Install any App Store and choose to make it default * Use third party payment providers and choose to make them default * Use any voice assistant and choose to make it default * User any browser and browser engine and choose to make it default * Use any messaging app and choose to make it default * Make core messaging functionality interoperable. They lay out concrete examples like file transfer * Use existing hardware and software features without competitive prejudice. E.g. NFC * Not preference their services. This includes CTAs in settings to encourage users to subscribe to Gatekeeper services, and ranking their own services above others in selection and advertising portals * Much, much, more. After the Act is signed by the Council and the European Parliament in September, Apple, Google, Amazon, and other "Gatekeepers" will have six months to comply. Fines are up to 10% of global revenue for the first offense, and 20% for repeat offenses.

mehdix 4y ago
Is this potentially breaking apple's walled garden? I wonder wether they will comply at all. Besides, I'm glad to see interoperability mentioned there, perhaps one day we could text from one messenger to another one without being held back by the owner.
- Gareth321 4y ago
  It depends what you mean by walled garden. If you're referring to their ability to secure iOS, then no. The legislation includes many exceptions for security purposes; but they must be demonstrable and genuine. The current iOS implementation already sandboxes applications and only provides limited permissions ad hoc, according to user approval. So even under the current architecture, allowing users to install applications doesn't undermine security.
- ls15 4y ago
  > Is this potentially breaking apple's walled garden? I wonder wether they will comply at all. They will or there will be a repetition of Microsoft Corp. v. Commission, but with much higher fines.
- dvfjsdhgfv 4y ago
  > I wonder wether they will comply at all. Of course they will try not to. They will do everything to prolong the appeal process and so on - it's unthinkable they would allow any other app store on their devices, that's the very core of their identity - to be as closed and unified as possible. I don't believe the EU has enough power to fight Apple. I'll believe it when I see the first iPhone with an USB-C charger.
  - ethbr0 4y ago
    The other side of the coin is "Does Apple have enough brand goodwill to spend it on X years of 'Apple fights EU to keep monopoly' news articles?" Kind of hard to claim you're all unicorns and rainbows, when you're actively involved in a court case to defend anti-user practices...
    - dvfjsdhgfv 4y ago
      I think you underestimate them. Off the top of my head: 1. EU bureaucrats are threatening one of the most successful business models ever. 2. Jealous EU tries to punish successful American tech companies as they can't compete with them in the market. 3. The EU attempts to lower the value of tech stock, threatening pensions of millions of Americans. 4. Apple will need to fire thousands if the malicious plan of EU bureaucrats succeeds. Etc. etc.
      - toyg 4y ago
        1. Who cares, it's an American company contributing very little to the EU market - in fact, siphoning billions of euros to tax havens 2. see point 1 3. see point 1 4. see point 1
        dodobirdlord 4y ago
        The EU has a bunch of reciprocal trade agreements with the USA to not engage in punitive harassment of each other’s companies. Of course they still can, but that’s what’s called a “trade war” and it’s generally not a good thing for all involved. Public perception of these changes in the US is also very important, since if the US government chooses to view these actions as punitive harassment calculatedly targeted only at US companies, it will respond with tariffs etc on EU goods.
- parasense 4y ago
  > Besides, I'm glad to see interoperability mentioned there, perhaps one day we could text from one messenger to another one without being held back by the owner. By forcing message passing platforms to submit to sharing private encryption keys? And that interoperability entailing the possibility of passing messages to government eavesdropping schemes? Sounds like a utopian paradise!
  - idle_zealot 4y ago
    > forcing message passing platforms to submit to sharing private encryption keys? Why assume that requirement? For E2E encrypted messaging services all that needs to be shared are public keys for interoperability to work. In the case of middleman encrypted messaging you already trust the provider not to sell you out. If they interoperate then you trust N providers, where N is the number of providers engaged in a particular chat thread.
    - mrbombastic 4y ago
      You say this like it is not a big deal, I trust Apple much more than I trust Meta with my messages. Apple has made privacy a cornerstone of their sales pitch, Meta not so much. N=2 is too many.
  - zaik 4y ago
    Take a look at OMEMO (Signal encryption protocol for the XMPP internet standard). Interoperability and E2EE are not exclusive at all.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
chaoz_ 4y ago
Huge. What if Apple claims implementing required feature X will take more than 6 months? I could see it happening given that planning has already happened and new func will need to be smoothly introduced into UX etc.
- ls15 4y ago
  > What if Apple claims implementing required feature X will take more than 6 months? Then that will increase the implementation cost by at least (edit: up to) 10% of their global revenue.
  - Oarch 4y ago
    Up to 10%* Assuming they won't go with the maximum amount early on.
    - bigDinosaur 4y ago
      Jumping to such colossal fines is probably an excellent way to annoy the US, too, and given the current security/economic/political/world/universe situation I'd wager that the US would lean heavily on the EU to reach some kind of compromise. These companies aren't just big themselves, they also have the most powerful country on the planet willing to exert pressure to make them stay powerful. I'd be very surprised if Apple/Google/etc. ever paid 20% of global revenue even if they blatantly violate much of what the EU wants.
      - MichaelCollins 4y ago
        > Jumping to such colossal fines is probably an excellent way to annoy the US, too, and given the current security/economic/political/world/universe situation The US military having bases in Europe is a mutually beneficial arrangement, not some sort of charity America is giving Europe. The US threatening to withdraw from those bases for the sake of Apple would be supreme stupidity. Not impossible, but supremely stupid. There are much bigger fish in this sea than a handful of tech companies, large as they are. Apple is a small drop in the bucket compared to the vast commercial and industrial scope of America's global priorities.
nailer 4y ago
> Use any voice assistant and choose to make it default Cool. I have an iPhone but everything in my house uses Alexa. It would be great to have my phone control my using using ‘Alexa’ as a wake word. It will also be nice to have a real Brave or Opera or whatever (with Blink not WebKit) on my iPhone.
- akmarinov 4y ago
  Second this, Apple has shown zero interest to support my native language (they went 11 years between adding new languages to iOS). This would allow me to switch to Google Assistant which supports it and just use that.
rvschuilenburg 4y ago
This almost sounds too good to be true. What are the odds of this being watered down, or being delayed into eternity?
- Gareth321 4y ago
  IMHO, extremely low. The DMA has passed final debate and review, so it's not changing now. The last step is basically a formality. The beauty of the EU is that corporate financial influence is far less pervasive than even in the governments of member nations. The level of abstraction is just too large. Apple, Google, Amazon, et al., can wage a PR campaign, but it's highly unlikely to succeed.
  - riffraff 4y ago
    > The beauty of the EU is that corporate financial influence is far less pervasive than even in the governments of member nations. [citation needed] The reason this regulations went through easily is that they mostly target foreign operators. It's not the same with all regulations, the EU is a lobbying battleground as much as everywhere else, you can see that in most things, big corps just go through governments when not going through MEPs.
    - MichaelCollins 4y ago
      If it's a matter of lobbying aka legal bribery, why are foreign companies disadvantaged? These American companies have no qualms about lobbying in America, they could do the same in the EU. If the EU officials prefer to serve the interests of EU companies despite lobbying from both of them, maybe it's because they earnestly believe EU interests are better served by EU companies?
    - thefz 4y ago
      > The reason this regulations went through easily is that they mostly target foreign operators. Because 1) foreign operators do the fuck they want in unregulated markets such as the US and 2) there are no such operators in the EU because they have already been regulated
varispeed 4y ago
Does it mean Google will have to enable call recording APIs on Android? That would be sweet. Currently none of call recording apps work on my phone and this is a must have feature for me. When I take a call with my doctor I have to use my separate memo recorder, so that I can refer to the call in the future if I forget something. Let's not mention usefulness of this feature when you are placing orders over the phone and then the other party claims this is what I wanted once they deliver something not as agreed. If I could record a call I had evidence in case of dispute.
- amelius 4y ago
  > If I could record a call I had evidence in case of dispute. It might not be legal to do that, in all cases, and the evidence might not be valid.
  - capableweb 4y ago
    It might not be legal to do a lot of stuff with your phone, but usually we leave that up to individuals to decide, rather than stifling the functionality of the phone. Similar to how we treat knives and similar things.
  - varispeed 4y ago
    This is not really a valid argument. If they were concerned about legality, we wouldn't have cameras on the phone and probably neither the call functionality. That being said, call recording is legal in my country.
  - ensignavenger 4y ago
    Depending on where they are located... the vast majority of US states are one-party consent states. And many businesses already have a recording when you call them informing parties that the call may be recorded, which clear more legal hurdles in more jurisdictions.
  - ThatPlayer 4y ago
    Generally informing the other party you are recording is enough consent if they stay on the line. Plenty of customer service lines do that with an automated voice: "This call may be recorded (for quality control purposes)". So their party has already been informed that the call will be recorded, and there's no expectation of privacy.
randomhodler84 4y ago
- RedShift1 4y ago
  Then just keep using the Apple store and Apple pay.
  - ben_w 4y ago
    That's great until someone has an app I need and chooses to only make it available on a different store. I'm not legally trained, so I hope they've thought of this and also have rules for these 3rd party app stores.
    - vesinisa 4y ago
      Well if the app is on a different store you wouldn't be able to currently install it all, right? So you have only expanded your options and it's up to you if you choose to exercise them or not.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - ratww 4y ago
        Well, the app might be currently available in the AppStore but would now be able to move to an AltStore. Plenty of apps I bought in the past have been pulled from macOS AppStore but are available on websites. In the past I even had banks and even the public sector offices abusing Windows and macOS security and forcing me to install the equivalent of a rootkit in my computer. Without a sufficiently smart sandbox I bet this problem will come back. On the other hand, that doesn't seem to have happened on Android, at least not in a wide scale.
    - iainmerrick 4y ago
      That’s similar to the situation with Android and iOS right now. In principle, there could be an app you need but can’t use because it’s only on Android and you have an iPhone. If you like the App Store and want to continue using it, you’ll be fine unless it becomes less popular and loses some important apps. That could happen but seems unlikely in the near term.
rvz 4y ago
- alaric410 4y ago
  Nonsense. You can't fight spam, criminal or hackers by restricting your ecosystem. Such measures only enable monopolies like Apple to make money at the expense of the consumer or competitors.
  - rvz 4y ago
    - alaric410 4y ago
    - emkoemko 4y ago
      you mean all those diplomats and journalists where not using compromised iphones?.... hahaha come on now...
      - rvz 4y ago
        So we are not going talk about the billions of Android phones still with unpatched 0 days that have been abandoned and haven't been fixed for years infected with ransomware? Is that why over the space of 8 years, there has been only ONE ransomware case for iOS found vs 7+ and counting on Android with 900,000 devices infected in just 30 days? [0] Of course you won't. Your comment is beside my point which I didn't say that iOS devices couldn't be hacked, compromised or attacked. My first reply specifically mentions the handling of this is done better on Apple devices, especially iOS devices. As soon as a 0 day is found, the OTA rollout covers more than >60% of supported devices in less than a week after releasing, even on the 6 - 7 major versions below. But of course, it appears you just had to deliberately misconstrue and misinterpret my replies, which happens very often with readers who rush into the comments section and never finish reading the whole comment. What a shame. [0] https://blog.knowbe4.com/evolution-of-mobile-ransomware https://blog.knowbe4.com/evolution-of-mobile-ransomware
benbristow 4y ago
Wonder if this will also apply outside the EU (e.g. now Britain)
- mattgperry 4y ago
  Surely that's at each company's discretion.
- aloisdg 4y ago
  Let's hope that the Brussels effect does its magic > The Brussels effect is the process of unilateral regulatory globalisation caused by the European Union de facto (but not necessarily de jure) externalising its laws outside its borders through market mechanisms. Through the Brussels effect, regulated entities, especially corporations, end up complying with EU laws even outside the EU for a variety of reasons. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brussels_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brussels_effect
amelius 4y ago
Can I now install Linux on an iPhone?
- fsflover 4y ago
  You already can have a phone running GNU/Linux (Librem 5 or Pinephone) though.
  - aloisdg 4y ago
    Yes but I may have a on old working iphone laying in my desktop that I would like to reuse for ecological reason
    - fsflover 4y ago
      I have little hope that Apple will release enough information to develop free drivers for your phone. Without such information, you have to forever use an outdated, vulnerable Linux kernel. See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26593274 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26593274.
- pabs3 4y ago
  If your iPhone is old enough to be vulnerable to one of the bootrom exploits, then yes you can. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/06/developers-get-linux-up-and-running-on-old-ipad-air-2-hardware/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/06/developers-get-linux...
yoavm 4y ago
Interestingly enough, an iPhone that complies with these demands is actually the first iPhone I'd ever consider paying for. I wonder if this might actually increase adoption.
- capableweb 4y ago
  If "Install any software" becomes real and I can start writing software on Linux for iPhone, without requiring me to have a Mac, I'll become an instant iPhone fanboy as the hardware is second to none. It's the software that is stopping the phone from becoming the best one around.
  - iasay 4y ago
    I think that's completely unrealistic. It's not going to happen even if they open the platform up.
    - capableweb 4y ago
      If the platform becomes open enough so we can side-load applications, I bet you 100EUR we'll be able to develop iPhone applications from any operating system, but first Linux, within a year :)
      - iasay 4y ago
        Note that I'm side loading two applications I actually wrote myself on my iPhone already...
        capableweb 4y ago
        How? I've been looking for ages on how to develop iPhone applications on Linux and there is no way that doesn't involve installing Hackingtosh, either as a new OS on a partition or in a VM, or renting a Mac server somewhere, so it's not really "developing on Linux" at all.
shadowgovt 4y ago
Possibly. The other possibility is it will make it impossible to buy an iPhone in Europe. It certainly puts a huge incentive on Apple to figure out technical solutions to problems like "How do we get other browser engines on this thing without compromising a hundred OS assumptions, battery performance, or user security," but it's also possible Apple decides that's a no-go and it'll cost more than 25% of annual revenue to comply, at which point the winning market strategy is opt-out. That's fine; win-win for the EU market because it clears the playing field for a European-originated competitor to the iPhone. ETA I forgot the third possibility: Apple decides it will cost more than 10% (and later 20%) of revenue to comply, but the 5% bump in value is still worth it and they write off non-compliance as a tax to do business in Europe. Then if the EU tries to impose structural or behavioral changes, we're back to square one on the question of whether those changes cost more than (now) 5% of Apple's revenue.
- M2Ys4U 4y ago
  > Possibly. The other possibility is it will make it impossible to buy an iPhone in Europe. I doubt Apple will be willing to forego sales in the world's third largest economy, tbh.
  - shadowgovt 4y ago
    It's not about absolute value; it's about relative value. if not making the change costs them the whole market (about 25% of their revenue) and making the change adds 30% to engineering overhead or adds 30% costs due to secondary effects (such as market-share loss to Android because Apple's performance moat suffers), it might not be worth it. To be clear: I think this is the right kind of hardball for EU to play. The stakes are high, but most outcomes are a net win for the EU. It seems like strategically good law.
    - refurb 4y ago
      Exactly. If 30% of your business wants a change that means a 40% drop to all your business the smart move is to drop the customer that is 30%.
- 4y ago
iasay 4y ago
While I agree with this, I'm interested in seeing what the long term security consequences are. These are all the highest risk API and integration surfaces on mobile devices. Also I hope Microsoft get pulled into this as well because they're slowly turning Windows into a marketing device. Edit: as an iOS user I'm optimistic that this will lead to complete device network whitelist capabilities though so you can neuter any apps which circumvent the current browser restrictions. That would destroy a lot of tracking capability instantly and completely stop embedded browser side channel attacks.
- SheinhardtWigCo 4y ago
  > I'm interested in seeing what the long term security consequences are. Negligible; most large-format computing devices already allow you to do all of these things.
  - judge2020 4y ago
    And it tends to be a bad experience for anyone who doesn’t naturally gravitate towards HN when they eventually get malware or unwanted browser adware extensions.
    - izacus 4y ago
      And the world will continue turning just like it had for the last 50 years of us having general purpose computers without an American at Apple telling us what we're allowed to do with our products.
  - raesene9 4y ago
    However mobile devices have a dual role (in many people's lives these days) as being the custodian of all their MFA setup. weakening mobile security (which this arguably may do) could have an impact there. Also "large format computing devices" are moving more to the lockdown model, at least partially due to the security problems inherent in allowing end users to install/run whatever they want :)
  - permo-w 4y ago
tgv 4y ago
> User any browser and browser engine and choose to make it default Hello, Alphabet world domination. They finally get the chance to get rid of that pesky Safari. Next stop: obligatory sign-in for using a service.
- capableweb 4y ago
  Article 101 and 102 from the "EU Antitrust policy" already protects against anti-competitive agreements and abusive behavior from those holding a dominant market position, I don't think that will change.
- rvz 4y ago
  See. It is frankly pointless. Chrome already has a significant amount of mindshare and will grow even more after this. The users have already chosen Chrome (and its derivatives). Mozilla has done absolutely nothing to stop it as Firefox has become totally irrelevant today. The EU is about to allow the world domination of Chrome and its derivatives to takeover entirely. Just like the many choices of a Linux distro, you will have the many choices of Chromium based browsers! All thanks to 'oPEn SoUrcE'.
  - Gareth321 4y ago
    As a Chrome user I feel obligated to defend my use as: "I like it the most." As long as Google continues to offer a better experience, I don't mind them dominating the market. *As long as they don't use anticompetitive practises to prevent competition.* IE, backed by the most powerful tech company on the planet (at the time), used to be 95% of the internet. If IE can fall, so can Chrome.
    - sbuk 4y ago
      This means, if blink/chromium does come to dominate, means an end to the open web. Be very careful what you wish for.
      - Gareth321 4y ago
parasense 4y ago
> Fines are up to 10% of global revenue for the first offense, and 20% for repeat offenses. For Alphabet (Google) the revenue distribution from 2015 to 2021 was approximately 33% for all of Europe, Middle-east, and Africa. It's unclear to me the actual European numbers since they are combined EMEA. For Apple in 2021 the revenue was approximately 23% for Europe (no middle-east or Africa). For Facebook in 2021 the revenue was also approximately 23% for Europe (no middle-east or Africa). So it's safe to say that a first offense would potential halve the revenue for the region, and a second offense would remove the financial rationale of doing business in the region.
- whywhywhywhy 4y ago
  What would the money even be used for? Why does the government have to profit from enforcing this. I’d be fine if we take the money and burn it but it’s not gonna be that is it it’s gonna be we take the money and funnel it into organizations that politicians children happen to be on the boards of.
  - baobob 4y ago
    Deflationary fines are a hilarious idea. If you don't comply, we'll take 10% the value of your company and publicly set fire to it, enriching all consumers in the process
  - arlort 4y ago
    IIRC fines by EU agencies go into the EU budget reducing the member states contributions for the next year
- newaccount74 4y ago
  Fines are "UP TO" 10% / 20% of global revenue. I doubt actual fines are going to be that high. Also, it has to be global revenue, because otherwise they would just use funny accounting tricks to hide their revenue (they already do that).
  - permo-w 4y ago
skc 4y ago
If the will (and financial muscle) was there, this might have actually been the spark needed for a tenacious 3rd player in the mobile OS space.
neodypsis 4y ago
> Install any software > Install any App Store and choose to make it default I wonder if, just like in Android, this will open the doors for a lot of malware targeting iOS users.
- Bilal_io 4y ago
  What malware? I've been using Android for over 10 years now. I've never had an issue personally. But I consider myself tech savvy and I don't install apps from untrusted sources. Also, iOS had multiple 0-days in the past. So you don't need to give users freedom over their paid for devices for them to be compromised.
  - neodypsis 4y ago
    Sure, iOS has had 0-days in the past. Which major OS/Hypervisor hasn't? The point is that Android is more susceptible to "lower hanging fruit" attacks, such as in the examples below. For example: https://www.kaspersky.com/blog/camscanner-malicious-android-app/28156/ https://www.kaspersky.com/blog/camscanner-malicious-android-... Very recent example: https://www.techradar.com/in/news/more-brutal-malware-laden-android-apps-are-lurking-on-the-play-store https://www.techradar.com/in/news/more-brutal-malware-laden-...
    - idle_zealot 4y ago
      Your Android malware examples don't do much as an argument against sideloading. They both describe malware on Google's "curated" app store.
roody15 4y ago
“ * User any browser and browser engine and choose to make it default” This is huge and I cannot believe it has taken this long. Apple forcing everyone to use their own browser engine with all other ios “browsers” essentially just being skins for Safari was ridiculous.
dagmx 4y ago
You say the summary is in the link, but the first few things you mention are not in the summary, or called out at all in the article. I don’t think this is the “open up your App Store mechanism” regulation, as I believe there are two in flight right now
- capableweb 4y ago
  True, the closest summary as what parent posted I found at https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/policies/digital-services-package/ https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/policies/digital-services... under "The consequences for gatekeepers", a page which is linked from the submission article. It includes the following section: Gatekeepers will not be able to: rank their own products or services higher than those of others prevent developers from using third-party payment platforms for app sales process users’ personal data for targeted advertising, unless consent is granted establish unfair conditions for business users pre-install certain software applications or prevent users from easily un-installing them restrict business users of platforms Gatekeepers will have to: offer more choices, such as the choice of certain software on a user’s operating system ensure that unsubscribing from core platform services is as easy as subscribing provide information on the number of users that visit their platforms to determine whether the platform can be identified as a gatekeeper give business users access to their marketing or advertising performance data on the platform inform the European Commission of their acquisitions and mergers ensure that the basic functionalities of instant messaging services are interoperable, i.e. enable users to exchange messages, send voice messages or files Fair competition of digital services is key to ensure that companies and consumers can all benefit in the same way from digital opportunities. This will also generate more innovation and boost consumer protection.
- Gareth321 4y ago
  I read the legislation, included in the link (https://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/PE-17-2022-INIT/en/pdf https://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/PE-17-2022-INI...). Page 129, for example, details the rules for app and app store installation: >The gatekeeper shall allow and technically enable the installation and effective use of third-party software applications or software application stores using, or interoperating with, its operating system and allow those software applications or software application stores to be accessed by means other than the relevant core platform services of that gatekeeper. The gatekeeper shall, where applicable, not prevent the downloaded third-party software applications or software application stores from prompting end users to decide whether they want to set that downloaded software application or software application store as their default. The gatekeeper shall technically enable end users who decide to set that downloaded software application or software application store as their default to carry out that change easily.
la64710 4y ago
- require the most important software (e.g. web browsers) to be installed by default when installing an operating system How is chromebook going to exist without a chrome browser? Sometimes I wonder if the people making the laws have any knowledge of the technology landscape?
- rpadovani 4y ago
  Why is a Chrome browser specifically required? Let's have a popup that asks which browser you want to use. I am certain that Google is more than capable to create websites that work with any browser.
  - la64710 4y ago
    I am sure the ChromeOS user interface is the Chrome browser and the integration is at a much deeper level than just a pretty window or pop up. Integrating all other browsers at that level to the ChromeOS will be either extremely difficult or impossible IMHO.
- dodobirdlord 4y ago
  If push comes to shove, I imagine Google will just not sell chromebooks in the EU.
camhart 4y ago
> * Install any software > * Install any App Store and choose to make it default I don't see mention of this in the summary. Where is it described?
- Gareth321 4y ago
  It's in the legislation included in the link (https://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/PE-17-2022-INI https://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/PE-17-2022-INI...). Page 129, for example, details the rules for app and app store installation: >The gatekeeper shall allow and technically enable the installation and effective use of third-party software applications or software application stores using, or interoperating with, its operating system and allow those software applications or software application stores to be accessed by means other than the relevant core platform services of that gatekeeper. The gatekeeper shall, where applicable, not prevent the downloaded third-party software applications or software application stores from prompting end users to decide whether they want to set that downloaded software application or software application store as their default. The gatekeeper shall technically enable end users who decide to set that downloaded software application or software application store as their default to carry out that change easily.
runako 4y ago
> * Make core messaging functionality interoperable. They lay out concrete examples like file transfer It's entirely possible that to enable compliance with this will require explicit compromises to the security of iMessage, for example by requiring key exchange with startup messaging providers. The other rules seem to prohibit Apple from describing the risks involved in such a compromise. > * Use existing hardware and software features without competitive prejudice. E.g. NFC This appears to say that a malicious app can present UX elements that were previously limited to the OS. Read liberally, that would mean that e.g. any app could now get biometric data by presenting a fake privilege escalation screen (e.g. FaceID/TouchID) and then capturing the results from the Secure Enclave. Is this something people really want? > * Not preference their services. This includes CTAs in settings to encourage users to subscribe to Gatekeeper services, and ranking their own services above others in selection and advertising portals This will likely make it harder for users to find safe/private services to use. If every offering can find its way into the default browser/App Store/etc. settings page in the OS, scam services will appear to be endorsed and therefore legitimate. Edit: Limitation of interop is still possible, the EU is just deciding to move decision making from California engineers to Brussels attorneys. From the Act: > The gatekeeper shall not be prevented from taking strictly necessary and proportionate measures to ensure that interoperability does not compromise the integrity of the operating system, virtual assistant, hardware or software features provided by the gatekeeper, provided that such measures are duly justified by the gatekeeper. So Apple just needs to explain security & encryption to Brussels attorneys to keep iMessage in a silo, for example. (Obviously making iMessage interoperable with e.g. Discord or ICQ will compromise the integrity of the software features of iMessage.) I don't think this is going to increase the pace of product improvements.
- SheinhardtWigCo 4y ago
  > It's entirely possible that to enable compliance with this will require explicit compromises to the security of iMessage, for example by requiring key exchange with startup messaging providers. Is that really much worse than the status quo, where all iMessage plaintexts are shared with Apple by default, unless every participant in the thread has disabled iCloud Backup? > So Apple just needs to explain security & encryption to Brussels attorneys to keep iMessage in a silo, for example. (Obviously making iMessage interoperable with e.g. Discord or ICQ will compromise the integrity of the software features of iMessage.) Are you arguing that it's impossible for Discord or ICQ to implement the same feature set as the native iMessage client?
scifibestfi 4y ago
These sound great, but what is the list of bad ideas inevitably buried in the 230 pages of this act that we'll come to learn as they bite us all in the ass?
the_duke 4y ago
Another significant point: Gatekeepers also must allow uninstalling their bloatware software.
enos_feedler 4y ago
And yet, Apple can still charge software companies whatever they want to allow software to run on the phones. Nothing says anything about the business elements of these user experiences. So if anyone thinks this law is going to take money from gatekeepers and put it into the pockets of app publishers they are kidding themselves
- the_duke 4y ago
  I think you might want to read up on the law in question...
- Gareth321 4y ago
  >And yet, Apple can still charge software companies whatever they want to allow software to run on the phones. This is explicitly disallowed in the legislation. See page 131: >The gatekeeper shall allow providers of services and providers of hardware, free of charge, effective interoperability with, and access for the purposes of interoperability to, the same hardware and software features accessed or controlled via the operating system or virtual assistant listed in the designation decision pursuant to Article 3(9) as are available to services or hardware provided by the gatekeeper. Furthermore, the gatekeeper shall allow business users and alternative providers of services provided together with, or in support of, core platform services, free of charge, effective interoperability with, and access for the purposes of interoperability to, the same operating system, hardware or software features, regardless of whether those features are part of the operating system, as are available to, or used by, that gatekeeper when providing such services
  - enos_feedler 4y ago
    The simple work around is to provide lower quality of service to all of the platforms features and claim it is the only way to achieve _effective_ interoperability without jeopardizing the user experience
    - Gareth321 4y ago
      They have lots of qualifiers around access and service standards. It's 230 pages and quite comprehensive. I'm sure Apple and Google will try to get creative, but these simple examples of potential malicious compliance are already covered.
DrBazza 4y ago
Presumably you didn't live through the EU vs MS? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Corp._v._Commission https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Corp._v._Commission That was the unbundling of Internet Explorer from PCs. Which in hindsight looks like small beers compared to Chrome on-every-device usage, and probably why MS are getting away with it, again, bundling Edge and crippling Firefox workarounds.
AndyMcConachie 4y ago
I think we should expect Apple and Google to fight this tooth and nail. I'm sure they've been following it and looking at ways to exploit any holes that are in it. In short, I expect it to be years before we can do most of the things you list in your post. There will be lots of court cases before we, as consumers, see any real change.
- Gareth321 4y ago
  The EU doesn't operate the same way the courts do in America. The EU will require Apple/Google to cooperate with the changes while any cases are ongoing. If these cases take years to settle, so be it. If Apple/Google wins, any damages are back-paid.
- the_duke 4y ago
  Regulators have learned from GDPR. Enforcement for the large gatekeepers is with the commission,and they have a good amount of tools to enforce compliance. I'm sure A/G will try to drag it out, but it won't be years.
webmobdev 4y ago
And for privacy conscious users and other business competitors: > But they can no longer reuse private data collected during a service for the purposes of another service. I hope this is applied retrospectively (for even data gathered before the DMA was legislated and came into effect).
- noisem4ker 4y ago
  "retroactively"
paganel 4y ago
It depends on how much the Republicans have started to like on Apple and Google again, there's no way a European Union starving for gas come winter-time would impose a 10-20% cut of the turnover to two out of the 4 biggest US companies. I say Republicans because most probably they'll steamroll the Dems in November.
- toyg 4y ago
  Considering these giants pay very little tax and employ very small numbers in the European tech sector, "there is way" indeed.
  - paganel 4y ago
    They pay so little tax exactly because they’re US behemoths. Again, the EU has a very weak hand in here, it’s not like these decisions are implemented in a vacuum.
    - kaoD 4y ago
      Well the US has a strategic interest on EU using their spyware. They're slowly losing their grasp on EU (e.g. threats regarding Nord Stream 2 in 2021). This could slowly turn into Cold War II and this time around it doesn't look like the US is capable of/willing to carry out a Marshall Plan if things turn ugly energy-wise. EU is starting to realize how they're puppets to the US and an economic war is being waged on their soil. The US is not the reliable partner that it used to be. Russia is not looking good but neither is the US. China is going to slowly eat the european cake if they play their cards well as they're already doing in Africa.
    - toyg 4y ago
      > Again, the EU has a very weak hand in here I wonder why all these megacorps have had to change their data-handling procedure and now ask you for consent to tracking cookies... oh wait
      - paganel 4y ago
JumpCrisscross 4y ago
> After the Act is signed by the Council and the European Parliament in September Lol. The encryption keys being shared with security services bits have political cover. Not the rest. It’s surprising European legislation doesn’t yet have a reconciliation process, to prevent this sort of burying-the-lede gambit.
wyldfire 4y ago
> Install any software Could we have something like F-droid on iOS? I guess that's Cydia now but could Cydia be installed without requiring jailbreaking?
- Bilal_io 4y ago
  The delicious irony if the Cydia devs come back with an official Cydia store.
sfe22 4y ago
While I am in the camp of apple allowing side-loading, i am not a fan of monopolistic regulations like this. It opens all kind of questions, like 1. What devices have to comply? 2. Who decides what device has to comply? Should playstation open their system too. What about a niche bank transaction signing device that internally uses an android capable hardware. Is this illegal now? 3. What about a car infotainment system that can theoretically run linux. 4. What if a European startup wants to compete with the iphone? Now they have so many regulations instead of focusing on a great device for their niche. This looks like it will kill competition and harm European innovation, while major players will find their ways around it.
- ls15 4y ago
  Sony's market capitalization exceeds €75bn (the threshold over which the regulation applies).
  - GoOnThenDoTell 4y ago
    Is there something to stop worthless shell companies from shielding the parent company's size
    - sfe22 4y ago
      Enjoy the special edition European only, double i phone, now available at the closest Aapple store.
    - arlcode 4y ago
      Hopefully existing regulations that prevent companies from hiding behind shells. Otherwise any regulation could be skirted by having a constantly revolving roster of fronts that import your product.
    - toyg 4y ago
      There is the law and there is the spirit of the law. Judges (and European regulators alike) don't like being taken for fools.
  - 4y ago
intrasight 4y ago
>Install any App Store That wasn't one of the bullets in the posted article. Do you have a reference to the language of the law that says this?
- webmobdev 4y ago
  I am guessing if you can "install any software" (as the DMA says), then the device manufacturer can't prevent you from installing another app store.
  - AnssiH 4y ago
    Actually, "software application stores" are explicitly mentioned in the relevant Article 6(4) (https://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/PE-17-2022-INIT/en/pdf https://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/PE-17-2022-INI... page 129).
gentleman11 4y ago
Does this ban Microsoft from using their privileged position to sabotage Firefox and to push their spyware browser?
- pteraspidomorph 4y ago
  I'm wondering about this, too. In recent updates Windows seems to do a lot to force users into Edge under certain circumstances and use cases (and pester the user to switch to Edge entirely), in ways that at a glance appear to be incompatible with the summary of this regulation.
InTheArena 4y ago
This is much more negative then for Apple then google. Google subsidizes their (far less profitable) app ecosystem by selling user data in the form of advertisements. While there is language about Google having to share marketing response rates, it doesn't prohibit this practice. Apple on the other hand makes their money by targeting features (privacy, integration, etc) that people pay more for. Apple will have to transition to a more ad-tech focus in order to compete in Europe under this infrastructure.
- astrange 4y ago
  Showing advertisements isn't "selling user data", it's showing ads. Being the company who shows the ads means keeping the targeting data for yourself, which is the opposite of selling it.
- bryan_w 4y ago
  Or maybe settle for making a few billion less. Oh the horror
NeveHanter 4y ago
What about the Google Play Services as a whole? Most of the Android apps don't work without these (so you can't for example use LineageOS without GApps), does the act in any way reference such things? What about contactless payment without "Google's approval" which require hiding the root, hiding the fact that the system is unsigned or has unlocked bootloader.
- blinkingled 4y ago
  That is already not a problem on Android. If you can install a 3rd party app store (and you already can install a bunch of these on Android) and don't use Google Play Services your app will still work. For e.g. Amazon Appstore ships lots of the same apps but without using Google Play Services.
  - NeveHanter 4y ago
    Well, no, many apps require Google Play Services/Google Play Framework to work, I can use MicroG (https://microg.org/ https://microg.org/) with the spoofing enabled but this is unofficial thing and not everything works with that.
    - izacus 4y ago
      And many apps don't work without Apple iOS being present on device and many apps don't work without Windows being present on device, etc. Play Services are core OS API just like Apple services are.
      - tristan957 4y ago
        They are pretty obviously not core OS API if you don't need them.
      - jcfrei 4y ago
        Play Services is probably the worlds most expansive data collection and user tracking tool. Tying core OS APIs into it is just evil.
Aaargh20318 4y ago
> Use existing hardware and software features without competitive prejudice. E.g. NFC What this will mean for me as an iPhone user: instead of using Apple Pay which is seamlessly integrated in my phone, watch and desktop OS, I will instead have to use my bank's terrible HTML-based 'app' to perform contactless payments, making it 100 times less convenient. This probably will make me switch back to using my bank card. But hey, my bank makes a little more profit at the expense of UX. Thanks EU!
- thunkshift1 4y ago
  No one is forcing you too do that. But they are forcing apple to give anyone using apple devices the option to use the banks shitty ui app. Maybe the ui app will stop being shitty as the usage goes up? That is the point
  - Aaargh20318 4y ago
    > No one is forcing you too do that. The bank will by discontinuing Apple Pay support. They have every incentive to do so.
    - drampelt 4y ago
      Then why isn't that happening on Android with Google Pay? Banks are able to handle NFC payments through their own apps if they want, but the vast majority support Google Pay and don't force users into their own app.
      - Aaargh20318 4y ago
        I suspect that is largely due to the success of Apple Pay. Banks used to have their own apps on Android for years and only grudgingly started to support Apple Pay since they couldn't use their own apps. They only started migrating from their own apps to Google Wallet/Pay after Apple Pay became a success and Android users started to feel left out. They would never have supported Apple Pay if they hadn't been forced to do so. In fact, even though there was no alternative they kept dragging their feet and complaining about it for years.
vopi 4y ago
Where does it mention side loading? Still skimming the legal doc, but it just says basically they need to be fair and non-discriminatory about app-store access.
- vopi 4y ago
  Nevermind, my ctrl-f'ing failed me. Ignore.
browningstreet 4y ago
If this is an accurate description of the regulation, I can help but feel they brought it on themselves but closing the garden so hard. These were normal computing options before iPhone/Android took over. Does it break any privacy/digital-dignity protections though?
lnxg33k1 4y ago
Have you read it? Do you have any info on how the vendors can react to these changes in terms of policy? Like is there anything that disallow apple to offer post-sales support / warranty in case you install any software / app store? etc?
aasasd 4y ago
iPhones are now shipped with FreeDOS. Optional iOS is available separately.
2Gkashmiri 4y ago
does anyone know when the messaging interoperability comes into force? i am really anxious to have this work finally
- astrange 4y ago
  You're really anxious to have infinite amounts of spam from bridged messaging services that noone can do anything to stop?
  - 2Gkashmiri 4y ago
    yeah, pretty much
  - Barrin92 4y ago
    >that noone can do anything to stop I think clicking the button that says "only accept messages from my contacts" on the messaging service of your choice ought to solve that problem
    - 2Gkashmiri 4y ago
      this is the kind of FUD that needs to be stopped. sure, if you get telegram spam, wont you be able to block telegram from messaging you so whats the big deal about this?
      - astrange 4y ago
        Why would you be able to do that? I don’t have regex blocking in any of my messaging apps right now. If you think you’ll be able to block specific other services, that sounds anticompetitive.
        2Gkashmiri 4y ago
        An individual should be able to do that, not talking about app wise blocking someone.
jwarden 4y ago
The idea seems good. But after GDPR my confidence in EU lawmakers ability to craft truly well-thought-out tech legislation is low.
_the_inflator 4y ago
I am still excited about Apple's answer to this. They have been extremely creative so far in mitigating rules. I believe that they will find a way to somehow undermine these rulings. EU hasn't won yet.
- woojoo666 4y ago
  I assume Apple will just release special unlocked phones that only work in the EU (only support EU carriers, only support EU cell frequencies, etc)
la64710 4y ago
Europe’s requirement of those pesky cookie notices have killed the joy of surfing the net. Every goddamn site has this stupid cookie popup show up. It is like playing whack-a-mole. They should have instead only allow necessary cookies and marketing and other cookies should be part of signing up for a specific service and not just visiting the website. The thought is noble but the implementation sucks.
- throw1230 4y ago
  EU requirement was to inform users on how the data collected about them will be used and give them a choice. Cookie notices was the industry response, ignoring the spirit of the law and complying at a minimal rate
  - mrbombastic 4y ago
    If this is how the industry is complying the law was poorly written no?
- d4a 4y ago
  Cookie notices > having tracking cookies enabled by default with no easy way to turn them off
- chrismartin 4y ago
  try easylist-cookies. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23521399 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23521399
- solarkraft 4y ago
  > The thought is noble but the implementation sucks And you know who does the actual implementation, right? This is mostly a case of malicious (arguably non-) compliance.
  - permo-w 4y ago
    it most cases it's not even arguable
nuker 4y ago
> Install any software Scams proliferate, praying on elderly and young. Widespread tracking of your location, browsing history. Same with other points, narrow, selfish thinking.
- emkoemko 4y ago
  wow people sure love giving corporations the power to decide what they can do with their device... selfish thinking? naaa its a walled garden for one reason to make a ton of money...
- unity1001 4y ago
  There would be scam-tracking services, which anyone could use.
slaymaker1907 4y ago
I think six months is a pretty unreasonable time frame for Apple. While the security concerns around this sort of thing are often overblown, Apple will need to rework their security model for the iPhone. If there is an API surface between the OS and the App Store, they may need to rework it since it's not been designed with third party stores in mind.
- withinboredom 4y ago
  The writing has been on the wall for years. Sounds like a problem of their own creation.
  - zo1 4y ago
    I think they assumed, like the rest of us to a degree, that "it will never happen". If this kind of "ffs, just effing solve it with a law already" kind of law comes through, I'm seriously considering moving to an EU country.
    - drawfloat 4y ago
      The noises out of government have been that this will happen for a few years now, at least from the perspective of an EU citizen. They should have been preparing.
    - withinboredom 4y ago
      That’s why I moved here five years ago from the US. It’s actually pretty easy, depending on where you go.
    - bzxcvbn 4y ago
      There is no "if this comes through". The law was adopted, all that's left is a formal step (getting the law signed) and then a standard waiting period (six months to allow companies to adapt).
      - wmf 4y ago
InCityDreams 4y ago
>* User any browser and browser engine and choose to make it default ...only works if the OS doesn't unchange it every. sodding. day.
metacritic12 4y ago
The title says it all: the EU Act aimed against literally half the top USA companies. But that's just realpolitik for you. This is the same reason that in the USA it is legal to have California Champaign and New York Bordeaux (style in small font) wine.
cced 4y ago
Do you think that this would mean providing these new services to phones outsides of the EU i.e. would the whole world benefit from this?
pabs3 4y ago
What about installing an alternative operating system on an iPhone?
8note 4y ago
Under much much more, Install any app you've previously purchased, from any app store, I think regardless of whether they'd otherwise offer said app I think that will get rid of selling the same game, app, whatever on many platforms. Buy once, use everywhere
highwaylights 4y ago
This will also apply to Xbox, Switch and Playstation, among other devices - unless I'm understanding the legislation wrong. The impacts are staggering.
- musicale 4y ago
  Nintendo may not be big enough. Microsoft certainly is.
krzyk 4y ago
Yeah, finally. I wonder why Google is there, they don't block any of this.
mrorbitman 4y ago
Six months??? What does "comply" mean? Ship a version of the OS that supports all these new features? Or begin implementation of them? Six months is barely enough time for companies to digest and understand the new requirements, and certainly not enough time to develop and ship such dramatic changes.
- sschueller 4y ago
  Yet Samsung manages to release a new phone every 6 months.
togs 4y ago
> Install any software So it's like a jailbreak. More software, less security. > Make core messaging functionality interoperable. They lay out concrete examples like file transfer. Encrypted messaging by someone not in the U.S.' jurisdiction. More privacy, more terrorism. > Fines are up to 10% of global revenue for the first offense, and 20% for repeat offenses. Ouch, that'll impose some discipline.

mehdix 4y ago

Is this potentially breaking apple's walled garden? I wonder wether they will comply at all. Besides, I'm glad to see interoperability mentioned there, perhaps one day we could text from one messenger to another one without being held back by the owner.

Gareth321 4y ago
It depends what you mean by walled garden. If you're referring to their ability to secure iOS, then no. The legislation includes many exceptions for security purposes; but they must be demonstrable and genuine. The current iOS implementation already sandboxes applications and only provides limited permissions ad hoc, according to user approval. So even under the current architecture, allowing users to install applications doesn't undermine security.
ls15 4y ago
> Is this potentially breaking apple's walled garden? I wonder wether they will comply at all. They will or there will be a repetition of Microsoft Corp. v. Commission, but with much higher fines.
dvfjsdhgfv 4y ago
> I wonder wether they will comply at all. Of course they will try not to. They will do everything to prolong the appeal process and so on - it's unthinkable they would allow any other app store on their devices, that's the very core of their identity - to be as closed and unified as possible. I don't believe the EU has enough power to fight Apple. I'll believe it when I see the first iPhone with an USB-C charger.
- ethbr0 4y ago
  The other side of the coin is "Does Apple have enough brand goodwill to spend it on X years of 'Apple fights EU to keep monopoly' news articles?" Kind of hard to claim you're all unicorns and rainbows, when you're actively involved in a court case to defend anti-user practices...
  - dvfjsdhgfv 4y ago
    I think you underestimate them. Off the top of my head: 1. EU bureaucrats are threatening one of the most successful business models ever. 2. Jealous EU tries to punish successful American tech companies as they can't compete with them in the market. 3. The EU attempts to lower the value of tech stock, threatening pensions of millions of Americans. 4. Apple will need to fire thousands if the malicious plan of EU bureaucrats succeeds. Etc. etc.
    - toyg 4y ago
      1. Who cares, it's an American company contributing very little to the EU market - in fact, siphoning billions of euros to tax havens 2. see point 1 3. see point 1 4. see point 1
      - dodobirdlord 4y ago
        The EU has a bunch of reciprocal trade agreements with the USA to not engage in punitive harassment of each other’s companies. Of course they still can, but that’s what’s called a “trade war” and it’s generally not a good thing for all involved. Public perception of these changes in the US is also very important, since if the US government chooses to view these actions as punitive harassment calculatedly targeted only at US companies, it will respond with tariffs etc on EU goods.
parasense 4y ago
> Besides, I'm glad to see interoperability mentioned there, perhaps one day we could text from one messenger to another one without being held back by the owner. By forcing message passing platforms to submit to sharing private encryption keys? And that interoperability entailing the possibility of passing messages to government eavesdropping schemes? Sounds like a utopian paradise!
- idle_zealot 4y ago
  > forcing message passing platforms to submit to sharing private encryption keys? Why assume that requirement? For E2E encrypted messaging services all that needs to be shared are public keys for interoperability to work. In the case of middleman encrypted messaging you already trust the provider not to sell you out. If they interoperate then you trust N providers, where N is the number of providers engaged in a particular chat thread.
  - mrbombastic 4y ago
    You say this like it is not a big deal, I trust Apple much more than I trust Meta with my messages. Apple has made privacy a cornerstone of their sales pitch, Meta not so much. N=2 is too many.
- zaik 4y ago
  Take a look at OMEMO (Signal encryption protocol for the XMPP internet standard). Interoperability and E2EE are not exclusive at all.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

chaoz_ 4y ago

Huge. What if Apple claims implementing required feature X will take more than 6 months? I could see it happening given that planning has already happened and new func will need to be smoothly introduced into UX etc.

ls15 4y ago
> What if Apple claims implementing required feature X will take more than 6 months? Then that will increase the implementation cost by at least (edit: up to) 10% of their global revenue.
- Oarch 4y ago
  Up to 10%* Assuming they won't go with the maximum amount early on.
  - bigDinosaur 4y ago
    Jumping to such colossal fines is probably an excellent way to annoy the US, too, and given the current security/economic/political/world/universe situation I'd wager that the US would lean heavily on the EU to reach some kind of compromise. These companies aren't just big themselves, they also have the most powerful country on the planet willing to exert pressure to make them stay powerful. I'd be very surprised if Apple/Google/etc. ever paid 20% of global revenue even if they blatantly violate much of what the EU wants.
    - MichaelCollins 4y ago
      > Jumping to such colossal fines is probably an excellent way to annoy the US, too, and given the current security/economic/political/world/universe situation The US military having bases in Europe is a mutually beneficial arrangement, not some sort of charity America is giving Europe. The US threatening to withdraw from those bases for the sake of Apple would be supreme stupidity. Not impossible, but supremely stupid. There are much bigger fish in this sea than a handful of tech companies, large as they are. Apple is a small drop in the bucket compared to the vast commercial and industrial scope of America's global priorities.

nailer 4y ago

> Use any voice assistant and choose to make it default Cool. I have an iPhone but everything in my house uses Alexa. It would be great to have my phone control my using using ‘Alexa’ as a wake word. It will also be nice to have a real Brave or Opera or whatever (with Blink not WebKit) on my iPhone.

akmarinov 4y ago
Second this, Apple has shown zero interest to support my native language (they went 11 years between adding new languages to iOS). This would allow me to switch to Google Assistant which supports it and just use that.

rvschuilenburg 4y ago

This almost sounds too good to be true. What are the odds of this being watered down, or being delayed into eternity?

Gareth321 4y ago
IMHO, extremely low. The DMA has passed final debate and review, so it's not changing now. The last step is basically a formality. The beauty of the EU is that corporate financial influence is far less pervasive than even in the governments of member nations. The level of abstraction is just too large. Apple, Google, Amazon, et al., can wage a PR campaign, but it's highly unlikely to succeed.
- riffraff 4y ago
  > The beauty of the EU is that corporate financial influence is far less pervasive than even in the governments of member nations. [citation needed] The reason this regulations went through easily is that they mostly target foreign operators. It's not the same with all regulations, the EU is a lobbying battleground as much as everywhere else, you can see that in most things, big corps just go through governments when not going through MEPs.
  - MichaelCollins 4y ago
    If it's a matter of lobbying aka legal bribery, why are foreign companies disadvantaged? These American companies have no qualms about lobbying in America, they could do the same in the EU. If the EU officials prefer to serve the interests of EU companies despite lobbying from both of them, maybe it's because they earnestly believe EU interests are better served by EU companies?
  - thefz 4y ago
    > The reason this regulations went through easily is that they mostly target foreign operators. Because 1) foreign operators do the fuck they want in unregulated markets such as the US and 2) there are no such operators in the EU because they have already been regulated

varispeed 4y ago

Does it mean Google will have to enable call recording APIs on Android? That would be sweet. Currently none of call recording apps work on my phone and this is a must have feature for me. When I take a call with my doctor I have to use my separate memo recorder, so that I can refer to the call in the future if I forget something. Let's not mention usefulness of this feature when you are placing orders over the phone and then the other party claims this is what I wanted once they deliver something not as agreed. If I could record a call I had evidence in case of dispute.

amelius 4y ago
> If I could record a call I had evidence in case of dispute. It might not be legal to do that, in all cases, and the evidence might not be valid.
- capableweb 4y ago
  It might not be legal to do a lot of stuff with your phone, but usually we leave that up to individuals to decide, rather than stifling the functionality of the phone. Similar to how we treat knives and similar things.
- varispeed 4y ago
  This is not really a valid argument. If they were concerned about legality, we wouldn't have cameras on the phone and probably neither the call functionality. That being said, call recording is legal in my country.
- ensignavenger 4y ago
  Depending on where they are located... the vast majority of US states are one-party consent states. And many businesses already have a recording when you call them informing parties that the call may be recorded, which clear more legal hurdles in more jurisdictions.
- ThatPlayer 4y ago
  Generally informing the other party you are recording is enough consent if they stay on the line. Plenty of customer service lines do that with an automated voice: "This call may be recorded (for quality control purposes)". So their party has already been informed that the call will be recorded, and there's no expectation of privacy.

randomhodler84 4y ago

RedShift1 4y ago
Then just keep using the Apple store and Apple pay.
- ben_w 4y ago
  That's great until someone has an app I need and chooses to only make it available on a different store. I'm not legally trained, so I hope they've thought of this and also have rules for these 3rd party app stores.
  - vesinisa 4y ago
    Well if the app is on a different store you wouldn't be able to currently install it all, right? So you have only expanded your options and it's up to you if you choose to exercise them or not.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - ratww 4y ago
      Well, the app might be currently available in the AppStore but would now be able to move to an AltStore. Plenty of apps I bought in the past have been pulled from macOS AppStore but are available on websites. In the past I even had banks and even the public sector offices abusing Windows and macOS security and forcing me to install the equivalent of a rootkit in my computer. Without a sufficiently smart sandbox I bet this problem will come back. On the other hand, that doesn't seem to have happened on Android, at least not in a wide scale.
  - iainmerrick 4y ago
    That’s similar to the situation with Android and iOS right now. In principle, there could be an app you need but can’t use because it’s only on Android and you have an iPhone. If you like the App Store and want to continue using it, you’ll be fine unless it becomes less popular and loses some important apps. That could happen but seems unlikely in the near term.

rvz 4y ago

alaric410 4y ago
Nonsense. You can't fight spam, criminal or hackers by restricting your ecosystem. Such measures only enable monopolies like Apple to make money at the expense of the consumer or competitors.
- rvz 4y ago
  - alaric410 4y ago
  - emkoemko 4y ago
    you mean all those diplomats and journalists where not using compromised iphones?.... hahaha come on now...
    - rvz 4y ago
      So we are not going talk about the billions of Android phones still with unpatched 0 days that have been abandoned and haven't been fixed for years infected with ransomware? Is that why over the space of 8 years, there has been only ONE ransomware case for iOS found vs 7+ and counting on Android with 900,000 devices infected in just 30 days? [0] Of course you won't. Your comment is beside my point which I didn't say that iOS devices couldn't be hacked, compromised or attacked. My first reply specifically mentions the handling of this is done better on Apple devices, especially iOS devices. As soon as a 0 day is found, the OTA rollout covers more than >60% of supported devices in less than a week after releasing, even on the 6 - 7 major versions below. But of course, it appears you just had to deliberately misconstrue and misinterpret my replies, which happens very often with readers who rush into the comments section and never finish reading the whole comment. What a shame. [0] https://blog.knowbe4.com/evolution-of-mobile-ransomware https://blog.knowbe4.com/evolution-of-mobile-ransomware

benbristow 4y ago

Wonder if this will also apply outside the EU (e.g. now Britain)

mattgperry 4y ago
Surely that's at each company's discretion.
aloisdg 4y ago
Let's hope that the Brussels effect does its magic > The Brussels effect is the process of unilateral regulatory globalisation caused by the European Union de facto (but not necessarily de jure) externalising its laws outside its borders through market mechanisms. Through the Brussels effect, regulated entities, especially corporations, end up complying with EU laws even outside the EU for a variety of reasons. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brussels_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brussels_effect

amelius 4y ago

Can I now install Linux on an iPhone?

fsflover 4y ago
You already can have a phone running GNU/Linux (Librem 5 or Pinephone) though.
- aloisdg 4y ago
  Yes but I may have a on old working iphone laying in my desktop that I would like to reuse for ecological reason
  - fsflover 4y ago
    I have little hope that Apple will release enough information to develop free drivers for your phone. Without such information, you have to forever use an outdated, vulnerable Linux kernel. See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26593274 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26593274.
pabs3 4y ago
If your iPhone is old enough to be vulnerable to one of the bootrom exploits, then yes you can. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/06/developers-get-linux-up-and-running-on-old-ipad-air-2-hardware/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/06/developers-get-linux...

yoavm 4y ago

Interestingly enough, an iPhone that complies with these demands is actually the first iPhone I'd ever consider paying for. I wonder if this might actually increase adoption.

capableweb 4y ago
If "Install any software" becomes real and I can start writing software on Linux for iPhone, without requiring me to have a Mac, I'll become an instant iPhone fanboy as the hardware is second to none. It's the software that is stopping the phone from becoming the best one around.
- iasay 4y ago
  I think that's completely unrealistic. It's not going to happen even if they open the platform up.
  - capableweb 4y ago
    If the platform becomes open enough so we can side-load applications, I bet you 100EUR we'll be able to develop iPhone applications from any operating system, but first Linux, within a year :)
    - iasay 4y ago
      Note that I'm side loading two applications I actually wrote myself on my iPhone already...
      - capableweb 4y ago
        How? I've been looking for ages on how to develop iPhone applications on Linux and there is no way that doesn't involve installing Hackingtosh, either as a new OS on a partition or in a VM, or renting a Mac server somewhere, so it's not really "developing on Linux" at all.

shadowgovt 4y ago

Possibly. The other possibility is it will make it impossible to buy an iPhone in Europe. It certainly puts a huge incentive on Apple to figure out technical solutions to problems like "How do we get other browser engines on this thing without compromising a hundred OS assumptions, battery performance, or user security," but it's also possible Apple decides that's a no-go and it'll cost more than 25% of annual revenue to comply, at which point the winning market strategy is opt-out. That's fine; win-win for the EU market because it clears the playing field for a European-originated competitor to the iPhone. ETA I forgot the third possibility: Apple decides it will cost more than 10% (and later 20%) of revenue to comply, but the 5% bump in value is still worth it and they write off non-compliance as a tax to do business in Europe. Then if the EU tries to impose structural or behavioral changes, we're back to square one on the question of whether those changes cost more than (now) 5% of Apple's revenue.

M2Ys4U 4y ago
> Possibly. The other possibility is it will make it impossible to buy an iPhone in Europe. I doubt Apple will be willing to forego sales in the world's third largest economy, tbh.
- shadowgovt 4y ago
  It's not about absolute value; it's about relative value. if not making the change costs them the whole market (about 25% of their revenue) and making the change adds 30% to engineering overhead or adds 30% costs due to secondary effects (such as market-share loss to Android because Apple's performance moat suffers), it might not be worth it. To be clear: I think this is the right kind of hardball for EU to play. The stakes are high, but most outcomes are a net win for the EU. It seems like strategically good law.
  - refurb 4y ago
    Exactly. If 30% of your business wants a change that means a 40% drop to all your business the smart move is to drop the customer that is 30%.
4y ago

iasay 4y ago

While I agree with this, I'm interested in seeing what the long term security consequences are. These are all the highest risk API and integration surfaces on mobile devices. Also I hope Microsoft get pulled into this as well because they're slowly turning Windows into a marketing device. Edit: as an iOS user I'm optimistic that this will lead to complete device network whitelist capabilities though so you can neuter any apps which circumvent the current browser restrictions. That would destroy a lot of tracking capability instantly and completely stop embedded browser side channel attacks.

SheinhardtWigCo 4y ago
> I'm interested in seeing what the long term security consequences are. Negligible; most large-format computing devices already allow you to do all of these things.
- judge2020 4y ago
  And it tends to be a bad experience for anyone who doesn’t naturally gravitate towards HN when they eventually get malware or unwanted browser adware extensions.
  - izacus 4y ago
    And the world will continue turning just like it had for the last 50 years of us having general purpose computers without an American at Apple telling us what we're allowed to do with our products.
- raesene9 4y ago
  However mobile devices have a dual role (in many people's lives these days) as being the custodian of all their MFA setup. weakening mobile security (which this arguably may do) could have an impact there. Also "large format computing devices" are moving more to the lockdown model, at least partially due to the security problems inherent in allowing end users to install/run whatever they want :)
- permo-w 4y ago

tgv 4y ago

> User any browser and browser engine and choose to make it default Hello, Alphabet world domination. They finally get the chance to get rid of that pesky Safari. Next stop: obligatory sign-in for using a service.

capableweb 4y ago
Article 101 and 102 from the "EU Antitrust policy" already protects against anti-competitive agreements and abusive behavior from those holding a dominant market position, I don't think that will change.
rvz 4y ago
See. It is frankly pointless. Chrome already has a significant amount of mindshare and will grow even more after this. The users have already chosen Chrome (and its derivatives). Mozilla has done absolutely nothing to stop it as Firefox has become totally irrelevant today. The EU is about to allow the world domination of Chrome and its derivatives to takeover entirely. Just like the many choices of a Linux distro, you will have the many choices of Chromium based browsers! All thanks to 'oPEn SoUrcE'.
- Gareth321 4y ago
  As a Chrome user I feel obligated to defend my use as: "I like it the most." As long as Google continues to offer a better experience, I don't mind them dominating the market. *As long as they don't use anticompetitive practises to prevent competition.* IE, backed by the most powerful tech company on the planet (at the time), used to be 95% of the internet. If IE can fall, so can Chrome.
  - sbuk 4y ago
    This means, if blink/chromium does come to dominate, means an end to the open web. Be very careful what you wish for.
    - Gareth321 4y ago

parasense 4y ago

> Fines are up to 10% of global revenue for the first offense, and 20% for repeat offenses. For Alphabet (Google) the revenue distribution from 2015 to 2021 was approximately 33% for all of Europe, Middle-east, and Africa. It's unclear to me the actual European numbers since they are combined EMEA. For Apple in 2021 the revenue was approximately 23% for Europe (no middle-east or Africa). For Facebook in 2021 the revenue was also approximately 23% for Europe (no middle-east or Africa). So it's safe to say that a first offense would potential halve the revenue for the region, and a second offense would remove the financial rationale of doing business in the region.

whywhywhywhy 4y ago
What would the money even be used for? Why does the government have to profit from enforcing this. I’d be fine if we take the money and burn it but it’s not gonna be that is it it’s gonna be we take the money and funnel it into organizations that politicians children happen to be on the boards of.
- baobob 4y ago
  Deflationary fines are a hilarious idea. If you don't comply, we'll take 10% the value of your company and publicly set fire to it, enriching all consumers in the process
- arlort 4y ago
  IIRC fines by EU agencies go into the EU budget reducing the member states contributions for the next year
newaccount74 4y ago
Fines are "UP TO" 10% / 20% of global revenue. I doubt actual fines are going to be that high. Also, it has to be global revenue, because otherwise they would just use funny accounting tricks to hide their revenue (they already do that).
- permo-w 4y ago

skc 4y ago

If the will (and financial muscle) was there, this might have actually been the spark needed for a tenacious 3rd player in the mobile OS space.

neodypsis 4y ago

> Install any software > Install any App Store and choose to make it default I wonder if, just like in Android, this will open the doors for a lot of malware targeting iOS users.

Bilal_io 4y ago
What malware? I've been using Android for over 10 years now. I've never had an issue personally. But I consider myself tech savvy and I don't install apps from untrusted sources. Also, iOS had multiple 0-days in the past. So you don't need to give users freedom over their paid for devices for them to be compromised.
- neodypsis 4y ago
  Sure, iOS has had 0-days in the past. Which major OS/Hypervisor hasn't? The point is that Android is more susceptible to "lower hanging fruit" attacks, such as in the examples below. For example: https://www.kaspersky.com/blog/camscanner-malicious-android-app/28156/ https://www.kaspersky.com/blog/camscanner-malicious-android-... Very recent example: https://www.techradar.com/in/news/more-brutal-malware-laden-android-apps-are-lurking-on-the-play-store https://www.techradar.com/in/news/more-brutal-malware-laden-...
  - idle_zealot 4y ago
    Your Android malware examples don't do much as an argument against sideloading. They both describe malware on Google's "curated" app store.

roody15 4y ago

“ * User any browser and browser engine and choose to make it default” This is huge and I cannot believe it has taken this long. Apple forcing everyone to use their own browser engine with all other ios “browsers” essentially just being skins for Safari was ridiculous.

dagmx 4y ago

You say the summary is in the link, but the first few things you mention are not in the summary, or called out at all in the article. I don’t think this is the “open up your App Store mechanism” regulation, as I believe there are two in flight right now

capableweb 4y ago
True, the closest summary as what parent posted I found at https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/policies/digital-services-package/ https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/policies/digital-services... under "The consequences for gatekeepers", a page which is linked from the submission article. It includes the following section: Gatekeepers will not be able to: rank their own products or services higher than those of others prevent developers from using third-party payment platforms for app sales process users’ personal data for targeted advertising, unless consent is granted establish unfair conditions for business users pre-install certain software applications or prevent users from easily un-installing them restrict business users of platforms Gatekeepers will have to: offer more choices, such as the choice of certain software on a user’s operating system ensure that unsubscribing from core platform services is as easy as subscribing provide information on the number of users that visit their platforms to determine whether the platform can be identified as a gatekeeper give business users access to their marketing or advertising performance data on the platform inform the European Commission of their acquisitions and mergers ensure that the basic functionalities of instant messaging services are interoperable, i.e. enable users to exchange messages, send voice messages or files Fair competition of digital services is key to ensure that companies and consumers can all benefit in the same way from digital opportunities. This will also generate more innovation and boost consumer protection.
Gareth321 4y ago
I read the legislation, included in the link (https://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/PE-17-2022-INIT/en/pdf https://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/PE-17-2022-INI...). Page 129, for example, details the rules for app and app store installation: >The gatekeeper shall allow and technically enable the installation and effective use of third-party software applications or software application stores using, or interoperating with, its operating system and allow those software applications or software application stores to be accessed by means other than the relevant core platform services of that gatekeeper. The gatekeeper shall, where applicable, not prevent the downloaded third-party software applications or software application stores from prompting end users to decide whether they want to set that downloaded software application or software application store as their default. The gatekeeper shall technically enable end users who decide to set that downloaded software application or software application store as their default to carry out that change easily.

la64710 4y ago

- require the most important software (e.g. web browsers) to be installed by default when installing an operating system How is chromebook going to exist without a chrome browser? Sometimes I wonder if the people making the laws have any knowledge of the technology landscape?

rpadovani 4y ago
Why is a Chrome browser specifically required? Let's have a popup that asks which browser you want to use. I am certain that Google is more than capable to create websites that work with any browser.
- la64710 4y ago
  I am sure the ChromeOS user interface is the Chrome browser and the integration is at a much deeper level than just a pretty window or pop up. Integrating all other browsers at that level to the ChromeOS will be either extremely difficult or impossible IMHO.
dodobirdlord 4y ago
If push comes to shove, I imagine Google will just not sell chromebooks in the EU.

camhart 4y ago

> * Install any software > * Install any App Store and choose to make it default I don't see mention of this in the summary. Where is it described?

Gareth321 4y ago
It's in the legislation included in the link (https://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/PE-17-2022-INI https://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/PE-17-2022-INI...). Page 129, for example, details the rules for app and app store installation: >The gatekeeper shall allow and technically enable the installation and effective use of third-party software applications or software application stores using, or interoperating with, its operating system and allow those software applications or software application stores to be accessed by means other than the relevant core platform services of that gatekeeper. The gatekeeper shall, where applicable, not prevent the downloaded third-party software applications or software application stores from prompting end users to decide whether they want to set that downloaded software application or software application store as their default. The gatekeeper shall technically enable end users who decide to set that downloaded software application or software application store as their default to carry out that change easily.

runako 4y ago

> * Make core messaging functionality interoperable. They lay out concrete examples like file transfer It's entirely possible that to enable compliance with this will require explicit compromises to the security of iMessage, for example by requiring key exchange with startup messaging providers. The other rules seem to prohibit Apple from describing the risks involved in such a compromise. > * Use existing hardware and software features without competitive prejudice. E.g. NFC This appears to say that a malicious app can present UX elements that were previously limited to the OS. Read liberally, that would mean that e.g. any app could now get biometric data by presenting a fake privilege escalation screen (e.g. FaceID/TouchID) and then capturing the results from the Secure Enclave. Is this something people really want? > * Not preference their services. This includes CTAs in settings to encourage users to subscribe to Gatekeeper services, and ranking their own services above others in selection and advertising portals This will likely make it harder for users to find safe/private services to use. If every offering can find its way into the default browser/App Store/etc. settings page in the OS, scam services will appear to be endorsed and therefore legitimate. Edit: Limitation of interop is still possible, the EU is just deciding to move decision making from California engineers to Brussels attorneys. From the Act: > The gatekeeper shall not be prevented from taking strictly necessary and proportionate measures to ensure that interoperability does not compromise the integrity of the operating system, virtual assistant, hardware or software features provided by the gatekeeper, provided that such measures are duly justified by the gatekeeper. So Apple just needs to explain security & encryption to Brussels attorneys to keep iMessage in a silo, for example. (Obviously making iMessage interoperable with e.g. Discord or ICQ will compromise the integrity of the software features of iMessage.) I don't think this is going to increase the pace of product improvements.

SheinhardtWigCo 4y ago
> It's entirely possible that to enable compliance with this will require explicit compromises to the security of iMessage, for example by requiring key exchange with startup messaging providers. Is that really much worse than the status quo, where all iMessage plaintexts are shared with Apple by default, unless every participant in the thread has disabled iCloud Backup? > So Apple just needs to explain security & encryption to Brussels attorneys to keep iMessage in a silo, for example. (Obviously making iMessage interoperable with e.g. Discord or ICQ will compromise the integrity of the software features of iMessage.) Are you arguing that it's impossible for Discord or ICQ to implement the same feature set as the native iMessage client?

scifibestfi 4y ago

These sound great, but what is the list of bad ideas inevitably buried in the 230 pages of this act that we'll come to learn as they bite us all in the ass?

the_duke 4y ago

Another significant point: Gatekeepers also must allow uninstalling their bloatware software.

enos_feedler 4y ago

And yet, Apple can still charge software companies whatever they want to allow software to run on the phones. Nothing says anything about the business elements of these user experiences. So if anyone thinks this law is going to take money from gatekeepers and put it into the pockets of app publishers they are kidding themselves

the_duke 4y ago
I think you might want to read up on the law in question...
Gareth321 4y ago
>And yet, Apple can still charge software companies whatever they want to allow software to run on the phones. This is explicitly disallowed in the legislation. See page 131: >The gatekeeper shall allow providers of services and providers of hardware, free of charge, effective interoperability with, and access for the purposes of interoperability to, the same hardware and software features accessed or controlled via the operating system or virtual assistant listed in the designation decision pursuant to Article 3(9) as are available to services or hardware provided by the gatekeeper. Furthermore, the gatekeeper shall allow business users and alternative providers of services provided together with, or in support of, core platform services, free of charge, effective interoperability with, and access for the purposes of interoperability to, the same operating system, hardware or software features, regardless of whether those features are part of the operating system, as are available to, or used by, that gatekeeper when providing such services
- enos_feedler 4y ago
  The simple work around is to provide lower quality of service to all of the platforms features and claim it is the only way to achieve _effective_ interoperability without jeopardizing the user experience
  - Gareth321 4y ago
    They have lots of qualifiers around access and service standards. It's 230 pages and quite comprehensive. I'm sure Apple and Google will try to get creative, but these simple examples of potential malicious compliance are already covered.

DrBazza 4y ago

Presumably you didn't live through the EU vs MS? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Corp._v._Commission https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Corp._v._Commission That was the unbundling of Internet Explorer from PCs. Which in hindsight looks like small beers compared to Chrome on-every-device usage, and probably why MS are getting away with it, again, bundling Edge and crippling Firefox workarounds.

AndyMcConachie 4y ago

I think we should expect Apple and Google to fight this tooth and nail. I'm sure they've been following it and looking at ways to exploit any holes that are in it. In short, I expect it to be years before we can do most of the things you list in your post. There will be lots of court cases before we, as consumers, see any real change.

Gareth321 4y ago
The EU doesn't operate the same way the courts do in America. The EU will require Apple/Google to cooperate with the changes while any cases are ongoing. If these cases take years to settle, so be it. If Apple/Google wins, any damages are back-paid.
the_duke 4y ago
Regulators have learned from GDPR. Enforcement for the large gatekeepers is with the commission,and they have a good amount of tools to enforce compliance. I'm sure A/G will try to drag it out, but it won't be years.

webmobdev 4y ago

And for privacy conscious users and other business competitors: > But they can no longer reuse private data collected during a service for the purposes of another service. I hope this is applied retrospectively (for even data gathered before the DMA was legislated and came into effect).

noisem4ker 4y ago
"retroactively"

paganel 4y ago

It depends on how much the Republicans have started to like on Apple and Google again, there's no way a European Union starving for gas come winter-time would impose a 10-20% cut of the turnover to two out of the 4 biggest US companies. I say Republicans because most probably they'll steamroll the Dems in November.

toyg 4y ago
Considering these giants pay very little tax and employ very small numbers in the European tech sector, "there is way" indeed.
- paganel 4y ago
  They pay so little tax exactly because they’re US behemoths. Again, the EU has a very weak hand in here, it’s not like these decisions are implemented in a vacuum.
  - kaoD 4y ago
    Well the US has a strategic interest on EU using their spyware. They're slowly losing their grasp on EU (e.g. threats regarding Nord Stream 2 in 2021). This could slowly turn into Cold War II and this time around it doesn't look like the US is capable of/willing to carry out a Marshall Plan if things turn ugly energy-wise. EU is starting to realize how they're puppets to the US and an economic war is being waged on their soil. The US is not the reliable partner that it used to be. Russia is not looking good but neither is the US. China is going to slowly eat the european cake if they play their cards well as they're already doing in Africa.
  - toyg 4y ago
    > Again, the EU has a very weak hand in here I wonder why all these megacorps have had to change their data-handling procedure and now ask you for consent to tracking cookies... oh wait
    - paganel 4y ago

JumpCrisscross 4y ago

> After the Act is signed by the Council and the European Parliament in September Lol. The encryption keys being shared with security services bits have political cover. Not the rest. It’s surprising European legislation doesn’t yet have a reconciliation process, to prevent this sort of burying-the-lede gambit.

wyldfire 4y ago

> Install any software Could we have something like F-droid on iOS? I guess that's Cydia now but could Cydia be installed without requiring jailbreaking?

Bilal_io 4y ago
The delicious irony if the Cydia devs come back with an official Cydia store.

sfe22 4y ago

While I am in the camp of apple allowing side-loading, i am not a fan of monopolistic regulations like this. It opens all kind of questions, like 1. What devices have to comply? 2. Who decides what device has to comply? Should playstation open their system too. What about a niche bank transaction signing device that internally uses an android capable hardware. Is this illegal now? 3. What about a car infotainment system that can theoretically run linux. 4. What if a European startup wants to compete with the iphone? Now they have so many regulations instead of focusing on a great device for their niche. This looks like it will kill competition and harm European innovation, while major players will find their ways around it.

ls15 4y ago
Sony's market capitalization exceeds €75bn (the threshold over which the regulation applies).
- GoOnThenDoTell 4y ago
  Is there something to stop worthless shell companies from shielding the parent company's size
  - sfe22 4y ago
    Enjoy the special edition European only, double i phone, now available at the closest Aapple store.
  - arlcode 4y ago
    Hopefully existing regulations that prevent companies from hiding behind shells. Otherwise any regulation could be skirted by having a constantly revolving roster of fronts that import your product.
  - toyg 4y ago
    There is the law and there is the spirit of the law. Judges (and European regulators alike) don't like being taken for fools.
- 4y ago

intrasight 4y ago

>Install any App Store That wasn't one of the bullets in the posted article. Do you have a reference to the language of the law that says this?

webmobdev 4y ago
I am guessing if you can "install any software" (as the DMA says), then the device manufacturer can't prevent you from installing another app store.
- AnssiH 4y ago
  Actually, "software application stores" are explicitly mentioned in the relevant Article 6(4) (https://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/PE-17-2022-INIT/en/pdf https://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/PE-17-2022-INI... page 129).

gentleman11 4y ago

Does this ban Microsoft from using their privileged position to sabotage Firefox and to push their spyware browser?

pteraspidomorph 4y ago
I'm wondering about this, too. In recent updates Windows seems to do a lot to force users into Edge under certain circumstances and use cases (and pester the user to switch to Edge entirely), in ways that at a glance appear to be incompatible with the summary of this regulation.

InTheArena 4y ago

This is much more negative then for Apple then google. Google subsidizes their (far less profitable) app ecosystem by selling user data in the form of advertisements. While there is language about Google having to share marketing response rates, it doesn't prohibit this practice. Apple on the other hand makes their money by targeting features (privacy, integration, etc) that people pay more for. Apple will have to transition to a more ad-tech focus in order to compete in Europe under this infrastructure.

astrange 4y ago
Showing advertisements isn't "selling user data", it's showing ads. Being the company who shows the ads means keeping the targeting data for yourself, which is the opposite of selling it.
bryan_w 4y ago
Or maybe settle for making a few billion less. Oh the horror

NeveHanter 4y ago

What about the Google Play Services as a whole? Most of the Android apps don't work without these (so you can't for example use LineageOS without GApps), does the act in any way reference such things? What about contactless payment without "Google's approval" which require hiding the root, hiding the fact that the system is unsigned or has unlocked bootloader.

blinkingled 4y ago
That is already not a problem on Android. If you can install a 3rd party app store (and you already can install a bunch of these on Android) and don't use Google Play Services your app will still work. For e.g. Amazon Appstore ships lots of the same apps but without using Google Play Services.
- NeveHanter 4y ago
  Well, no, many apps require Google Play Services/Google Play Framework to work, I can use MicroG (https://microg.org/ https://microg.org/) with the spoofing enabled but this is unofficial thing and not everything works with that.
  - izacus 4y ago
    And many apps don't work without Apple iOS being present on device and many apps don't work without Windows being present on device, etc. Play Services are core OS API just like Apple services are.
    - tristan957 4y ago
      They are pretty obviously not core OS API if you don't need them.
    - jcfrei 4y ago
      Play Services is probably the worlds most expansive data collection and user tracking tool. Tying core OS APIs into it is just evil.

Aaargh20318 4y ago

> Use existing hardware and software features without competitive prejudice. E.g. NFC What this will mean for me as an iPhone user: instead of using Apple Pay which is seamlessly integrated in my phone, watch and desktop OS, I will instead have to use my bank's terrible HTML-based 'app' to perform contactless payments, making it 100 times less convenient. This probably will make me switch back to using my bank card. But hey, my bank makes a little more profit at the expense of UX. Thanks EU!

thunkshift1 4y ago
No one is forcing you too do that. But they are forcing apple to give anyone using apple devices the option to use the banks shitty ui app. Maybe the ui app will stop being shitty as the usage goes up? That is the point
- Aaargh20318 4y ago
  > No one is forcing you too do that. The bank will by discontinuing Apple Pay support. They have every incentive to do so.
  - drampelt 4y ago
    Then why isn't that happening on Android with Google Pay? Banks are able to handle NFC payments through their own apps if they want, but the vast majority support Google Pay and don't force users into their own app.
    - Aaargh20318 4y ago
      I suspect that is largely due to the success of Apple Pay. Banks used to have their own apps on Android for years and only grudgingly started to support Apple Pay since they couldn't use their own apps. They only started migrating from their own apps to Google Wallet/Pay after Apple Pay became a success and Android users started to feel left out. They would never have supported Apple Pay if they hadn't been forced to do so. In fact, even though there was no alternative they kept dragging their feet and complaining about it for years.

vopi 4y ago

Where does it mention side loading? Still skimming the legal doc, but it just says basically they need to be fair and non-discriminatory about app-store access.

vopi 4y ago
Nevermind, my ctrl-f'ing failed me. Ignore.

browningstreet 4y ago

If this is an accurate description of the regulation, I can help but feel they brought it on themselves but closing the garden so hard. These were normal computing options before iPhone/Android took over. Does it break any privacy/digital-dignity protections though?

lnxg33k1 4y ago

Have you read it? Do you have any info on how the vendors can react to these changes in terms of policy? Like is there anything that disallow apple to offer post-sales support / warranty in case you install any software / app store? etc?

aasasd 4y ago

iPhones are now shipped with FreeDOS. Optional iOS is available separately.

2Gkashmiri 4y ago

does anyone know when the messaging interoperability comes into force? i am really anxious to have this work finally

astrange 4y ago
You're really anxious to have infinite amounts of spam from bridged messaging services that noone can do anything to stop?
- 2Gkashmiri 4y ago
  yeah, pretty much
- Barrin92 4y ago
  >that noone can do anything to stop I think clicking the button that says "only accept messages from my contacts" on the messaging service of your choice ought to solve that problem
  - 2Gkashmiri 4y ago
    this is the kind of FUD that needs to be stopped. sure, if you get telegram spam, wont you be able to block telegram from messaging you so whats the big deal about this?
    - astrange 4y ago
      Why would you be able to do that? I don’t have regex blocking in any of my messaging apps right now. If you think you’ll be able to block specific other services, that sounds anticompetitive.
      - 2Gkashmiri 4y ago
        An individual should be able to do that, not talking about app wise blocking someone.

jwarden 4y ago

The idea seems good. But after GDPR my confidence in EU lawmakers ability to craft truly well-thought-out tech legislation is low.

_the_inflator 4y ago

I am still excited about Apple's answer to this. They have been extremely creative so far in mitigating rules. I believe that they will find a way to somehow undermine these rulings. EU hasn't won yet.

woojoo666 4y ago
I assume Apple will just release special unlocked phones that only work in the EU (only support EU carriers, only support EU cell frequencies, etc)

la64710 4y ago

Europe’s requirement of those pesky cookie notices have killed the joy of surfing the net. Every goddamn site has this stupid cookie popup show up. It is like playing whack-a-mole. They should have instead only allow necessary cookies and marketing and other cookies should be part of signing up for a specific service and not just visiting the website. The thought is noble but the implementation sucks.

throw1230 4y ago
EU requirement was to inform users on how the data collected about them will be used and give them a choice. Cookie notices was the industry response, ignoring the spirit of the law and complying at a minimal rate
- mrbombastic 4y ago
  If this is how the industry is complying the law was poorly written no?
d4a 4y ago
Cookie notices > having tracking cookies enabled by default with no easy way to turn them off
chrismartin 4y ago
try easylist-cookies. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23521399 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23521399
solarkraft 4y ago
> The thought is noble but the implementation sucks And you know who does the actual implementation, right? This is mostly a case of malicious (arguably non-) compliance.
- permo-w 4y ago
  it most cases it's not even arguable

nuker 4y ago

> Install any software Scams proliferate, praying on elderly and young. Widespread tracking of your location, browsing history. Same with other points, narrow, selfish thinking.

emkoemko 4y ago
wow people sure love giving corporations the power to decide what they can do with their device... selfish thinking? naaa its a walled garden for one reason to make a ton of money...
unity1001 4y ago
There would be scam-tracking services, which anyone could use.

slaymaker1907 4y ago

I think six months is a pretty unreasonable time frame for Apple. While the security concerns around this sort of thing are often overblown, Apple will need to rework their security model for the iPhone. If there is an API surface between the OS and the App Store, they may need to rework it since it's not been designed with third party stores in mind.

withinboredom 4y ago
The writing has been on the wall for years. Sounds like a problem of their own creation.
- zo1 4y ago
  I think they assumed, like the rest of us to a degree, that "it will never happen". If this kind of "ffs, just effing solve it with a law already" kind of law comes through, I'm seriously considering moving to an EU country.
  - drawfloat 4y ago
    The noises out of government have been that this will happen for a few years now, at least from the perspective of an EU citizen. They should have been preparing.
  - withinboredom 4y ago
    That’s why I moved here five years ago from the US. It’s actually pretty easy, depending on where you go.
  - bzxcvbn 4y ago
    There is no "if this comes through". The law was adopted, all that's left is a formal step (getting the law signed) and then a standard waiting period (six months to allow companies to adapt).
    - wmf 4y ago

InCityDreams 4y ago

>* User any browser and browser engine and choose to make it default ...only works if the OS doesn't unchange it every. sodding. day.

metacritic12 4y ago

The title says it all: the EU Act aimed against literally half the top USA companies. But that's just realpolitik for you. This is the same reason that in the USA it is legal to have California Champaign and New York Bordeaux (style in small font) wine.

cced 4y ago

Do you think that this would mean providing these new services to phones outsides of the EU i.e. would the whole world benefit from this?

pabs3 4y ago

What about installing an alternative operating system on an iPhone?

8note 4y ago

Under much much more, Install any app you've previously purchased, from any app store, I think regardless of whether they'd otherwise offer said app I think that will get rid of selling the same game, app, whatever on many platforms. Buy once, use everywhere

highwaylights 4y ago

This will also apply to Xbox, Switch and Playstation, among other devices - unless I'm understanding the legislation wrong. The impacts are staggering.

musicale 4y ago
Nintendo may not be big enough. Microsoft certainly is.

krzyk 4y ago

Yeah, finally. I wonder why Google is there, they don't block any of this.

mrorbitman 4y ago

Six months??? What does "comply" mean? Ship a version of the OS that supports all these new features? Or begin implementation of them? Six months is barely enough time for companies to digest and understand the new requirements, and certainly not enough time to develop and ship such dramatic changes.

sschueller 4y ago
Yet Samsung manages to release a new phone every 6 months.

togs 4y ago

> Install any software So it's like a jailbreak. More software, less security. > Make core messaging functionality interoperable. They lay out concrete examples like file transfer. Encrypted messaging by someone not in the U.S.' jurisdiction. More privacy, more terrorism. > Fines are up to 10% of global revenue for the first offense, and 20% for repeat offenses. Ouch, that'll impose some discipline.