6 ms·

If you get cited in someone else's anti-trust Apple deactivate developer account

62 points by janandonly 3y ago

therein 3y ago
Apple indeed holds a grudge. Let's say a friend was fired from Apple for years ago and if you get an offer from Apple today, your offer letter may specifically mention him by name, stating you are explicitly not allowed to share any information with that person.
- brookst 3y ago
  Source?
  - therein 3y ago
    You know it can only be from personal experience. Take it at its face value but it happened. Friend hadn't told anyone that he had left Apple not on good terms. An interesting and fun conversation had followed when this newly hired friend contacted the old friend and said you wouldn't believe what my Apple offer letter says.
justinclift 3y ago
https://nitter.net/evankaloudis/status/1727336468920864844 https://nitter.net/evankaloudis/status/1727336468920864844
throwawayappl3 3y ago
How much longer will these bastards be allowed to abuse developers? I even feel compelled to create a throwaway account just to criticize Apple in case there are any secret agents on HN who want to delete my livelihood for fun.
- bossyTeacher 3y ago
  Secret Apple agent here. We found you and we are going to make you serve tea to Tim Cook from tomorrow until the rest of your days >:) All praise to our Lord Cook
  - throwawayappl3 3y ago
    I only say this because Apple has come at us before with concerns squarely outside of their area of jurisdiction, even according to their own guidelines.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
  [flagged]
o11c 3y ago
On the one hand, Apple is definitely an illegal monopoly. On the other hand, when it's cryptocurrency nonsense suffering, the world is actually benefiting. Monopolies aren't intrinsically evil, just strongly encouraged to be so.
- throwawayappl3 3y ago
  We have governments for a reason. What law is Apple enforcing? To be clear I'm anti-crypto as well. It's just not illegal to run a regulated exchange so I'm open to that. Apple shouldn't be the gatekeeper of what is right and wrong to distribute on our devices.
- yborg 3y ago
  What does Apple have a monopoly on?
  - 2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
    [flagged]
  - Dma54rhs 3y ago
    They have Monopoly over the iPhone market, everyone was free to distribute programs for Windows but MS still got into deep trouble because of IE. In the eyes of the law you don't have to run 90 or 100% market share to be considered to be a monopoly.
    - EPWN3D 3y ago
      > They have Monopoly over the iPhone market There is no such thing as "the iPhone market" for anti-trust purposes -- there is the mobile phone market. And competition in that market is inarguably healthy. Customers have plenty of choices that aren't iPhones, and largely they seem fine with them. You might as well argue that Chevrolet has a monopoly on the Corvette market. Microsoft got into trouble because they were found to have a monopoly on the personal computer operating system market and then they deployed that monopoly to shut out competition in a separate market -- web browsers. No one said that Microsoft had a monopoly on the "Windows market" because that's a tautology. The fact that they were successful enough to obtain a monopoly in the PC OS market wasn't itself illegal. Their usage of their position in the OS market to gain an advantage in the web browser market is what was found to be illegal.
concinds 3y ago
Given the screenshot, it looks like they deactivated the entire Apple ID account. That would include losing access to email, photos, contacts, iCloud documents, calendars, app store purchases, even book highlights. Insane.
- gumby 3y ago
  Have an unrelated dev account. Mine is so old that it doesn’t have an ‘@‘ and does have a space in it. I figure that will thwart any automated tool.
- alexfromapex 3y ago
  There should be a legal avenue required for shutting down peoples' accounts introduced along with privacy controls. Google, Apple, and some of the other OAuth providers control almost all of peoples' online livelihoods.
  - CamperBob2 3y ago
    There will be, eventually, because these companies refuse to accept the responsibilities that go with the social power they've accumulated. Right now nobody at Google or Apple has any incentive whatsoever to care about collateral damage when a user's entire account is locked. That will obviously have to change. The change doesn't have to come by way of government mandate, but that seems to be how they want to play it. They will have no one to blame but themselves when they're on the receiving end of the collateral damage that will accompany such legislation.
    - justinclift 3y ago
      There was a US government push a few years ago to treat Google (etc) as public utilities, with the same responsibilities to users as any other utility. eg support for users, reasonable conflict resolution, etc. * https://www.rankscience.com/blog/why-google-should-be-regulated-as-a-public-utility https://www.rankscience.com/blog/why-google-should-be-regula... There were plenty of articles about it online at the time. The above is just one I found in a quick search now. Unfortunately, the legislation didn't pass. And now, Google (etc) are further emboldened...
Someone 3y ago
“Apparently”, according to this “X post”. There’s a link to a class action complaint (https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/legaldocs/zdpxrbjyrpx/Apple%20Cash%2020231117.pdf https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/legaldocs/zdpxrbjyrpx/...) That’s 58 pages of legalese, though, so a link to where that’s claimed would be useful.
- lapcat 3y ago
  Page 33 of 58: "146. For example, in June 2023, Apple’s Apple Developer agreements prevented cryptocurrency wallet apps Zeus and Damus from providing decentralized payments on iOS and iPadOS devices"
  - Someone 3y ago
    That doesn’t say they deactivated a developer account. It also can mean, and I think that’s the normal way to interpret such a statement, that they rejected their app. I also don’t see an argument there that being cited in an anti trust case is a factor there. This claim may well be true, and it may be hard to prove, but they should at least try, and this doesn’t do that for me.
    - lapcat 3y ago
      > That doesn’t say they deactivated a developer account. You seem to be a bit confused. The lawsuit wasn't about deactivating the developer account. The link just shows that Zeus was cited in someone else's anti-trust lawsuit. You complained about "58 pages of legalese", so I pointed out the exact page number where Zeus was cited. The deactivation of the developer account occurred after the lawsuit. If you're not convinced about the reason for the account deactivation, that's fine, but the "58 pages of legalese" complaint is kind of irrelevant.
- forbiddenlake 3y ago
  There are two screenshots on the post that directly show the issue. I'm not logged in to Twitter on this device and I can see them, but if you can't maybe the nitter link someone else posted would work for you.
fyokdrigd 3y ago
[flagged]
Animats 3y ago
This would be an excellent time to talk to the lawyers in the antitrust case. This is just the sort of evidence they need. This is called "refusal to deal" in antitrust law.[1] FTC: "For instance, if the monopolist refuses to sell a product or service to a competitor that it makes available to others, or if the monopolist has done business with the competitor and then stops, the monopolist needs a legitimate business reason for its policies." It also raises the question of whether Apple is abusing their monopoly power to interfere with legal proceedings. Definitely lawyer time. [1] https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/guide-antitrust-laws/single-firm-conduct/refusal-deal https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/gui...
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
maxwellito 3y ago
It’s sad to hear, but a great reminder of why I keep declining suggestions to turn my web apps into native iOS

62 points by janandonly 3y ago

Apple indeed holds a grudge. Let's say a friend was fired from Apple for years ago and if you get an offer from Apple today, your offer letter may specifically mention him by name, stating you are explicitly not allowed to share any information with that person.

brookst 3y ago
Source?
- therein 3y ago
  You know it can only be from personal experience. Take it at its face value but it happened. Friend hadn't told anyone that he had left Apple not on good terms. An interesting and fun conversation had followed when this newly hired friend contacted the old friend and said you wouldn't believe what my Apple offer letter says.

justinclift 3y ago

https://nitter.net/evankaloudis/status/1727336468920864844 https://nitter.net/evankaloudis/status/1727336468920864844

throwawayappl3 3y ago

How much longer will these bastards be allowed to abuse developers? I even feel compelled to create a throwaway account just to criticize Apple in case there are any secret agents on HN who want to delete my livelihood for fun.

bossyTeacher 3y ago
Secret Apple agent here. We found you and we are going to make you serve tea to Tim Cook from tomorrow until the rest of your days >:) All praise to our Lord Cook
- throwawayappl3 3y ago
  I only say this because Apple has come at us before with concerns squarely outside of their area of jurisdiction, even according to their own guidelines.
2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
[flagged]

o11c 3y ago

On the one hand, Apple is definitely an illegal monopoly. On the other hand, when it's cryptocurrency nonsense suffering, the world is actually benefiting. Monopolies aren't intrinsically evil, just strongly encouraged to be so.

throwawayappl3 3y ago
We have governments for a reason. What law is Apple enforcing? To be clear I'm anti-crypto as well. It's just not illegal to run a regulated exchange so I'm open to that. Apple shouldn't be the gatekeeper of what is right and wrong to distribute on our devices.
yborg 3y ago
What does Apple have a monopoly on?
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
  [flagged]
- Dma54rhs 3y ago
  They have Monopoly over the iPhone market, everyone was free to distribute programs for Windows but MS still got into deep trouble because of IE. In the eyes of the law you don't have to run 90 or 100% market share to be considered to be a monopoly.
  - EPWN3D 3y ago
    > They have Monopoly over the iPhone market There is no such thing as "the iPhone market" for anti-trust purposes -- there is the mobile phone market. And competition in that market is inarguably healthy. Customers have plenty of choices that aren't iPhones, and largely they seem fine with them. You might as well argue that Chevrolet has a monopoly on the Corvette market. Microsoft got into trouble because they were found to have a monopoly on the personal computer operating system market and then they deployed that monopoly to shut out competition in a separate market -- web browsers. No one said that Microsoft had a monopoly on the "Windows market" because that's a tautology. The fact that they were successful enough to obtain a monopoly in the PC OS market wasn't itself illegal. Their usage of their position in the OS market to gain an advantage in the web browser market is what was found to be illegal.

concinds 3y ago

Given the screenshot, it looks like they deactivated the entire Apple ID account. That would include losing access to email, photos, contacts, iCloud documents, calendars, app store purchases, even book highlights. Insane.

gumby 3y ago
Have an unrelated dev account. Mine is so old that it doesn’t have an ‘@‘ and does have a space in it. I figure that will thwart any automated tool.
alexfromapex 3y ago
There should be a legal avenue required for shutting down peoples' accounts introduced along with privacy controls. Google, Apple, and some of the other OAuth providers control almost all of peoples' online livelihoods.
- CamperBob2 3y ago
  There will be, eventually, because these companies refuse to accept the responsibilities that go with the social power they've accumulated. Right now nobody at Google or Apple has any incentive whatsoever to care about collateral damage when a user's entire account is locked. That will obviously have to change. The change doesn't have to come by way of government mandate, but that seems to be how they want to play it. They will have no one to blame but themselves when they're on the receiving end of the collateral damage that will accompany such legislation.
  - justinclift 3y ago
    There was a US government push a few years ago to treat Google (etc) as public utilities, with the same responsibilities to users as any other utility. eg support for users, reasonable conflict resolution, etc. * https://www.rankscience.com/blog/why-google-should-be-regulated-as-a-public-utility https://www.rankscience.com/blog/why-google-should-be-regula... There were plenty of articles about it online at the time. The above is just one I found in a quick search now. Unfortunately, the legislation didn't pass. And now, Google (etc) are further emboldened...

Someone 3y ago

“Apparently”, according to this “X post”. There’s a link to a class action complaint (https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/legaldocs/zdpxrbjyrpx/Apple%20Cash%2020231117.pdf https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/legaldocs/zdpxrbjyrpx/...) That’s 58 pages of legalese, though, so a link to where that’s claimed would be useful.

lapcat 3y ago
Page 33 of 58: "146. For example, in June 2023, Apple’s Apple Developer agreements prevented cryptocurrency wallet apps Zeus and Damus from providing decentralized payments on iOS and iPadOS devices"
- Someone 3y ago
  That doesn’t say they deactivated a developer account. It also can mean, and I think that’s the normal way to interpret such a statement, that they rejected their app. I also don’t see an argument there that being cited in an anti trust case is a factor there. This claim may well be true, and it may be hard to prove, but they should at least try, and this doesn’t do that for me.
  - lapcat 3y ago
    > That doesn’t say they deactivated a developer account. You seem to be a bit confused. The lawsuit wasn't about deactivating the developer account. The link just shows that Zeus was cited in someone else's anti-trust lawsuit. You complained about "58 pages of legalese", so I pointed out the exact page number where Zeus was cited. The deactivation of the developer account occurred after the lawsuit. If you're not convinced about the reason for the account deactivation, that's fine, but the "58 pages of legalese" complaint is kind of irrelevant.
forbiddenlake 3y ago
There are two screenshots on the post that directly show the issue. I'm not logged in to Twitter on this device and I can see them, but if you can't maybe the nitter link someone else posted would work for you.

fyokdrigd 3y ago

[flagged]

Animats 3y ago

This would be an excellent time to talk to the lawyers in the antitrust case. This is just the sort of evidence they need. This is called "refusal to deal" in antitrust law.[1] FTC: "For instance, if the monopolist refuses to sell a product or service to a competitor that it makes available to others, or if the monopolist has done business with the competitor and then stops, the monopolist needs a legitimate business reason for its policies." It also raises the question of whether Apple is abusing their monopoly power to interfere with legal proceedings. Definitely lawyer time. [1] https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/guide-antitrust-laws/single-firm-conduct/refusal-deal https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/gui...

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

maxwellito 3y ago

It’s sad to hear, but a great reminder of why I keep declining suggestions to turn my web apps into native iOS