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It's shocking that it's illegal to make an OS that allows people to install apps from other sources after warning them, but not illegal to not allow that at all

It's shocking that it's illegal to make an OS that allows people to install apps from other sources after warning them, but not illegal to not allow that at all.

queuebert 3y ago
Government of the people, by the people and for the people.[1] 1. Corporations have been determined to be people.
- megaman821 3y ago
  Blah, this generic sentiment is so tired. What specific rights should we take away from groups of people but are present as individuals?
  - son_of_gloin 3y ago
    Corporations aren't democratic organizations though so every individual in the group doesn't really have an equal access to these rights.
    - polski-g 3y ago
      Publicly traded corporations are democratic organizations. You get one vote per share you hold. If you want something to happen, the shareholders can vote for it.
    - megaman821 3y ago
      Presumably the board could stop corporate speech the majority does not agree with. It would be interesting to re-litigate this case with a company like Facebook where Zuckerberg has special voting shares. If donating to a PAC is just a group of people exercising their free speech, can you delegate your right to free speech to someone else?
      - g-b-r 3y ago
        The most f* up aspect is interpreting corruption as "free speech", for both individuals and corporations.
    - WendyTheWillow 3y ago
      What’s not clear to me is why a corporation’s specific governance would matter. When a company “speaks”, it’s still an individual ultimately expressing themselves, just with the benefit of compensation.
      - g-b-r 3y ago
        Sure, expressing themselves...
        WendyTheWillow 3y ago
        You may not like their motives or incentives, but I don't see a compelling argument that makes their expression less legitimate than mine.
        sgift 3y ago
        The compelling argument is that it should be quite obvious that companies do not speak for all of their employees, cause most of them are - to what degree can be argued until the end of time - basically coerced to express the "opinion" of the company. At most it's the opinion of the owners, artificially amplified. And to the question why the owners should not be able to express themselves: They can express themselves individually all they want, but if they want to use a company to do it they should also be personally responsible for everything the company does. And since one of the primary reasons to have a company is to isolate the owners from being sued personally ... there's a bit of a problem here.
        WendyTheWillow 3y ago
        But that’s not the claim. A “company” doesn’t speak, individuals do. Just because the individuals do as a result of compensation, doesn’t mean they lose their right to free expression. You’re focusing on the “group” aspect of this, but that’s irrelevant to the argument. A PR spokesperson has individual rights, even if they choose to use that voice to advance a company’s goals.
  - g-b-r 3y ago
    Corporations are systems generally set up to earn as much as possible disregarding everything else, definitely not "groups of people"....
    - megaman821 3y ago
      Corporations are what their shareholders want them to be. Since a lot of the shareholders came to be shareholders by buying in, they generally want to see a return on investment. It doesn't have to be that way if you can convince the shareholders differently. You are free to bring up a vote to Disney shareholders to change their mission into finding every mouse in the world and naming it Mickey.
      - g-b-r 3y ago
        That's why I said generally By the way, there's a very widespread view that companies are legally required to maximize their shareholders' monetary profit. Can you name many corporations that in the long term were shown to not having behaved so?
  - rqtwteye 3y ago
    They should go to prison like individuals. Instead of the endless settlements suspend their business for a while. They would pay way more attention.
    - megaman821 3y ago
      Write the Attorney General, corporations don't shield individuals from criminal liability just financial. If we are making a wishlist; government bailouts to corporations should trigger a termination clause for the the whole c-suite.
YetAnotherNick 3y ago
Law is so weird. Apple stopped watch sales today for using decades old technology[1]. And Google for this. Out of ALL the bad things they have done. [1]: https://www.forbes.com/sites/katiejennings/2023/10/31/some-apple-watches-are-about-to-be-banned-in-the-us-what-happens-next/?sh=2fd1f20ad1cc https://www.forbes.com/sites/katiejennings/2023/10/31/some-a...
crazygringo 3y ago
This is the problem that arises when the legislature doesn't make laws specifically around things like app stores. The courts take existing laws and regulations and try to make them fit, and different courts come up with different answers because the laws they're using never imagined this precise scenario. Ideally we'd have a functioning Congress that would debate these issues and write carefully thought-out laws to regulate app stores. Until then, we just get messes of seemingly contradictory rulings that seem to be decided more by chance than by any clear cohesive principle. In other words -- blame the legislature, not the courts.
- cogman10 3y ago
  These things would be processed faster if we had sane laws and/or procedures around lawsuit discovery requests and motions. Still a problem with the legislature, but also a little with the courts. We simply do not have enough judges to handle caseloads in a timely fashion. But also, whenever a major company is sued you end up with 8 billion motions that the court has to rule on before you even get close to a trial date. A major problem is there's no real penalty for wasting the court's time. Companies are incentivized to make longshot motions because in the worst case, the court will just say no. For lawfirms, the more motions you make the bigger their paycheck so they not only go unpunished, they are rewarded for making as many motions as possible.
- dfgfek 3y ago
  >Ideally we'd have a functioning Congress that would debate these issues and write carefully thought-out laws to regulate app stores. Why is it ideal that there are more laws, more regulations...?
  - wepple 3y ago
    The system is currently very broken. Less laws wouldn’t make this situation better. Either update/adapt, or require specific amendments?
  - munchler 3y ago
    Because the world changes, so laws need to change as well. Because capitalism would devour the entire planet without regulation.
AnthonyMouse 3y ago
> It's shocking that it's illegal to make an OS that allows people to install apps from other sources after warning them, but not illegal to not allow that at all. That hasn't been established yet. This wasn't a court decision, it was a settlement. Epic separately sued both Google and Apple and won against Google but lost against Apple, but both of the cases are being appealed and you don't have a national precedent until you have a Supreme Court decision.
- s3p 3y ago
  I think it's a little more complicated than that. You can have precedent when courts follow fellow courts' decisions. The supreme court just has the final say. Also, even if SCOTUS rules one way, it can just overrule itself a few years later if it wants to (like it did in the summer).
  - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
    > You can have precedent when courts follow fellow courts' decisions. They're not required to do that and when it comes to nonsense results like trying to reconcile the different outcomes in Epic v. Apple and Epic v. Google, they're going to have a think and then make their own decision. > Also, even if SCOTUS rules one way, it can just overrule itself a few years later if it wants to (like it did in the summer). That wasn't a few years, it was half a century, and in general they try to avoid that. The case you're referring to was quite possibly the most controversial case in living memory.
madeofpalk 3y ago
Google created a market, and then they stifled that market. There's no "iOS app distribution" market for Apple to act anti-competitively in.
- vorticalbox 3y ago
  Cydia? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cydia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cydia
  - madeofpalk 3y ago
    What's that?
    - vorticalbox 3y ago
      Third party app store for jail broken iOS devices
turquoisevar 3y ago
It’s because the acts in a vacuum aren’t illegal. It’s about leveraging power derived from market dominance. (Although in this case the legality hasn’t been adjudicated because a settlement was reached). If you create a platform and app market with strict rules, that’s not illegal. The logic here is that you’re new in the market and if the terms aren’t commensurate with market conditions, you will never grow. If you do grow, then the market has decided that the gains outweigh the limitations you imposed. There comes a point where you have gained enough dominance where your actions can be scrutinized. But in general as long as you don’t actively tighten the reigns, you’re in the clear. So if you had strict rules when you started and despite those strict rules you grew and since then you haven’t made the rules stricter, then you’re in the clear because you haven’t abused your market dominance. The flip side of this coin is that if you created a platform and app market that didn’t have strict rules and was very open, but once you’ve gained market dominance you put up hurdles or you impose stricter rules, then there could be a problem because now it can be explained as you abusing your market dominance after everyone got in. Personally I don’t think the so called “scare screens” fall under dominance abuse because they serve a legitimate purpose. If anything I think they’re not enough. Nokia’s Threat Intelligence Report in 2021[0] reported that Android makes up more than half of all the infected systems in the recent 2023 report this had dipped to 49%[1]. But as they’ve done in prior reports, this year they again highlight that most Android malware is a trojanized version of legitimate apps distributed via alternative means: > Android based devices are not inherently insecure. However, most smartphone malware is distributed as trojanized applications and since Android users can load application from just about anywhere, it’s much easier to trick them into installing applications that are infected with malware. Android users can protect themselves by only installing applications from secure app stores like Google Play and installing a mobile anti-virus product on their device. In any case, whether something is legal or illegal in this case depends on whether it was or wasn’t done while having market dominance. 0: https://pages.nokia.com/T006US-Threat-Intelligence-Report-2021.html https://pages.nokia.com/T006US-Threat-Intelligence-Report-20... 1: https://www.nokia.com/networks/security-portfolio/threat-intelligence-report/ https://www.nokia.com/networks/security-portfolio/threat-int...
lijok 3y ago
Am I misunderstanding or are you suggesting it should be illegal to make an OS that doesn't permit certain functionality?

It's shocking that it's illegal to make an OS that allows people to install apps from other sources after warning them, but not illegal to not allow that at all.

queuebert 3y ago

Government of the people, by the people and for the people.[1] 1. Corporations have been determined to be people.

megaman821 3y ago
Blah, this generic sentiment is so tired. What specific rights should we take away from groups of people but are present as individuals?
- son_of_gloin 3y ago
  Corporations aren't democratic organizations though so every individual in the group doesn't really have an equal access to these rights.
  - polski-g 3y ago
    Publicly traded corporations are democratic organizations. You get one vote per share you hold. If you want something to happen, the shareholders can vote for it.
  - megaman821 3y ago
    Presumably the board could stop corporate speech the majority does not agree with. It would be interesting to re-litigate this case with a company like Facebook where Zuckerberg has special voting shares. If donating to a PAC is just a group of people exercising their free speech, can you delegate your right to free speech to someone else?
    - g-b-r 3y ago
      The most f* up aspect is interpreting corruption as "free speech", for both individuals and corporations.
  - WendyTheWillow 3y ago
    What’s not clear to me is why a corporation’s specific governance would matter. When a company “speaks”, it’s still an individual ultimately expressing themselves, just with the benefit of compensation.
    - g-b-r 3y ago
      Sure, expressing themselves...
      - WendyTheWillow 3y ago
        You may not like their motives or incentives, but I don't see a compelling argument that makes their expression less legitimate than mine.
        sgift 3y ago
        The compelling argument is that it should be quite obvious that companies do not speak for all of their employees, cause most of them are - to what degree can be argued until the end of time - basically coerced to express the "opinion" of the company. At most it's the opinion of the owners, artificially amplified. And to the question why the owners should not be able to express themselves: They can express themselves individually all they want, but if they want to use a company to do it they should also be personally responsible for everything the company does. And since one of the primary reasons to have a company is to isolate the owners from being sued personally ... there's a bit of a problem here.
        WendyTheWillow 3y ago
        But that’s not the claim. A “company” doesn’t speak, individuals do. Just because the individuals do as a result of compensation, doesn’t mean they lose their right to free expression. You’re focusing on the “group” aspect of this, but that’s irrelevant to the argument. A PR spokesperson has individual rights, even if they choose to use that voice to advance a company’s goals.
- g-b-r 3y ago
  Corporations are systems generally set up to earn as much as possible disregarding everything else, definitely not "groups of people"....
  - megaman821 3y ago
    Corporations are what their shareholders want them to be. Since a lot of the shareholders came to be shareholders by buying in, they generally want to see a return on investment. It doesn't have to be that way if you can convince the shareholders differently. You are free to bring up a vote to Disney shareholders to change their mission into finding every mouse in the world and naming it Mickey.
    - g-b-r 3y ago
      That's why I said generally By the way, there's a very widespread view that companies are legally required to maximize their shareholders' monetary profit. Can you name many corporations that in the long term were shown to not having behaved so?
- rqtwteye 3y ago
  They should go to prison like individuals. Instead of the endless settlements suspend their business for a while. They would pay way more attention.
  - megaman821 3y ago
    Write the Attorney General, corporations don't shield individuals from criminal liability just financial. If we are making a wishlist; government bailouts to corporations should trigger a termination clause for the the whole c-suite.

YetAnotherNick 3y ago

Law is so weird. Apple stopped watch sales today for using decades old technology[1]. And Google for this. Out of ALL the bad things they have done. [1]: https://www.forbes.com/sites/katiejennings/2023/10/31/some-apple-watches-are-about-to-be-banned-in-the-us-what-happens-next/?sh=2fd1f20ad1cc https://www.forbes.com/sites/katiejennings/2023/10/31/some-a...

crazygringo 3y ago

This is the problem that arises when the legislature doesn't make laws specifically around things like app stores. The courts take existing laws and regulations and try to make them fit, and different courts come up with different answers because the laws they're using never imagined this precise scenario. Ideally we'd have a functioning Congress that would debate these issues and write carefully thought-out laws to regulate app stores. Until then, we just get messes of seemingly contradictory rulings that seem to be decided more by chance than by any clear cohesive principle. In other words -- blame the legislature, not the courts.

cogman10 3y ago
These things would be processed faster if we had sane laws and/or procedures around lawsuit discovery requests and motions. Still a problem with the legislature, but also a little with the courts. We simply do not have enough judges to handle caseloads in a timely fashion. But also, whenever a major company is sued you end up with 8 billion motions that the court has to rule on before you even get close to a trial date. A major problem is there's no real penalty for wasting the court's time. Companies are incentivized to make longshot motions because in the worst case, the court will just say no. For lawfirms, the more motions you make the bigger their paycheck so they not only go unpunished, they are rewarded for making as many motions as possible.
dfgfek 3y ago
>Ideally we'd have a functioning Congress that would debate these issues and write carefully thought-out laws to regulate app stores. Why is it ideal that there are more laws, more regulations...?
- wepple 3y ago
  The system is currently very broken. Less laws wouldn’t make this situation better. Either update/adapt, or require specific amendments?
- munchler 3y ago
  Because the world changes, so laws need to change as well. Because capitalism would devour the entire planet without regulation.

AnthonyMouse 3y ago

> It's shocking that it's illegal to make an OS that allows people to install apps from other sources after warning them, but not illegal to not allow that at all. That hasn't been established yet. This wasn't a court decision, it was a settlement. Epic separately sued both Google and Apple and won against Google but lost against Apple, but both of the cases are being appealed and you don't have a national precedent until you have a Supreme Court decision.

s3p 3y ago
I think it's a little more complicated than that. You can have precedent when courts follow fellow courts' decisions. The supreme court just has the final say. Also, even if SCOTUS rules one way, it can just overrule itself a few years later if it wants to (like it did in the summer).
- AnthonyMouse 3y ago
  > You can have precedent when courts follow fellow courts' decisions. They're not required to do that and when it comes to nonsense results like trying to reconcile the different outcomes in Epic v. Apple and Epic v. Google, they're going to have a think and then make their own decision. > Also, even if SCOTUS rules one way, it can just overrule itself a few years later if it wants to (like it did in the summer). That wasn't a few years, it was half a century, and in general they try to avoid that. The case you're referring to was quite possibly the most controversial case in living memory.

madeofpalk 3y ago

Google created a market, and then they stifled that market. There's no "iOS app distribution" market for Apple to act anti-competitively in.

vorticalbox 3y ago
Cydia? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cydia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cydia
- madeofpalk 3y ago
  What's that?
  - vorticalbox 3y ago
    Third party app store for jail broken iOS devices

turquoisevar 3y ago

It’s because the acts in a vacuum aren’t illegal. It’s about leveraging power derived from market dominance. (Although in this case the legality hasn’t been adjudicated because a settlement was reached). If you create a platform and app market with strict rules, that’s not illegal. The logic here is that you’re new in the market and if the terms aren’t commensurate with market conditions, you will never grow. If you do grow, then the market has decided that the gains outweigh the limitations you imposed. There comes a point where you have gained enough dominance where your actions can be scrutinized. But in general as long as you don’t actively tighten the reigns, you’re in the clear. So if you had strict rules when you started and despite those strict rules you grew and since then you haven’t made the rules stricter, then you’re in the clear because you haven’t abused your market dominance. The flip side of this coin is that if you created a platform and app market that didn’t have strict rules and was very open, but once you’ve gained market dominance you put up hurdles or you impose stricter rules, then there could be a problem because now it can be explained as you abusing your market dominance after everyone got in. Personally I don’t think the so called “scare screens” fall under dominance abuse because they serve a legitimate purpose. If anything I think they’re not enough. Nokia’s Threat Intelligence Report in 2021[0] reported that Android makes up more than half of all the infected systems in the recent 2023 report this had dipped to 49%[1]. But as they’ve done in prior reports, this year they again highlight that most Android malware is a trojanized version of legitimate apps distributed via alternative means: > Android based devices are not inherently insecure. However, most smartphone malware is distributed as trojanized applications and since Android users can load application from just about anywhere, it’s much easier to trick them into installing applications that are infected with malware. Android users can protect themselves by only installing applications from secure app stores like Google Play and installing a mobile anti-virus product on their device. In any case, whether something is legal or illegal in this case depends on whether it was or wasn’t done while having market dominance. 0: https://pages.nokia.com/T006US-Threat-Intelligence-Report-2021.html https://pages.nokia.com/T006US-Threat-Intelligence-Report-20... 1: https://www.nokia.com/networks/security-portfolio/threat-intelligence-report/ https://www.nokia.com/networks/security-portfolio/threat-int...

lijok 3y ago

Am I misunderstanding or are you suggesting it should be illegal to make an OS that doesn't permit certain functionality?