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Apple's seeking to comply with the letter, rather than the spirit, of the law in order to maintain their ability to extract rents from the App Store. It's user-

by cdme 3y ago

Apple's seeking to comply with the letter, rather than the spirit, of the law in order to maintain their ability to extract rents from the App Store. It's user-hostile (particularly given that they've now hobbled PWAs) but not surprising. Their behavior won't change without additional regulatory action.

orev 3y ago
In the US, laws are taken as very literal, and any technicality that can be exploited usually will be. In Europe, they’re far more focused on the spirit of the law and don’t put up with games. On one hand it seems like Apple is trying to take a US style approach, but on the other they must have European lawyers on staff explaining how that won’t work. One might conclude that it’s a calculated risk, or a stalling tactic to extract a few more years of revenue from the current model while waiting for things to play out in the courts.
- 1letterunixname 3y ago
  Fair view vs. strict constructionism.
- malermeister 3y ago
  I think they're just too confident that their US approach will work. Same thing happened with Facebook, they got a huge fine for it.
- musictubes 3y ago
  I find it far fetched that Apple would either hire terrible lawyers that lead them astray or competent lawyers that they then ignore. I agree that they are probably hoping to go to court. Maybe I’m just too American to understand but the idea of “the spirit” of the law seems ridiculous. If you want the law to force Apple to allow slide loading then pass a law that says that. If you want a law that forces Apple to allow any developer to make and distribute software on their platform then pass a law that says that. It certainly seems that they were able to achieve that level of clarity with the USB-C rule. Why isn’t this law like that one? Relying on, “C’mon, we all know what the law really means,” is at best sloppy legislating.
  - Jensson 3y ago
    Trying to cover every case explicitly and rigorously just results in the legal mess the US has where you need way more lawyers than other countries to get stuff done, and still results in more abuse from companies since there will always be abusable holes in laws but there wont typically be holes in the spirit of the law. So the main end result with the US system is that companies employs armies of lawyers so that they can legally break the laws. The main ones who benefits from that are lawyers and the massive companies who can afford them.
    - happyopossum 3y ago
      > Trying to cover every case explicitly and rigorously Removing a gate but still charging and entrance fee isn't even close to a far-fetched corner case. I have to believe that the regulators understood they were only regulating the technical side of things, and not the financial side. If the lobbyists for Spotify and Epic dropped the ball there, that's on them.
  - TillE 3y ago
    Notably, the DMA includes words like "fair" and "reasonable" for which there is no strict robot-like interpretation. Apple's plans will be evaluated as such by regulators, and there are several provisions which are just plainly anti-competitive, especially the 50 cent per user per year fee just to run an app store. It's really hard to see that holding up.
    - happyopossum 3y ago
      > 50 cent per user per year fee just to run an app store. It's really hard to see that holding up. Hard to see a set of circumstances where the regulators succeed in forcing a company to develop and maintain a complex set of APIs for free in perpetuity...
      - IshKebab 3y ago
        They won't do that though. Apple will be free to stop selling iPhones if it wants. In any case iPhones aren't free.
- bitcurious 3y ago
  > In the US, laws are taken as very literal, and any technicality that can be exploited usually will be. In Europe, they’re far more focused on the spirit of the law and don’t put up with games. I was looking to confirm or deny that statement and came across a fun detour in the form of an article entitled "What's So Special About American Law?". It doesn't address the point about spirit vs. detail at all, but is an amusing and informative read. > As I said, this fact seems to me a deep and fundamental point of difference. The American legal system, to a greater extent than any other Western legal system, encourages the direct injection of democratic values into the legal process. Our legal system, like our society, places great emphasis on the value of equality. We do not fully trust professional elites. https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2246&context=faculty_scholarship https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?articl...
  - lucianbr 3y ago
    > Our legal system, like our society, places great emphasis on the value of equality. Is this satire? Must be satire, right?
    - Nevermark 3y ago
      I think in terms of wording that’s actually true. In terms of the crafted impact, not so much. A lot of inequality is enacted in the name of equality. - Freedom of choice (for corporations to limit choice). - Regulation welcomed by big business to protect customers (from startups that can’t afford to comply). Etc.
- turquoisevar 3y ago
  You’ve got it backwards. The US allows for a lot of interpretation on intent and context by judges. In the EU this is far more restricted and the black letter law is way more important. That said, in the EU there’s more of a tradition in civil law cases to deviate from the law and agreements for “the sake of equity” (i.e., civil law judges love to split the baby and have everyone be a little unhappy). This is of course not civil law but administrative law, which in the US isn’t really a thing. In the US non-criminal cases involving the government are adjudicated according to civil law v (for the most part). Source: before getting into software engineering I practiced law in the EU, during my last years in law school I focused on comparative law, now living in the US and married to a lawyer who went to law school in the US Or you know, just trust me bro, because I’m just a stranger in the internet.
Someone 3y ago
I don’t think the text of the law says anything remotely about Apple’s margins for access to their users being too high. How then can that be in the spirit of the law? If you disagree, educate me.
darklion 3y ago
> Apple's seeking to comply with the letter, rather than the spirit, of the law in order to maintain their ability to extract rents from the App Store. Yes, because we can have a functional, productive society based on a legal system where the foundational principal is, “We’ll write laws so vague that we can just say they mean whatever we want them to mean after people and companies try to follow them”.
the_duke 3y ago
This particular legislation gives relatively broad enforcement power to the EU commission. IANAL, but it's possible, and in my primitive understanding quite likely, that they can take action without additional legislation because it's a stark violation of the obligations.
threeseed 3y ago
> rather than the spirit Tim Cook met personally with EU regulators before their changes were introduced. I doubt they would knowingly introduce something that would result in a punitive fine.
- arlcode 3y ago
  It won't lead to a fine directly but it might result in enforcement action to bring them closer to what the law intended. I seriously doubt that their ultimate approach was "cleared" with regulators because it's quite blatantly against the intention of the DMA. The fact that he met with EU people says precisely nothing.
- IshKebab 3y ago
  They wouldn't introduce anything that would definitely lead to a fine, but I don't see why they wouldn't introduce something that really pushes the boundaries and will result in a court case that they have some chance of winning.

by cdme 3y ago

orev 3y ago

In the US, laws are taken as very literal, and any technicality that can be exploited usually will be. In Europe, they’re far more focused on the spirit of the law and don’t put up with games. On one hand it seems like Apple is trying to take a US style approach, but on the other they must have European lawyers on staff explaining how that won’t work. One might conclude that it’s a calculated risk, or a stalling tactic to extract a few more years of revenue from the current model while waiting for things to play out in the courts.

1letterunixname 3y ago
Fair view vs. strict constructionism.
malermeister 3y ago
I think they're just too confident that their US approach will work. Same thing happened with Facebook, they got a huge fine for it.
musictubes 3y ago
I find it far fetched that Apple would either hire terrible lawyers that lead them astray or competent lawyers that they then ignore. I agree that they are probably hoping to go to court. Maybe I’m just too American to understand but the idea of “the spirit” of the law seems ridiculous. If you want the law to force Apple to allow slide loading then pass a law that says that. If you want a law that forces Apple to allow any developer to make and distribute software on their platform then pass a law that says that. It certainly seems that they were able to achieve that level of clarity with the USB-C rule. Why isn’t this law like that one? Relying on, “C’mon, we all know what the law really means,” is at best sloppy legislating.
- Jensson 3y ago
  Trying to cover every case explicitly and rigorously just results in the legal mess the US has where you need way more lawyers than other countries to get stuff done, and still results in more abuse from companies since there will always be abusable holes in laws but there wont typically be holes in the spirit of the law. So the main end result with the US system is that companies employs armies of lawyers so that they can legally break the laws. The main ones who benefits from that are lawyers and the massive companies who can afford them.
  - happyopossum 3y ago
    > Trying to cover every case explicitly and rigorously Removing a gate but still charging and entrance fee isn't even close to a far-fetched corner case. I have to believe that the regulators understood they were only regulating the technical side of things, and not the financial side. If the lobbyists for Spotify and Epic dropped the ball there, that's on them.
- TillE 3y ago
  Notably, the DMA includes words like "fair" and "reasonable" for which there is no strict robot-like interpretation. Apple's plans will be evaluated as such by regulators, and there are several provisions which are just plainly anti-competitive, especially the 50 cent per user per year fee just to run an app store. It's really hard to see that holding up.
  - happyopossum 3y ago
    > 50 cent per user per year fee just to run an app store. It's really hard to see that holding up. Hard to see a set of circumstances where the regulators succeed in forcing a company to develop and maintain a complex set of APIs for free in perpetuity...
    - IshKebab 3y ago
      They won't do that though. Apple will be free to stop selling iPhones if it wants. In any case iPhones aren't free.
bitcurious 3y ago
> In the US, laws are taken as very literal, and any technicality that can be exploited usually will be. In Europe, they’re far more focused on the spirit of the law and don’t put up with games. I was looking to confirm or deny that statement and came across a fun detour in the form of an article entitled "What's So Special About American Law?". It doesn't address the point about spirit vs. detail at all, but is an amusing and informative read. > As I said, this fact seems to me a deep and fundamental point of difference. The American legal system, to a greater extent than any other Western legal system, encourages the direct injection of democratic values into the legal process. Our legal system, like our society, places great emphasis on the value of equality. We do not fully trust professional elites. https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2246&context=faculty_scholarship https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?articl...
- lucianbr 3y ago
  > Our legal system, like our society, places great emphasis on the value of equality. Is this satire? Must be satire, right?
  - Nevermark 3y ago
    I think in terms of wording that’s actually true. In terms of the crafted impact, not so much. A lot of inequality is enacted in the name of equality. - Freedom of choice (for corporations to limit choice). - Regulation welcomed by big business to protect customers (from startups that can’t afford to comply). Etc.
turquoisevar 3y ago
You’ve got it backwards. The US allows for a lot of interpretation on intent and context by judges. In the EU this is far more restricted and the black letter law is way more important. That said, in the EU there’s more of a tradition in civil law cases to deviate from the law and agreements for “the sake of equity” (i.e., civil law judges love to split the baby and have everyone be a little unhappy). This is of course not civil law but administrative law, which in the US isn’t really a thing. In the US non-criminal cases involving the government are adjudicated according to civil law v (for the most part). Source: before getting into software engineering I practiced law in the EU, during my last years in law school I focused on comparative law, now living in the US and married to a lawyer who went to law school in the US Or you know, just trust me bro, because I’m just a stranger in the internet.

Someone 3y ago

I don’t think the text of the law says anything remotely about Apple’s margins for access to their users being too high. How then can that be in the spirit of the law? If you disagree, educate me.

darklion 3y ago

> Apple's seeking to comply with the letter, rather than the spirit, of the law in order to maintain their ability to extract rents from the App Store. Yes, because we can have a functional, productive society based on a legal system where the foundational principal is, “We’ll write laws so vague that we can just say they mean whatever we want them to mean after people and companies try to follow them”.

the_duke 3y ago

This particular legislation gives relatively broad enforcement power to the EU commission. IANAL, but it's possible, and in my primitive understanding quite likely, that they can take action without additional legislation because it's a stark violation of the obligations.

threeseed 3y ago

> rather than the spirit Tim Cook met personally with EU regulators before their changes were introduced. I doubt they would knowingly introduce something that would result in a punitive fine.

arlcode 3y ago
It won't lead to a fine directly but it might result in enforcement action to bring them closer to what the law intended. I seriously doubt that their ultimate approach was "cleared" with regulators because it's quite blatantly against the intention of the DMA. The fact that he met with EU people says precisely nothing.
IshKebab 3y ago
They wouldn't introduce anything that would definitely lead to a fine, but I don't see why they wouldn't introduce something that really pushes the boundaries and will result in a court case that they have some chance of winning.