5 ms·

Apple Says Meta Is Making Unreasonable Interoperability Requests Under EU's DMA

52 points by impish9208 2y ago

dmitrygr 2y ago
[flagged]
- onemoresoop 2y ago
  Blessing in disguise.
gnabgib 2y ago
Original source: https://www.reuters.com/technology/apple-slams-metas-numerous-interoperability-requests-2024-12-18/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/apple-slams-metas-numerou...
- m463 2y ago
  thanks, I can read now. I got this weird "you've been blocked" message following that link. Sorry, you have been blocked You are unable to access macrumors.com ... Performance & security by Cloudflare
patrickhogan1 2y ago
[flagged]
- orev 2y ago
  > Apple’s iCloud servers which have a history of being hacked. Bold claims need strong proof. Have a source for this? The only major hack I’m aware of was the Fappenning, which was widely accepted as an issue of password reuse across sites, and Apple responded by making it difficult to avoid using MFA.
  - patrickhogan1 2y ago
    Thank you for pointing this out—I appreciate it and have upvoted your comment. My original complaint was based on my memory of the 2014 iCloud celebrity scandal involving passwords. As I recall, there was a security issue where hackers exploited the “forgot password” mechanism. I believe Apple had very lax mechanisms in place at the time. However, since this wasn’t a complete compromise of iCloud, I’ve removed that detail from my main point to make it clearer.
    - threeseed 2y ago
      This isn’t true at all. It was hackers ringing up phone companies, acting as celebrities or agents and asking for replacement SIMs. Or pretending to be Apple Support. And then social engineering around the MFA process. Apple’s security was on par with everyone else in the industry.
      - patrickhogan1 2y ago
        In 2014, Apple had an iCloud issue with a vulnerability in Apple's Find My iPhone API, which lacked rate-limiting, allowing attackers to perform brute-force password attacks without restriction. Apple denied that this was the cause of the celebrity photo releases, but they also patched several bugs relating to security and began promoting two-factor authentication. https://www.dailydot.com/debug/apple-icloud-brute-force-attack-march/ https://www.dailydot.com/debug/apple-icloud-brute-force-atta...
Eddy_Viscosity2 2y ago
Let them fight!
bloppe 2y ago
Apple has completely lost their credibility with me every time they use "privacy & security" as an excuse to exploit their users. Does anybody actually know what Meta is asking for in these cases?
- yalogin 2y ago
  Can you elaborate on this “excuse” and “exploitation” you are talking about? I am curious because I fully believe Apple really cares about security and privacy and goes to great lengths to preserve it for their users. Sure they use it as a strategy, and that is how they justify the investment. Am curious about your opinions though since you seem to be on the other end of the spectrum
  - pdpi 2y ago
    Apple likes their platforms locked down tight. Arguably this has benefits for the users both in terms of privacy/security and in terms of UX, but it does definitely come with a bunch of costs (not least of which the 30% cut from the App Store). I think describing those costs as "exploitation" is excessive, but it's not completely unreasonable. Given that context, Meta being unreasonable in what they ask for proves Apple's point that having things locked down benefits their users. While true in this instance, it's also a convenient excuse to justify retaining the level of control they want. For the record, I do agree with you: Apple's investment in on-device AI tools, their history of not training Siri using user data, etc are clear examples of them actually acting on the values they advertise on. Even if it's a cynical marketing-driven decision, they're still acting on it.
  - nradov 2y ago
    Here's one example. Apple has locked down the API for replying to a text message on an iPhone using a smart watch to only their own Apple Watch. Competing smart watches like Garmin or Suunto aren't allowed to build similar functionality. This is a naked abuse of market power for product tying, exactly the type of behavior that got Microsoft in trouble with US antitrust authorities years ago. Android phones have no such artificial limitation.
talldayo 2y ago
> Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp could enable Meta to read on a user's device all of their messages and emails, see every phone call they make or receive, track every app that they use, scan all of their photos, look at their files and calendar events, log all of their passwords, and more. Iunno, none of those things sound like stuff that isn't already being tracked by iCloud. If the user opts into it, I can't see legitimate grounds for Apple to object. It's like the old meme, "Myths of 'consensual' cloud services: isn't there someone you forgot to ask?"
- macintux 2y ago
  iCloud isn’t reading non-iCloud email, and I don’t know, but would anticipate, that other than spam filtering it doesn’t even read the iCloud mail. Ditto iMessage: Apple is not harvesting user data in the way that Meta wants to.
  - talldayo 2y ago
    If Apple's interfaces aren't fundamentally exploitative then I don't see how it's unreasonable to let Meta interoperate with them. As long as the user opts into it deliberately, Apple has no right to obstruct their business. Personally, I don't trust Meta as far as I can throw them but it's my phone so I know I can make the call. I want interoperability to be forced so that iOS and Mac customers can finally use alternatives to Apple's unnecessarily opaque, expensive and untrustworthy services. Competition will do good here. Apple needs to fix their infrastructure if they're unable to safely let competitors integrate with iOS and Mac platforms.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
n144q 2y ago
> If Apple were to have to grant all of these requests, Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp could enable Meta to read on a user's device all of their messages and emails I assume ultimately users will need to grant the permission for these things? If Apple did their part to inform user of the consequences, and yet user decides to allow access, who is Apple to judge?
- rtpg 2y ago
  Yeah my guess here is that Meta wants WhatsApp to hook into the "native" phone calling system and messages etc. As someone who used to use a lot of third party apps for core functionality in Android, I ... like the idea of third party apps taking over some of this stuff. But I don't know if I want Meta to be the one to do it!
- yalogin 2y ago
  Letting the users decide is a sure way to lose the plot on data. There are always users that will want to give away their data and so services won’t have any incentive to build services that preserve privacy or attempt to reduce user data consumption. I would much rather be strict and let them not get any new data beyond what is already lost
- threeseed 2y ago
  You do realise that Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp etc are thriving today without these permissions. And the problem with companies like Meta is that their terms of service are so complex and indecipherable that it’s almost a certainty you will approve giving them photos to share with friends and then turn around and use it for ads.
- WhyNotHugo 2y ago
  I wouldn't be surprised if applications permanently show a notification "you haven't granted us access to X", and restrict functionality until you do. E.g.: - Telegram permanently shows an in-app notification if you haven't granted access to all your contacts. - WhatsApp won't show nicknames in your conversation list or individual conversations if you haven't granted access to all your contacts (the nicknames are visible in some other screen, so this isn't a case of missing data). The user will get to decide, but the user won't get to decide _freely_. Some other annoyance will be introduced until you decide to grant all the access they demand.
n144q 2y ago
Let them fight. Best outcome: Meta reveals how Apple uses "privacy" as an excuse to block reasonable requests for third party APIs, favor first part apps and suppress competition, while Apple reveals how much data Facebook collects. Both lose, and users win.
- WiSaGaN 2y ago
  Unfortunately, the most likely outcome is they realize this is bad for both, and they should reach a private agreement under the table just like Google Apple no poaching agreement.
- m463 2y ago
  I think it would be nice if apple's customers could block apple itself due to privacy. Set up any apple device and you are required ot activate the device. Get to the privacy policy during setup, and it is thousands of pages long. You can read the privacy policy, but you can't decline the activity. And then apple devices phone home continuously. That said, maybe meta is doing what matt stone and trey parker did with the south park movie - inundate the censors with an incredibly enormous amount of requests and see what sticks. All the puppet sex in the movie is what got through.
vineyardmike 2y ago
The cynic in me would imagine that Apple loves this. They found the perfect enemy to throw under the bus, just in time for the EU’s review of what interoperability means for the iPhone. Meta is probably the most hated big tech company by the EU. On the other hand, I’m sure Apple hates this. Being told they have to share and cooperate is not something they’re familiar with. The EU really is twisting the screws for DMA. I wonder if any of the big companies will pull out of the EU over DMA or future legislation. It seems each of the big tech companies have started to get a grumpy with being pushed to make crazy changes by the EU.
- onemoresoop 2y ago
  Pipe dreams but I wish meta pulled out altogether. They’re such a toxic company that adds less than if takes from the world.
- cj 2y ago
  > I wonder if any of the big companies will pull out of the EU over DMA or future legislation. It seems each of the big tech companies have started to get a grumpy with being pushed to make crazy changes by the EU. Luckily we don’t need to guess because the equation is simple. Does the risk/reward increase or decrease shareholder value. EU regulators know this, too. To date the equation has balanced out. The biggest risk is where the EU forces big tech in ways that impact their non-EU business. I think the equation changes if things boil over to a point where complying with EU law threatens their business outside of the EU.
  - kranke155 2y ago
    Vimeo didnt completely pull out of the EU, but it removed most of the functionality. They havent clarified what law, but they said it was due to legislation and cost of compliance.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- maeil 2y ago
  > I wonder if any of the big companies will pull out of the EU over DMA or future legislation. I've said this here before - no chance. Shareholders would be taking them to the cleaners. Europe is responsible for >20% of Apple's revenue. Look at how many companies are willing to kill people for a few % extra, let alone as much as 20%. I don't think there's any where the EU counts for <10%, maybe X if you still count that as a big one.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
readyplayernull 2y ago
The best outcome would be the EU slapping Meta with a multi-billion fine for abusing DMA.
orev 2y ago
Remember when iOS apps couldn’t run in the background, and then Apple made an exception for voip apps? All of a sudden many apps, especially Facebook, started offering in-app voip calls. Coincidence? Of course they were using that as an excuse to do other things in the background.
- bonoetmalo 2y ago
  ngl that's pretty funny, never knew that. I am in the camp of wishing more apps could run in the background (long-running downloads/uploads for Spotify or Google Photos) but I appreciate that it's a dangerous road to go down

52 points by impish9208 2y ago

dmitrygr 2y ago

[flagged]

onemoresoop 2y ago
Blessing in disguise.

gnabgib 2y ago

Original source: https://www.reuters.com/technology/apple-slams-metas-numerous-interoperability-requests-2024-12-18/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/apple-slams-metas-numerou...

m463 2y ago
thanks, I can read now. I got this weird "you've been blocked" message following that link. Sorry, you have been blocked You are unable to access macrumors.com ... Performance & security by Cloudflare

patrickhogan1 2y ago

[flagged]

orev 2y ago
> Apple’s iCloud servers which have a history of being hacked. Bold claims need strong proof. Have a source for this? The only major hack I’m aware of was the Fappenning, which was widely accepted as an issue of password reuse across sites, and Apple responded by making it difficult to avoid using MFA.
- patrickhogan1 2y ago
  Thank you for pointing this out—I appreciate it and have upvoted your comment. My original complaint was based on my memory of the 2014 iCloud celebrity scandal involving passwords. As I recall, there was a security issue where hackers exploited the “forgot password” mechanism. I believe Apple had very lax mechanisms in place at the time. However, since this wasn’t a complete compromise of iCloud, I’ve removed that detail from my main point to make it clearer.
  - threeseed 2y ago
    This isn’t true at all. It was hackers ringing up phone companies, acting as celebrities or agents and asking for replacement SIMs. Or pretending to be Apple Support. And then social engineering around the MFA process. Apple’s security was on par with everyone else in the industry.
    - patrickhogan1 2y ago
      In 2014, Apple had an iCloud issue with a vulnerability in Apple's Find My iPhone API, which lacked rate-limiting, allowing attackers to perform brute-force password attacks without restriction. Apple denied that this was the cause of the celebrity photo releases, but they also patched several bugs relating to security and began promoting two-factor authentication. https://www.dailydot.com/debug/apple-icloud-brute-force-attack-march/ https://www.dailydot.com/debug/apple-icloud-brute-force-atta...

Eddy_Viscosity2 2y ago

Let them fight!

bloppe 2y ago

Apple has completely lost their credibility with me every time they use "privacy & security" as an excuse to exploit their users. Does anybody actually know what Meta is asking for in these cases?

yalogin 2y ago
Can you elaborate on this “excuse” and “exploitation” you are talking about? I am curious because I fully believe Apple really cares about security and privacy and goes to great lengths to preserve it for their users. Sure they use it as a strategy, and that is how they justify the investment. Am curious about your opinions though since you seem to be on the other end of the spectrum
- pdpi 2y ago
  Apple likes their platforms locked down tight. Arguably this has benefits for the users both in terms of privacy/security and in terms of UX, but it does definitely come with a bunch of costs (not least of which the 30% cut from the App Store). I think describing those costs as "exploitation" is excessive, but it's not completely unreasonable. Given that context, Meta being unreasonable in what they ask for proves Apple's point that having things locked down benefits their users. While true in this instance, it's also a convenient excuse to justify retaining the level of control they want. For the record, I do agree with you: Apple's investment in on-device AI tools, their history of not training Siri using user data, etc are clear examples of them actually acting on the values they advertise on. Even if it's a cynical marketing-driven decision, they're still acting on it.
- nradov 2y ago
  Here's one example. Apple has locked down the API for replying to a text message on an iPhone using a smart watch to only their own Apple Watch. Competing smart watches like Garmin or Suunto aren't allowed to build similar functionality. This is a naked abuse of market power for product tying, exactly the type of behavior that got Microsoft in trouble with US antitrust authorities years ago. Android phones have no such artificial limitation.

talldayo 2y ago

> Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp could enable Meta to read on a user's device all of their messages and emails, see every phone call they make or receive, track every app that they use, scan all of their photos, look at their files and calendar events, log all of their passwords, and more. Iunno, none of those things sound like stuff that isn't already being tracked by iCloud. If the user opts into it, I can't see legitimate grounds for Apple to object. It's like the old meme, "Myths of 'consensual' cloud services: isn't there someone you forgot to ask?"

macintux 2y ago
iCloud isn’t reading non-iCloud email, and I don’t know, but would anticipate, that other than spam filtering it doesn’t even read the iCloud mail. Ditto iMessage: Apple is not harvesting user data in the way that Meta wants to.
- talldayo 2y ago
  If Apple's interfaces aren't fundamentally exploitative then I don't see how it's unreasonable to let Meta interoperate with them. As long as the user opts into it deliberately, Apple has no right to obstruct their business. Personally, I don't trust Meta as far as I can throw them but it's my phone so I know I can make the call. I want interoperability to be forced so that iOS and Mac customers can finally use alternatives to Apple's unnecessarily opaque, expensive and untrustworthy services. Competition will do good here. Apple needs to fix their infrastructure if they're unable to safely let competitors integrate with iOS and Mac platforms.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]

n144q 2y ago

> If Apple were to have to grant all of these requests, Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp could enable Meta to read on a user's device all of their messages and emails I assume ultimately users will need to grant the permission for these things? If Apple did their part to inform user of the consequences, and yet user decides to allow access, who is Apple to judge?

rtpg 2y ago
Yeah my guess here is that Meta wants WhatsApp to hook into the "native" phone calling system and messages etc. As someone who used to use a lot of third party apps for core functionality in Android, I ... like the idea of third party apps taking over some of this stuff. But I don't know if I want Meta to be the one to do it!
yalogin 2y ago
Letting the users decide is a sure way to lose the plot on data. There are always users that will want to give away their data and so services won’t have any incentive to build services that preserve privacy or attempt to reduce user data consumption. I would much rather be strict and let them not get any new data beyond what is already lost
threeseed 2y ago
You do realise that Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp etc are thriving today without these permissions. And the problem with companies like Meta is that their terms of service are so complex and indecipherable that it’s almost a certainty you will approve giving them photos to share with friends and then turn around and use it for ads.
WhyNotHugo 2y ago
I wouldn't be surprised if applications permanently show a notification "you haven't granted us access to X", and restrict functionality until you do. E.g.: - Telegram permanently shows an in-app notification if you haven't granted access to all your contacts. - WhatsApp won't show nicknames in your conversation list or individual conversations if you haven't granted access to all your contacts (the nicknames are visible in some other screen, so this isn't a case of missing data). The user will get to decide, but the user won't get to decide _freely_. Some other annoyance will be introduced until you decide to grant all the access they demand.

n144q 2y ago

Let them fight. Best outcome: Meta reveals how Apple uses "privacy" as an excuse to block reasonable requests for third party APIs, favor first part apps and suppress competition, while Apple reveals how much data Facebook collects. Both lose, and users win.

WiSaGaN 2y ago
Unfortunately, the most likely outcome is they realize this is bad for both, and they should reach a private agreement under the table just like Google Apple no poaching agreement.
m463 2y ago
I think it would be nice if apple's customers could block apple itself due to privacy. Set up any apple device and you are required ot activate the device. Get to the privacy policy during setup, and it is thousands of pages long. You can read the privacy policy, but you can't decline the activity. And then apple devices phone home continuously. That said, maybe meta is doing what matt stone and trey parker did with the south park movie - inundate the censors with an incredibly enormous amount of requests and see what sticks. All the puppet sex in the movie is what got through.

vineyardmike 2y ago

The cynic in me would imagine that Apple loves this. They found the perfect enemy to throw under the bus, just in time for the EU’s review of what interoperability means for the iPhone. Meta is probably the most hated big tech company by the EU. On the other hand, I’m sure Apple hates this. Being told they have to share and cooperate is not something they’re familiar with. The EU really is twisting the screws for DMA. I wonder if any of the big companies will pull out of the EU over DMA or future legislation. It seems each of the big tech companies have started to get a grumpy with being pushed to make crazy changes by the EU.

onemoresoop 2y ago
Pipe dreams but I wish meta pulled out altogether. They’re such a toxic company that adds less than if takes from the world.
cj 2y ago
> I wonder if any of the big companies will pull out of the EU over DMA or future legislation. It seems each of the big tech companies have started to get a grumpy with being pushed to make crazy changes by the EU. Luckily we don’t need to guess because the equation is simple. Does the risk/reward increase or decrease shareholder value. EU regulators know this, too. To date the equation has balanced out. The biggest risk is where the EU forces big tech in ways that impact their non-EU business. I think the equation changes if things boil over to a point where complying with EU law threatens their business outside of the EU.
- kranke155 2y ago
  Vimeo didnt completely pull out of the EU, but it removed most of the functionality. They havent clarified what law, but they said it was due to legislation and cost of compliance.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
maeil 2y ago
> I wonder if any of the big companies will pull out of the EU over DMA or future legislation. I've said this here before - no chance. Shareholders would be taking them to the cleaners. Europe is responsible for >20% of Apple's revenue. Look at how many companies are willing to kill people for a few % extra, let alone as much as 20%. I don't think there's any where the EU counts for <10%, maybe X if you still count that as a big one.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

readyplayernull 2y ago

The best outcome would be the EU slapping Meta with a multi-billion fine for abusing DMA.

orev 2y ago

Remember when iOS apps couldn’t run in the background, and then Apple made an exception for voip apps? All of a sudden many apps, especially Facebook, started offering in-app voip calls. Coincidence? Of course they were using that as an excuse to do other things in the background.

bonoetmalo 2y ago
ngl that's pretty funny, never knew that. I am in the camp of wishing more apps could run in the background (long-running downloads/uploads for Spotify or Google Photos) but I appreciate that it's a dangerous road to go down