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I personally don’t care about alternative app stores, but I know many do, especially here. I really want two things: * companies cannot engage in any activity

I personally don’t care about alternative app stores, but I know many do, especially here. I really want two things: * companies cannot engage in any activity a common person would consider “spying”, cannot take the data collected by users of that service and transfer it to another entity, and third parties may not aggregate data collected about persons for any reason. There are a million and one useful reasons to do each of these things, but companies have proven themselves morally bankrupt and should lose that ability. This would go beyond “opt-in”, just make it illegal or the impractical (e.g. it would require a notary, licensed broker, or lawyers on both sides to engage in the practice) * digital “purchases” are transferrable and have all of the rights and privileges afforded to physical goods. The producer/consumer balance shifted completely in favor of the producer with digital goods. Terms need to be more favorable to the purchaser as well as protections following the dissolution of a digital marketplace.

BrenBarn 2y ago
I'd go further and apply something like the notary/broker approach to the collection of data. Types of data should be defined in law. Some (say, email address) would be "free" to collect, but subject to strict sharing requirements like you describe (e.g., you can ask anyone for their email address, but you can't do anything with it except use it yourself to contact them). Others (mailing address) would be allowed for certain purposes (e.g., you need to mail the person a package). Companies should expect regular audits and stiff financial penalties if they collect such data but cannot objectively demonstrate that they actually need it to perform a service they are providing to the person who provides it. (This means you can't collect someone's mailing address unless you actually need it to do a specific thing for that person; simply using it as input to your internal analytics isn't good enough.) Others (e.g., location tracking) would require an approval process akin to being licensed to transport hazardous waste or something, so that it would be straight-up illegal to collect such data without prior approval. That approval process would involve full public disclosure of all intended uses of the data. You can't collect sensitive data without telling everyone exactly what you're going to do with it. A large portion of the data that is illegally shared should never have been collected in the first place.
- lodovic 2y ago
  Some of this is already achieved by the EU's GDPR, not the DMA
  - scyzoryk_xyz 2y ago
    I was about to say - GDPR has been pretty effective at warding off any kind of such non-sense here in the EU. Having been on the other end, it makes entire teams not indulge in certain methods. I never had to argue with marketing department why we want our users not be bombarded with spam. What I would like to see regulated are all those dark-pattern surveillance techniques that are slapped on absolutely everything these days. I’m just looking at a toaster, I don’t want the toaster company looking back at me just because I looked at a fucking toaster once. Makes me weary of looking at stuff. This wasn’t even that freaky pre-AI, but now it’s a whole other ballgame. Stasi would love this stuff.
exac 2y ago
To play devil's advocate, the common person accepts credit scores, and has no idea how they work. Should credit bureaus also be illegal? Or some medium whereby the credit companies _can_ collect the information, but can't sell it, or share analytics or even anonymized data?
- MegaButts 2y ago
  > Should credit bureaus also be illegal? I didn't realize there were many people defending credit scores. I mean yeah, I would just assume they should be illegal. At least in their current opaque form where it's impossible to contest or even get someone to explain your score to you.
  - bloppe 2y ago
    Without credit scores, it would be impossible to get loans or a mortgage. I think a lot of people would be pretty bummed about that.
    - bee_rider 2y ago
      The scores were only invented in the 80’s. But anyway, I wonder what the housing market would do if mortgages weren’t possible to get. I bet the prices would go down.
      - bloppe 2y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_bureau#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_bureau#History "Following the Panic of 1837, the first commercial credit reporting organizations formed." It only took a financial crisis and 3-year-long depression for people to realize that credit is important.
      - pmontra 2y ago
        It is possible that prices would go down but that will be an incentive to rent instead of selling. So less houses on the market. That could keep the prices up. And no matter how low the price is, if people have no savings and no credit even one year worth of salary would be too much of a price. The combination of all those factors could lead to a final state of a lot of houses owned by companies and a few extremely wealth people. Everybody else would be paying a rent.
bloppe 2y ago
> I personally don’t care about alternative app stores That's because it's difficult to imagine how alternative app stores would force first party app stores to be better, or risk losing business. For a start, everything would become much cheaper for you. They would also have a real incentive to provide new features and innovations. You don't have to switch to a third party app store to realize the benefits that follow from allowing them to exist.
- Someone 2y ago
  > For a start, everything would become much cheaper for you That, I doubt. Most stuff already is dirt-cheap on the App Store (and riddled with ads). It’s not like, for example, getting into Apple’s App Store is so expensive that it adds dollars to the price of apps.
  - pjc50 2y ago
    Merely being in the app store makes everything 30% more expensive! Including any subscriptions through the app, which is just ridiculous. This was the whole basis of the Epic lawsuit. And you can't tell people to sidestep the Apple cut by not putting the payment through them, that will get you banned from the app store.
    - rahkiin 2y ago
      You’re saying if they drop the 30%, those cheap apps would cost 66 cents instead of 99? Or would they stay 99 and thus no change for the consumer? The DMA is about developer choice, not consumers
      - vmg12 2y ago
        There will always be beneficial change for consumers if input costs drop in competitive markets. Markets are dynamic systems. Even if the costs don't drop, the person that is actually providing you value via the app will get the money where they can use it to hire more people to improve the product you use.
rawbot 2y ago
I also don't really care about alternative app stores, I just want to be able to develop apps without paying a license or abusing a testing system (Apple, Testflight), and be able to install them without "jailbreaking" my device. That's the reason why even with its warts, I have been a very happy Android user. It's my device, and I can modify it to become whatever I want it to be (with some constrains that don't really affect me atm).
- josephg 2y ago
  Yeah I’m an Apple user and this is one reason I’d consider switching. I don’t mind consoles like the switch or PS2 being sold at a loss, and making it up via expensive games. But Apple double dips here. They make a profit on my phone. Then they charge a crazy marketplace fee for the App Store. Then they have the gall to charge 3rd party companies for access to the NFC chips in our devices. It’s outrageous. Is it my device or not, Apple?
DownrightNifty 2y ago
> I personally don’t care about alternative app stores I've seen this sentiment a couple of times here and I think it's the wrong framing on what the EU is trying to do. Third party app stores aren't the point; they're just a vehicle enabling users to choose which software they want to use without interference from Apple. The indie devs using AltStore PAL don't all necessarily want to use it, but they're forced to because of the way Apple chose to implement DMA compliance. In fact, the DMA doesn't even explicitly require that gatekeepers allow third party app stores; they can only allow direct distribution (e.g. via web sites) instead, if they want (this is to the best of my understanding of the text, but IANAL). When you say you don't care about alternative app stores, what you're really saying is that you don't care about the end user's ability to use apps that aren't approved by Apple. That is certainly an opinion that many folks have, but I'd prefer that they refrain from hiding behind the shield of "third party app stores are weird and who even cares", whether deliberately or not.
- alwayslikethis 2y ago
  > In fact, the DMA doesn't even explicitly require that gatekeepers allow third party app stores; they can only allow direct distribution (e.g. via web sites) instead, if they want. Is Apple actually complying with the DMA then? They are still requiring notarization, which means apps still have to be approved by them.
  - DownrightNifty 2y ago
    The DMA allows Apple to take "strictly necessary and proportionate" measures to ensure that alternative apps do not "endanger the integrity of the hardware or operating system". IMO iOS notarization (which is a different and more involved process with many more rules than notarization on macOS) goes well beyond that, but it's up to the EU to decide.
- jonhohle 2y ago
  Having grown up through ad-bars, Windows malware, email worms and everything else that could go wrong for most people during the late 90s on and not wanting to do IT for my entire extended family, I don’t mind having a popular platform with guardrails. Unfortunately, I think providing non-curated access and opening up platform features that are currently gated by security features to unscrupulous actors will make things worse for more people than it will help. After over 15 years of iPhone use, I’ve never had any of the problems that plague PCs and I attribute a lot of that to a restrictive app distribution model, sandboxing, etc. End users can (and do!) use apps not approved by Apple on mobile devices every day. They just do it on something that’s not an iPhone (or have the capability to jailbreak their iPhone and know what they’re getting themselves into). Corps and devs can also run custom software without Apple approval. I’m personally fine with that delineation and I’d much rather have stronger GDPR-like and property laws.
alwayslikethis 2y ago
> digital “purchases” are transferrable and have all of the rights and privileges afforded to physical goods. I concur. We need to establish a "secondary markets act", which would allow individuals to transact accounts and digital items worth under a certain amount (let's say $10k, as a non-waivable right, so it wouldn't apply to larger B2B contracts). Essentially, these things should be viewed as property of the consumer and be freely sold. Without the freedom to transact, there can't be a free market.
- madsbuch 2y ago
  Why shouldn't it apply to larger contracts? There is a very easy way to get around such a requirement from legislation: Just call it licensing instead of a purchase. The need for such a legislation is corporations reckless use of the words "purchase" and "buy" for goods that have been licensed.
  - Fluorescence 2y ago
    > very easy way to get around such a requirement from legislation: Just call it licensing instead of a purchase. Licensing should come with enhanced consumer rights e.g. an explicit license duration and allow the consumer to return the license for pro-rata refund within that duration. The license should be for the IP and honoured for all formats and platforms that meet some regularity threshold. The absurdity of having to rebuy things you "own" because you switch device or format has to end. Along similar lines, hardware should be called "hire" not "sell" when the manufacturer maintains control over the device e.g. locked bootloaders, encryption keys, online service dependencies, forced updates with no downgrade, remote-access privileges, telemetry, not meeting "right-to-repair", hardware locking preventing component replacement or choice of consumable (e.g. ink) etc. Similar return rights should apply if hardware is leased. Seller would need to be insured/escrow to meet consumer refunds if they break their side of the lease (e.g. going bust and shutting down required online services).
  - alwayslikethis 2y ago
    This is a part of it, but I don't think it's all there is. Words mean little when there is such a large power and information asymmetry between consumers and sellers. The law should formalize the concepts of rentals (licenses) and purchases. Purchases create non-waivable rights of transferability and allows the owner to demand compensation when a service closes: for example if I shut down my movie platform, you should get to download a copy of everything you own. Licenses on the other hand do not confer such rights, but should still be transferable under a certain value and have a set period during which its terms must be fulfilled, otherwise the licensee needs to be compensated. No "we change the terms at our sole discretion at any moment" nonsense. Vendors can give you extra rights (like prorated returns or exchanges), but they can't take any of the codified rights away. I assume there needs to be some details about companies just setting a license of one day but never revokes access to avoid the regulation, but someone smarter than me can probably figure that out. For larger licenses I think the customer (usually customers) has a greater negotiating leverage, so it isn't as necessary to codify these terms, but of course this is contingent on there not existing trillion-dollar corporations, which is not the world we live in.
areyourllySorry 2y ago
the issue with transferrable digital goods is that they are also much more easier to steal. see robux, giftcards, bitcoins…
ryandrake 2y ago
We could probably implement your first thing but just extending HIPAA to cover all entities, not just health care providers. HIPAA's privacy, security, data selling, and breach notification rules are exactly what we need and could effectively apply to any business.
marhee 2y ago
> * Digital “purchases” are transferable… Digital purchases are often subscription based which for physical goods (eg newspapers) is also non transferable (as it does not make much sense). In contrast, “one-of” licences are already transferable mostly. Either because the licence keys is a bearer token or companies support transfer (if you’ve registeted). So you dont accomplish much here, I think, but still I agree it’s a good idea to get the details right and fixed in law.

BrenBarn 2y ago

I'd go further and apply something like the notary/broker approach to the collection of data. Types of data should be defined in law. Some (say, email address) would be "free" to collect, but subject to strict sharing requirements like you describe (e.g., you can ask anyone for their email address, but you can't do anything with it except use it yourself to contact them). Others (mailing address) would be allowed for certain purposes (e.g., you need to mail the person a package). Companies should expect regular audits and stiff financial penalties if they collect such data but cannot objectively demonstrate that they actually need it to perform a service they are providing to the person who provides it. (This means you can't collect someone's mailing address unless you actually need it to do a specific thing for that person; simply using it as input to your internal analytics isn't good enough.) Others (e.g., location tracking) would require an approval process akin to being licensed to transport hazardous waste or something, so that it would be straight-up illegal to collect such data without prior approval. That approval process would involve full public disclosure of all intended uses of the data. You can't collect sensitive data without telling everyone exactly what you're going to do with it. A large portion of the data that is illegally shared should never have been collected in the first place.

lodovic 2y ago
Some of this is already achieved by the EU's GDPR, not the DMA
- scyzoryk_xyz 2y ago
  I was about to say - GDPR has been pretty effective at warding off any kind of such non-sense here in the EU. Having been on the other end, it makes entire teams not indulge in certain methods. I never had to argue with marketing department why we want our users not be bombarded with spam. What I would like to see regulated are all those dark-pattern surveillance techniques that are slapped on absolutely everything these days. I’m just looking at a toaster, I don’t want the toaster company looking back at me just because I looked at a fucking toaster once. Makes me weary of looking at stuff. This wasn’t even that freaky pre-AI, but now it’s a whole other ballgame. Stasi would love this stuff.

exac 2y ago

To play devil's advocate, the common person accepts credit scores, and has no idea how they work. Should credit bureaus also be illegal? Or some medium whereby the credit companies _can_ collect the information, but can't sell it, or share analytics or even anonymized data?

MegaButts 2y ago
> Should credit bureaus also be illegal? I didn't realize there were many people defending credit scores. I mean yeah, I would just assume they should be illegal. At least in their current opaque form where it's impossible to contest or even get someone to explain your score to you.
- bloppe 2y ago
  Without credit scores, it would be impossible to get loans or a mortgage. I think a lot of people would be pretty bummed about that.
  - bee_rider 2y ago
    The scores were only invented in the 80’s. But anyway, I wonder what the housing market would do if mortgages weren’t possible to get. I bet the prices would go down.
    - bloppe 2y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_bureau#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_bureau#History "Following the Panic of 1837, the first commercial credit reporting organizations formed." It only took a financial crisis and 3-year-long depression for people to realize that credit is important.
    - pmontra 2y ago
      It is possible that prices would go down but that will be an incentive to rent instead of selling. So less houses on the market. That could keep the prices up. And no matter how low the price is, if people have no savings and no credit even one year worth of salary would be too much of a price. The combination of all those factors could lead to a final state of a lot of houses owned by companies and a few extremely wealth people. Everybody else would be paying a rent.

bloppe 2y ago

> I personally don’t care about alternative app stores That's because it's difficult to imagine how alternative app stores would force first party app stores to be better, or risk losing business. For a start, everything would become much cheaper for you. They would also have a real incentive to provide new features and innovations. You don't have to switch to a third party app store to realize the benefits that follow from allowing them to exist.

Someone 2y ago
> For a start, everything would become much cheaper for you That, I doubt. Most stuff already is dirt-cheap on the App Store (and riddled with ads). It’s not like, for example, getting into Apple’s App Store is so expensive that it adds dollars to the price of apps.
- pjc50 2y ago
  Merely being in the app store makes everything 30% more expensive! Including any subscriptions through the app, which is just ridiculous. This was the whole basis of the Epic lawsuit. And you can't tell people to sidestep the Apple cut by not putting the payment through them, that will get you banned from the app store.
  - rahkiin 2y ago
    You’re saying if they drop the 30%, those cheap apps would cost 66 cents instead of 99? Or would they stay 99 and thus no change for the consumer? The DMA is about developer choice, not consumers
    - vmg12 2y ago
      There will always be beneficial change for consumers if input costs drop in competitive markets. Markets are dynamic systems. Even if the costs don't drop, the person that is actually providing you value via the app will get the money where they can use it to hire more people to improve the product you use.

rawbot 2y ago

I also don't really care about alternative app stores, I just want to be able to develop apps without paying a license or abusing a testing system (Apple, Testflight), and be able to install them without "jailbreaking" my device. That's the reason why even with its warts, I have been a very happy Android user. It's my device, and I can modify it to become whatever I want it to be (with some constrains that don't really affect me atm).

josephg 2y ago
Yeah I’m an Apple user and this is one reason I’d consider switching. I don’t mind consoles like the switch or PS2 being sold at a loss, and making it up via expensive games. But Apple double dips here. They make a profit on my phone. Then they charge a crazy marketplace fee for the App Store. Then they have the gall to charge 3rd party companies for access to the NFC chips in our devices. It’s outrageous. Is it my device or not, Apple?

DownrightNifty 2y ago

> I personally don’t care about alternative app stores I've seen this sentiment a couple of times here and I think it's the wrong framing on what the EU is trying to do. Third party app stores aren't the point; they're just a vehicle enabling users to choose which software they want to use without interference from Apple. The indie devs using AltStore PAL don't all necessarily want to use it, but they're forced to because of the way Apple chose to implement DMA compliance. In fact, the DMA doesn't even explicitly require that gatekeepers allow third party app stores; they can only allow direct distribution (e.g. via web sites) instead, if they want (this is to the best of my understanding of the text, but IANAL). When you say you don't care about alternative app stores, what you're really saying is that you don't care about the end user's ability to use apps that aren't approved by Apple. That is certainly an opinion that many folks have, but I'd prefer that they refrain from hiding behind the shield of "third party app stores are weird and who even cares", whether deliberately or not.

alwayslikethis 2y ago
> In fact, the DMA doesn't even explicitly require that gatekeepers allow third party app stores; they can only allow direct distribution (e.g. via web sites) instead, if they want. Is Apple actually complying with the DMA then? They are still requiring notarization, which means apps still have to be approved by them.
- DownrightNifty 2y ago
  The DMA allows Apple to take "strictly necessary and proportionate" measures to ensure that alternative apps do not "endanger the integrity of the hardware or operating system". IMO iOS notarization (which is a different and more involved process with many more rules than notarization on macOS) goes well beyond that, but it's up to the EU to decide.
jonhohle 2y ago
Having grown up through ad-bars, Windows malware, email worms and everything else that could go wrong for most people during the late 90s on and not wanting to do IT for my entire extended family, I don’t mind having a popular platform with guardrails. Unfortunately, I think providing non-curated access and opening up platform features that are currently gated by security features to unscrupulous actors will make things worse for more people than it will help. After over 15 years of iPhone use, I’ve never had any of the problems that plague PCs and I attribute a lot of that to a restrictive app distribution model, sandboxing, etc. End users can (and do!) use apps not approved by Apple on mobile devices every day. They just do it on something that’s not an iPhone (or have the capability to jailbreak their iPhone and know what they’re getting themselves into). Corps and devs can also run custom software without Apple approval. I’m personally fine with that delineation and I’d much rather have stronger GDPR-like and property laws.

alwayslikethis 2y ago

> digital “purchases” are transferrable and have all of the rights and privileges afforded to physical goods. I concur. We need to establish a "secondary markets act", which would allow individuals to transact accounts and digital items worth under a certain amount (let's say $10k, as a non-waivable right, so it wouldn't apply to larger B2B contracts). Essentially, these things should be viewed as property of the consumer and be freely sold. Without the freedom to transact, there can't be a free market.

madsbuch 2y ago
Why shouldn't it apply to larger contracts? There is a very easy way to get around such a requirement from legislation: Just call it licensing instead of a purchase. The need for such a legislation is corporations reckless use of the words "purchase" and "buy" for goods that have been licensed.
- Fluorescence 2y ago
  > very easy way to get around such a requirement from legislation: Just call it licensing instead of a purchase. Licensing should come with enhanced consumer rights e.g. an explicit license duration and allow the consumer to return the license for pro-rata refund within that duration. The license should be for the IP and honoured for all formats and platforms that meet some regularity threshold. The absurdity of having to rebuy things you "own" because you switch device or format has to end. Along similar lines, hardware should be called "hire" not "sell" when the manufacturer maintains control over the device e.g. locked bootloaders, encryption keys, online service dependencies, forced updates with no downgrade, remote-access privileges, telemetry, not meeting "right-to-repair", hardware locking preventing component replacement or choice of consumable (e.g. ink) etc. Similar return rights should apply if hardware is leased. Seller would need to be insured/escrow to meet consumer refunds if they break their side of the lease (e.g. going bust and shutting down required online services).
- alwayslikethis 2y ago
  This is a part of it, but I don't think it's all there is. Words mean little when there is such a large power and information asymmetry between consumers and sellers. The law should formalize the concepts of rentals (licenses) and purchases. Purchases create non-waivable rights of transferability and allows the owner to demand compensation when a service closes: for example if I shut down my movie platform, you should get to download a copy of everything you own. Licenses on the other hand do not confer such rights, but should still be transferable under a certain value and have a set period during which its terms must be fulfilled, otherwise the licensee needs to be compensated. No "we change the terms at our sole discretion at any moment" nonsense. Vendors can give you extra rights (like prorated returns or exchanges), but they can't take any of the codified rights away. I assume there needs to be some details about companies just setting a license of one day but never revokes access to avoid the regulation, but someone smarter than me can probably figure that out. For larger licenses I think the customer (usually customers) has a greater negotiating leverage, so it isn't as necessary to codify these terms, but of course this is contingent on there not existing trillion-dollar corporations, which is not the world we live in.

areyourllySorry 2y ago

the issue with transferrable digital goods is that they are also much more easier to steal. see robux, giftcards, bitcoins…

ryandrake 2y ago

We could probably implement your first thing but just extending HIPAA to cover all entities, not just health care providers. HIPAA's privacy, security, data selling, and breach notification rules are exactly what we need and could effectively apply to any business.

marhee 2y ago

> * Digital “purchases” are transferable… Digital purchases are often subscription based which for physical goods (eg newspapers) is also non transferable (as it does not make much sense). In contrast, “one-of” licences are already transferable mostly. Either because the licence keys is a bearer token or companies support transfer (if you’ve registeted). So you dont accomplish much here, I think, but still I agree it’s a good idea to get the details right and fixed in law.