12 ms·
Australian court finds Apple, Google guilty of being anticompetitive
- 9dev 1y agoIt warms my heart to think about how much Thiel must hate to read this.
- bootsmann 1y agoWell there are still quite some og tech monopolies left, but it does seem like the tide is starting to turn.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- kevingadd 1y ago> In a judgment that spanned 2000 pages, Australian Federal Court Justice Jonathan Beach, ruled that Apple had a substantial degree of market power. The Judge said both Apple and Google had breached Section 46 of Australia’s Competition Act. The companies had abused their market power to stifle the competition. But, it wasn't all in favor of Epic Games. Beach rejected the claim that Apple and Google had breached consumer law, he also said that the companies had not engaged in unconscionable conduct. 2000 pages! I can see why the case took something like 5 years. It sounds like a mixed ruling so Epic didn't get everything they wanted here, but if they're able to launch the Epic Games Store on iOS in Australia that's a pretty big win by itself.
- abtinf 1y agoThe more irrational the law, the more words must be said about it. Same for religious philosophies.
- bigyabai 1y agoNot really? The court likes having as much salient evidence as it can get.
- IIAOPSW 1y agoIf length of ones writing is a measure of irrationality, everyone who's ever written a thesis must be absolutely unhinged.
- add-sub-mul-div 1y agoThey might be the first to agree with you.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- lucianbr 1y agoWhile courts take years and write multiple volumes to justify any kind of measure at all, the corporations move fast and keep changing the way they extract value from society. I'm not sure the system will ever catch up this way. Plus, if a regular citizen without deep pockets breaks the law, somehow it never takes years and thousands of pages to convict them. I can easily believe it's not about the complexities of the case, but the depth of the pockets. If it really was "just a complex situation", you would expect equal percentages of simple and complicated cases for regular joes and huge corporations, no?
- joshuacc 1y ago> If it really was "just a complex situation", you would expect equal percentages of simple and complicated cases for regular joes and huge corporations, no? Obviously not. Regular joes almost always have relatively simple situations relative to multinational corporations, otherwise they wouldn't be regular joes.
- lucianbr 1y agoCan you explain the obviousness? Other than a lot of money being involved, what makes it "obvious" that the way corporations break the rules is more complex than the way natural persons break the rules? What makes it obvious or inherent that a corporation breaks the law at some edge case of the law that requires a lot of time and detail and multiple lawyers to figure out, and not so for a random guy? I think you are confusing money with complexity. I don't see how a person modifying their car in their garage is a more complex way of breaking the law than WV making cars so they cheat emissions tests. This is not about the complexity of engineering, or the complexity of logistics. Those things do not matter. What matters is whether the law was broken or not, and what the just penalty is. It is not at all obvious to me the way VW did it is more complex. You just claim it without any supporting evidence or argument.
- seydor 1y agoI can't help thinking that a lot of anticompetitive cases will be won outside the US now that the US is in all-out trade war with the rest of the universe.
- ChocolateGod 1y agoYou're also about to see a lot of the 'Brussels effect' due to the EUs DMA.
- ZYbCRq22HbJ2y7 1y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Markets_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Markets_Act https://digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu/index_en https://digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu/index_en
- draw_down 1y ago[dead]
- Winsaucerer 1y agoI heard they are targeting Andromeda with the next round of tariffs.
- ratelimitsteve 1y agoas long as they leave Squornshellous Zeta alone until I get my mattress
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 1y ago[flagged]
- benoau 1y agoThe DOJ is literally suing Apple for many of the same reasons right now - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Apple_(2024) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Apple_(2024)
- betaby 1y agoWhat that ruling means in practice? 30% fee will be reduced?
- elAhmo 1y agoMost likely nothing
- devinprater 1y agoGood. Maybe if everywhere else makes them do things right, they'll just give up and not region-lock the good stuff. Apple.
- burnte 1y agoProbably not. Large corps are willing to bear the costs of maintaining a lot of control over customers just to keep them from being exposed to a competitor. If they ever open it up, it'll be due to laws, not change of heart on Apple's part.
- jlarocco 1y agoThe benefits out weight the costs, or at least the people in charge perceive it that way.
- quitit 1y agoThis is a consequence of publicly listed companies. They can't just go and eliminate a giant revenue stream because it would be morally right to do so. They need a court or a law to force them to do it, otherwise the board will be removed from their position for people who will maintain that revenue stream.
- conductr 1y agoNot just that, the demand for growth and improving quarter over quarter results require they continue to expand those revenue streams. Enshittification is a result of inertia.
- burnte 1y agoThey actually can. Fiduciary responsibility does not mean you can only do the most profitable thing and nothing else. You just need leaders willing to do it and a board to agree. Boards and officers are given wide latitude to do what's right, and shareholder suits have a really high bar to pass to prove officers or the board were really wrong. The idea that public corps MUST do everything possible to make a penny is a myth perpetuated by the people who run those large corps and WANT to be evil because it's the most profitable path for them.
- b0a04gl 1y ago[dead]
- cubefox 1y ago> Epic may have lost its antitrust battle against Apple in the U.S., but it won its lawsuit against Google, which was found to have built an illegal monopoly in the Android market. Amazing. You can install third-party app stores on Android, just not via Google's own Play Store. Meanwhile, in iOS you can't even install third party browsers. Let alone third-party app stores. Or any apps outside Apple's App Store. The iOS case is far more egregious. It seems the US courts are heavily biased in favor of Apple.
- benoau 1y agoUS courts haven't really begun dismantling this status quo, but there's quite a few things going on that challenge it: - DOJ antitrust case going to trial soon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Apple_(2024) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Apple_(2024) - 2021 Epic injunction that Apple defied followed by 2025 Epic injunction that recently forced Apple to allow links to competing payment options: https://www.theregister.com/2025/05/01/apple_epic_lies_possible_crime/ https://www.theregister.com/2025/05/01/apple_epic_lies_possi... - Open Markets Act from 2020 has some new life: https://appleinsider.com/articles/25/06/25/bipartisan-open-app-markets-act-resurrected-to-challenge-apples-app-store-control https://appleinsider.com/articles/25/06/25/bipartisan-open-a... - App Store Freedom Act from 2025: https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/3209/text/ih https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/3209... - 2011 class action on excessive fees going to trial next year: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/4178894/in-re-apple-iphone-antitrust-litigation/ https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/4178894/in-re-apple-iph... - 2025 class action on excessive fees: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/70356851/korean-publishers-association-v-apple-inc/ https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/70356851/korean-publish... - 2025 class action for monopolizing app distribution: https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/legaldocs/gkvlagedmpb/Proton%20AG%20v%20Apple%2020250630.pdf https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/legaldocs/gkvlagedmpb/... - 2025 class action for doing a shit job of monopolizing app distribution: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/70526762/shin-v-apple-inc/ https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/70526762/shin-v-apple-i...
- cubefox 1y agoIs any of these realistically expected to result in the possibility of installing third-party apps and app stores, similar to Android?
- stego-tech 1y ago> “Well son, I think I speak for your mother and I when I say, UH DUHHHHHHH.” Man, it just doesn’t work outside GIF form, but the point is the same. Anyone with two brain cells could understand how vertical monopolies are still monopolies, and the walled gardens created by Big Tech are just company towns customers pay into and can’t leave without enormous disruption. All of that came through rubber-stamped M&As that depleted the market of competition and, now that ZIRP is over and AI is riding high, depleted the market of well-paying jobs in the process. Competition is efficient, in that it creates more jobs and more opportunities for money to flow between customers and businesses. When your goal is to have all the money, though, competition is bad and must be destroyed. At least with tech we can force change through code instead of armed law enforcement like monopolies of old.
- carlosjobim 1y agoThey're not monopolies, they're acting anti-competitive. Which is worse. But words have real meanings, and should be used correctly.
- hug 1y agoApple has a monopoly on distributing apps to iPhones. That is a true statement, using the real meaning of monopoly, and is being used correctly. You can disagree with whether or not that statement is a "real issue", in that you can buy a completely different phone and install apps provided by other vendors, but it doesn't take away any truthiness from the initial statement. From my perspective, though, that monopoly is a real issue. Some 55% of the adult US population own an iPhone. A monopoly in a market made up of the majority of the US populace should be thoroughly examined.
- carlosjobim 1y agoThen I'd like you to give me an example of any company which is not a monopoly, with that same logic.
- 1y ago
- Imustaskforhelp 1y agoah yes australia court finds that every 60 seconds, a minute passes! How amazing! /satire of course
- jmyeet 1y agoAmazon already handles purchases on iOS and Android via their own payments infrastructure for physical good. Apple and Google carve out a weird exception for "digital" goods so you can't, for example, buy Kindle books directly on an app. You get directed to a website. There is absolutely no reason sufficiently large companies can't handle their own payment infrastructure. You should be able to subscribe to Netflix, Hulu or Disney+ without paying the Apple Tax. A 30% cut is somewhat defensible for small companies that have no payments infrastructure or simply don't want to manage that. There are all sorts of compliance issues. There's something to be said for a seamless user experience. But 30% for a large company becomes a huge incentive for large companies to attack you in the courts (as Epic did or prodding Attorneys-General to file suit) or by lobbying governments. I've consistently said that courts and/or governments will end up dismantling the app store monopolies because of the payment monopoly and it'll be far, far better for Apple and Google in the long term if that happens on their terms, not the terms set by courts and governments. Qualify certain providers to handle their own payments and take 0-5% to pay for things like malware scanning, distribution, etc and you've addressed the strongest monopoly argument (ie payments) and reduced the financial incentive for competitors to attack you. Attacking you could even risk your qualified payments partner status and you could lose that privileged position. It's such an easy win.
- andrekandre 1y ago> There is absolutely no reason sufficiently large companies can't handle their own payment infrastructure. You should be able to subscribe to Netflix, Hulu or Disney+ without paying the Apple Tax. its not only that (an annoying tax) but its actively harmful to some customers/businesses where the payment flow isnt one-person-one transaction; some businesses have multiple accounts per customer or have trial periods incompatible with appstore's in-app purchase model and people get confused, to say nothing about the bugs this causes on the backend...
- gpm 1y agoIt looks like the judgement should be published here within 48 hours: https://www.judgments.fedcourt.gov.au/judgments/Judgments/fca/single/2025/2025fca0900 https://www.judgments.fedcourt.gov.au/judgments/Judgments/fc... Per: https://www.comcourts.gov.au/file/Federal/P/NSD1236/2020/actions#;javascript:void(0) https://www.comcourts.gov.au/file/Federal/P/NSD1236/2020/act...;
- nwbort 1y agoThis is unlikely for this particular case - lots of confidentiality claims etc. It's possible that the judgment will never be published.
- Maxious 1y agoThe transcript of the oral summary should appear at that URL. The full judgement with redactions could be requested under https://www.fedcourt.gov.au/services/access-to-files-and-transcripts/court-documents/non-party-access https://www.fedcourt.gov.au/services/access-to-files-and-tra... it's just not automatically and immediately created
- tlogan 1y agoAnd then they wonder why they get tarrifs…
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- mugivarra69 1y ago[dead]
- BrenBarn 1y agoAnd what will the punishment be? When the penalty for such practices is just that you have to stop, there's no reason for anyone to not do them as much as they can get away with. The penalties must be so ruinous that companies dare not engage in such behavior in the first place.