Japanese Mobile Software Competition Act
Since 2020, Japan’s Fair Trade Commission has investigated Apple and Google’s dominance in the mobile market. This week, the watchdog published a series of new guidelines that the two companies must comply with, chief among them allowing third-party app stores.
In a 119-page document issued this week, the Japan Fair Trade Commission established the Mobile Software Competition Act Guidelines, which are set to come into effect on December 18.
In essence, the guidelines state that Apple and Google can’t favor their apps over third-party competitors, either by leveraging user data natively collected by the operating system, or by unfairly delaying, rejecting, or hindering competitors’ apps’ presence or visibility in their respective app stores.
Open Web Advocacy (Hacker News, The Register, MacRumors):
Readers may recall that Japan recently passed the Smartphone Act, officially the Bill on the Promotion of Competition for Specified Software Used in Smartphones. Among its most important reforms is a direct prohibition on Apple’s long-standing ban on third-party browser engines on iOS.
[…]
This clause is crucial. It means that designated providers (i.e. Apple) must not only eliminate outright bans (like App Store Guideline 2.5.6), but must also refrain from practices that, while technically permitting browser engines, render their use impractical or commercially unviable.
[…]
The act also mandates choice screens for browsers among other items.
Previously:
- Apple’s Browser Engine Ban Persists, Even Under the DMA
- Firefox Benefits From Browser Choice Screens
- Japan Passes Law to Allow App Marketplaces
- DMA Compliance: Alternative Browser Engines
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Apple should have been at the forefront of making its operating system mature given that a phone is the primary, and sometimes the only, computing device for most of the world.
It’s still not too late to get started on the process and have the same rules globally instead of fragmenting the system to follow rules piecewise in various jurisdictions.
The trouble is that Apple under Cook is too invested in chasing the marginal dollar and has lost sight of what makes its customers happy.
I can’t wait for the Cook era to end and for some sensibility to reign again at Apple leadership.
It's interesting to see how the open democracies of the world are learning from each other how to make Apple follow a law.
Maybe they should take s leaf out of president Trump's playbook and slap tariffs on apple as soon as they start wiggling.
I guess the naked bribes delivered from the hands of Tim Cook would be hard to deal with.
@Hardik I came here to say the same thing. Apple could be making the user experience, Greg, and getting ahead of all these regulations. They can make the thing consistent across the world. Instead, they're doubling down on their consumer unfriendly policies. I don't get it.
@Matthew The problem is money or rather money that can be made by upselling.
For example, Apple claims that they love music. If this was true, then they would have modernized iTunes for people who like owning music and made a separate music app for those who prefer streaming. But there is less money in the former while the latter is essentially an infinite money glitch, so iTunes got ditched completely. There don’t even offer lyrics for free if you buy music from them, that is a streaming only feature.
Gruber likes to say that the way they think is Apple first, users second and developers last. However, with the way things are going lately, it seems to me they are thinking about Apple only.
