{"id":43701,"date":"2024-06-17T16:01:58","date_gmt":"2024-06-17T20:01:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=43701"},"modified":"2025-03-12T10:01:02","modified_gmt":"2025-03-12T14:01:02","slug":"eu-to-charge-apple-for-violating-dma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2024\/06\/17\/eu-to-charge-apple-for-violating-dma\/","title":{"rendered":"EU to Charge Apple for Violating DMA"},"content":{"rendered":"

Joe Rossignol<\/a> (Hacker News<\/a>):<\/p>\n

The European Commission plans to charge Apple for violating the Digital Markets Act after determining that the iPhone maker is not complying with obligations to allow app developers to “steer” users to offers outside of the App Store without fees, according to the Financial Times<\/em><\/a>, which cites three people familiar with the matter.<\/p>

It appears that the EU is taking issue with Apple’s Core Technology Fee<\/a>, but the exact charges that it allegedly plans to bring against Apple are unclear.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

Ryan Jones<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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Reminder: The EU itself<\/em> leaks to FT<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

John Gruber<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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My basic theory is that what the EC has wanted all along is to force Apple not merely open up iOS to other methods of distribution, but to force Apple to allow apps to be distributed through those non-App-Store channels free of charge. But they don’t want to come out and say, flatly, that they seek to forbid Apple from monetizing its IP from all developers on the platform, because that’s so radically anti-capitalist. So instead the wrote the DMA to forbid the way Apple had, heretofore, mandated its cut of App Store revenue, and I suspect they somehow thought that if they banned the current rules — all apps must go through the App Store, all apps must use Apple’s App Store payment processing — then Apple would be forced to allow free-of-charge distribution through other channels and other payment processing. They didn’t foresee the Core Technology Fee as a route to collect a cut from any and all popular applications distributed by large commercial developers.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

This is buying too much into Apple’s frame. As I’ve said<\/a>, Apple created the “monetizing its IP” concept, long after creating the App Store itself, as a preemptive defense of its monopoly rents in the face of antitrust action. If the EU’s language had been more sweeping, surely they would have been criticized for being heavy handed. Instead, they were more measured, explaining their intent but not exactly how to get there. I think the reason they didn’t anticipate the CTF is that it obviously violates the intent of the DMA. They were wrong to expect a good faith attempt at compliance.<\/p>\n\n

It’s not as if Apple is trying to monetize its IP by licensing iOS to clone vendors. It’s already monetizing via high-margin, non-upgradable hardware and hard-sell services. As commenter Doodpants<\/a> mentions, this licensing business is pernicious for customers:<\/p>\n\n

I don’t want to “license” software; I want to buy it. But software companies have come up with this “licensing” concept so that they can control what you can and cannot do with the software after you’ve paid for and installed it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

René Fouquet<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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The thing that irritated me most is the “you can just buy an Android phone” by Federighi [at The Talk Show<\/a>]. If this is your response to valid criticism, watch out not to fall from that high horse.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Of course, this recalls Tim Cook saying that the solution for iOS’s poor messaging interoperability is to buy your mother an iPhone<\/a>. It reminds me of nothing so much as the current American political situation. No big deal if you’re unhappy with one of the two main candidates—you can just vote for the other guy! Yet in another four years there will be two new candidates, but we’ll still have Apple and Google and little means of influencing either.<\/p>\n\n

archagon<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Listening to Apple, I come away feeling that the Mac is only an open platform for legacy reasons, and it certainly wouldn’t be one if it was released as a new product today. I am very worried that we’re heading towards a future where Apple disables my notarized emulators, torrent clients, and encrypted messaging apps for commercial, legal, or political reasons and then tells me to “just buy a PC” if I don’t like it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

Steve Troughton-Smith<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Apple leadership has twisted itself in knots to fit an App Store-centric reality distortion field and that’s why they’re facing antitrust action around the world and serious, painful consequences for their illegal conduct<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

mʌp<\/a>:<\/p>\n

As someone that qualified for his first WWDC scholarship in 2002 it sure feels weird to hear Tim say that there were no students in the dev community before the App Store…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

Martin Pilkington<\/a>:<\/p>\n

I was literally in University when both the iPhone and the App Store were released, and had been shipping apps for years prior.<\/p>

Apple seems to be stuck in its own reality distortion field when it comes to the App Store.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

Previously:<\/p>\n