We have introduced new whistleblower tools to help employees and other insiders report harmful practices of Very Large Online Platforms or Search Engines under the DSA and violations of obligations by gatekeepers under the DMA.
These tools are empowering whistleblowers to share relevant information anonymously, in any EU official language and format, from reports to data metrics and internal research.
Seen in that light, it’s no surprise that Big Tech is refusing to comply with the rules. If the EU successfully forces tech to play fair, it will serve as a starting gun for a global race to the top, in which tech’s ill-gotten gains - of data, power and money - will be returned to the users and workers from whom that treasure came.
The architects of the DMA and DSA foresaw this, of course. They’ve announced investigations into Apple, Google and Meta, threatening fines of 10 percent of the companies’ global income, which will double to 20 percent if the companies don’t toe the line.
It’s not just Big Tech that’s playing for all the marbles - it’s also the systems of democratic control and accountability. If Apple can sabotage the DMA’s insistence on taking away its veto over its customers’ software choices, that will spill over into the US Department of Justice’s case over the same issue, as well as the cases in Japan and South Korea, and the pending enforcement action in the UK."
"Just like Apple, Meta is behaving as though the #DMA permits it to carry on its worst behavior, with minor cosmetic tweaks around the margins. Just like #Apple, #Meta is daring the #EU to enforce its democratically enacted laws, implicitly promising to pit its billions against #Europe’s institutions to preserve its right to spy on us."
#EU#DMA#BigTech#Regulation#Antitrust: "The DMA is a first, and a great deal of earnest effort is going into its implementation. But we don’t know what “success” will look like, even on its own terms. Of course, even a limited set of improvements would be better than the status quo. Godspeed, but let’s be realistic also. The more fundamental point is that the real interesting question is not if we can nibble the gatekeepers at the margin: but whether we can disintermediate them at least in part so that we do not need to rely entirely on a proprietary Web 2.0 that they comprehensively control. Antitrust complaints in the US have at least some prospect of involving divestments and break ups as the eventual remedy – though this will also be a long and inevitably hard fought road. This is not on the cards in Europe through digital markets regulation."
People should think about what Apple’s boundary conditions for the #CTF mean. If Apple is willing to hold off on charging a fee for three years, it probably means that most small development businesses on the AppStore don’t see a profit for three years. Apple knows how long it takes for devs to get from sign up to ship, and they know how long it takes to get from shipping to decent revenue. It’d be naive to think they don’t use that information. #DMA
RT @1Br0wn
“Apple could offer a more comprehensive service (than ChatGPT/Claude apps) by embedding a third-party AI assistant in its operating system.” << But thanks to the #DMA, so can competitors (in the EU) https://ft.com/content/9528edd3-f963-4694-b28a-8584f1378278
Now that Apple is forced to open their mobile operating systems for third party devs in an unprecedented manner, can we work on an indie foss podcatcher that does not suck?
I’ll speak about theory and practice of Digital Markets act. And implications for cybersecurity, privacy, competition. Bonus points: information about one actual case in which I was involved. It considers something that all of you use each and every day :-)
The EU declares Apple's iPadOS as a 'gatekeeper' due to its vast app ecosystem, locking in businesses like yours or users like you.
The European Union's designation of Apple's iPadOS as a "gatekeeper" signals a significant win for small businesses and startup owners in fostering a fair digital marketplace.
This move further underscores the EU's commitment to regulating tech giants such as Apple and gives smaller businesses the opportunity to thrive and innovate.
Apple must now comply with the DMA within 6 months. Our CEO, @jon, welcomes this, noting that iPads and iPhones share the same ecosystem and that Apple controls both as the gatekeeper.
Are you aware of harmful practices by companies under the Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act?
We've launched whistleblower tools to report violations of obligations by Very Large Online Platforms, Search Engines and gatekeepers under the #DSA and #DMA.
You have to analyse every Apple announcement through the lens of how it will use it to maintain its market power and attack regulation. So, will Apple’s promised Rich Communication Services (RCS) support make iMessage fully interoperable at least with Google’s Messages? What would the most grudging compliance with Chinese 5G regulations look like?
Google apparently makes RCS support ubiquitous regardless of carrier support (via IP), as well as using a specific telco gateway. Will Apple do the same, or push individual telcos to enable RCS support on their networks? (Many already do.)
Apple won’t support Google’s end-to-end encryption extension but instead work to standardise it in RCS. How long will that take?
Trade body GSMA is responsible for the RCS standard. Telcos in the past, unlike Internet developers, have been most open to developing backdoored encryption standards for mobile communications. Will Google and Apple be able to override this here?
I haven’t tried digging out a good translation of the relevant Chinese 5G regulations, but they are allegedly the source of Apple’s change of mind on RCS support. Supporting it within a single country of course does not mean support anywhere else in the world. Many (most?) of the DMA gatekeepers are trying to limit DMA benefits to their EU users (and in Apple’s case withdrawing them once a user leaves the EU for 30 days!)
I was excited by the #Europe#DMA news back in March, when will we finally be able to communicate with #WhatsApp users from other platforms like #Matrix ?
The Commission said both business and end users are “locked-in” to #Apple’s #iPadOS ecosystem due to its size and user base, which it said the company leverages to disincentivize users from switching to competitors, giving Apple six months to ensure full compliance. #DMA
"It’s not just Big Tech that’s playing for all the marbles - it’s also the systems of democratic control and accountability. If Apple can sabotage the DMA’s insistence on taking away its veto over its customers’ software choices, that will spill over into the US Department of Justice’s case over the same issue, as well as the cases in Japan and South Korea."