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Antitrust Lawsuit Reveals Apple-Google Search Relationship

Andrew Orr ·

The U.S. government has sued Google, saying the company is a monopoly that uses its power to crush competition in search. Mark Gurman writes about the money that Google pays Apple for it to be the default search engine. I’ve been disappointed in this, because a lawsuit from previous years alleges Google pays Apple around US$12 billion to be the default. Apple can do better.

The details, many of which have not been disclosed before, may support the U. S. government’s allegation that Google uses these agreements to block out search rivals and give consumers less choice. Google called the government’s case “deeply flawed” and said it would hurt consumers because it would “artificially prop up” lower-quality search options.

Artificially prop up lower-quality search options. Wouldn’t paying Apple be artificially propping up Google? I spent a day drinking beer and eating potato chips watching Bill Gates’ deposition for fun. I’m sure the one with Sundar Pichai will be equally entertaining.

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Apple Removed a Third Party Google Stadia App

Andrew Orr ·

StApple recently removed Stadium, an app that let people use Google Stadia’s game streaming service on iOS.

Specifically, Knox says Apple objects to how his app is “extending WebKit with native APIs to connect with Bluetooth.” This is what allowed the app to connect Bluetooth controllers to Stadia. Apple’s ruling appears to refer to section 4.7 of Apple’s App Store guidelines, which governs web-based games on the platform.

At first I thought it was removed because some random non-Google party created a Google service workaround. But it sounds like it’s more because of API specifics, or at least that’s the official Apple statement.

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Address Bar Spoofing Bugs Surface on Mobile Browsers

Andrew Orr ·

A number of address bar spoofing vulnerabilities have surface on mobile browsers, and Rafay Baloch wrote about them. There was one found in Safari but Apple patched it in September with iOS 13.6. The other bugs mostly concern Opera.

With ever growing sophistication of spear phishing attacks, exploitation of browser-based vulnerabilities such as address bar spoofing may exacerbate the success of spear phishing attacks and hence prove to be very lethal. First and foremost, it is easy to persuade the victim into stealing credentials or distributing malware when the address bar points to a trusted website and giving no indicators forgery, secondly since the vulnerability exploits a specific feature in a browser, it can evade several anti-phishing schemes and solutions.

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AT&T Boss Says Tech Giants Have Too Much Power in Streaming

Charlotte Henry ·

AT&T boss John Stankey has said that tech giants, including Apple, hold too much power over streaming. He made the comments, reported by the Daily Mail at the Wall Street Journal’s Tech Live event.

Where the bottlenecks are sometimes occurring are in these commercial agreements,’ Stankey said during the Wall Street Journal’s annual Tech Live event Monday that was hosted online due to the pandemic.’ We should ask ourselves, is that friction somebody really feeling their oats and maybe having market power above and beyond what’s reasonable for innovation?’ he added. HBO max launched in late May as a new video app, similar to Amazon Video, Apple TV+ and Disney+ seeking to profit of the demand for online TV, and offers series like Friends, The Big Bang Theory and HBO’s library of original TV series.   AT&T is trying to grow their HBO Max subscriber base and convince existing viewers to switch to the Max app. This provides AT&T with better profits than the meek HBO line-up offered through cable partners like Comcast.’Our focus probably needs to be on equity of rules and engagement,’ Stanke said Monday.

TMO Deals

Magnetic Fidget Lightning Cable 3-Pack: $51.99

Bryan Chaffin ·

We have a deal on a clever Lightning cable called the Magnetic Fidget Cable. It’s a 3-foot Lightning cable, and the cable has magnets all along its length that allow it to coil automatically. You can also unwind just the amount you need at any given time. Or, you could just play with it. Oh, and it glows in the dark. I’m linking to the USB-A-to-Lightning, but there are also non-glowing and USB-C options you can choose on the deal listing. Our deal is for a 3-pack of cables for $51.99. The non-glow models are $46.99 for a three pack.