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Does Apple Have Too Much Control Over Your iPhone?

Andrew Orr ·

Recode is working on a series that examines Big Tech and antitrust. Sara Morrison covers Apple in the first installment, asking “How much control should Apple have over your iPhone?” One paragraph in particular grabbed my attention:

In her book Monopolies Suck, antitrust expert Sally Hubbard described Apple as a “warm and fuzzy monopolist” when compared to Facebook, Google, and Amazon, the other three companies in the so-called Big Four that have been accused of being too big. It doesn’t quite have the negative public perception that its three peers have, and the effects of its exclusive control over mobile apps on its consumers aren’t as obvious.

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France Seeks Removal of 'Wish' From App Stores, Search Engines

Andrew Orr ·

The French administration wants app stores and search engines to remove Wish after an investigation of its products. They found that many of the products listed in Wish don’t meet European standards.

When Wish is notified that it is selling a dangerous good, those products are removed from the marketplace within 24 hours as expected. And yet, “in most cases, those products remain available under a different name, and sometimes even from the same seller. The company doesn’t keep any log related to transactions of non-compliant and dangerous products,” France’s Ministry of the Economy says in its statement.

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Google Follows Apple And Slashes Play Store Fees

Charlotte Henry ·

Google is reducing the fees it takes from developers in the Play Store, CNBC reported. It is dropping the cut it takes from subscriptions from 30 percent to 15 from day one. The move from Google follows similar ones made by Apple.

Google also said on Thursday that it was introducing a program to allow e-books, music streaming services, and other apps that pay for content to access fees as low as 10%. Apple doesn’t make exceptions for those kind of apps and doesn’t offer a 10% fee to developers in its app store. Apple, which has received more regulator attention over its app store than Google, over the past two years cut its take from 30% to 15% in many cases, including for apps making less than $1 million per year, news apps, and certain premium video streamers that participate in an Apple program. But Apple still charges 30% for the first year of a subscription, meaning that Google’s app store may be more competitive for subscription-based apps.

 

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Dutch Regulator Demands Apple Makes Changes to In-app Purchases

Charlotte Henry ·

Regulators in the Netherlands have found that Apple’s rules around its in-app payment system are anti-competitive. It has ordered the company to make changes, Reuters reported.

The Dutch investigation into whether Apple’s practices amounted to an abuse of a dominant market position was launched in 2019 but later reduced in scope to focus primarily on dating market apps. They included a complaint from Match Group, owner of the popular dating service Tinder, which said Apple’s rules were hindering it from direct communications with its customers about payments. The Netherlands’ Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) last month informed the U.S. technology giant of its decision, making it the first antitrust regulator to make a finding the company has abused market power in the app store, though Apple is facing challenges in multiple countries. ACM has not levied a fine against Apple, but demanded changes to the in-app payment system, the people said.

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Russian Opposition Leader Alexei Navalny Brands Apple a Putin Accomplice

Charlotte Henry ·

Russian Opposition leader Alexei Navalny (pictured above) has hit out and Apple and Google. He called them “accomplices” of the Kremlin and Vladimir Putin’s regime, AppleInsider reported. It follows the recent removal of a tactical voting app from the App Store and Google Play store.

In a long series of tweets, Navalny accused Big Tech firms of capitulating. “The giants Apple and Google have complied with the Kremlin’s demands and removed our app from their stores,” he wrote. “My beloved YouTube has deleted our video, and the Telegram messenger has blocked our bot.” “I know that most of those who work at Google, Apple, etc. are honest and good people,” he continued. “I urge them not to put up with the cowardice of their bosses.”

[Image credit: Jonas Petrovas / Shutterstock.com]

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Apple Once Threatened to Remove Facebook From App Store Over Human Trafficking

Andrew Orr ·

On Friday a report claims that Apple once threatened to remove Facebook from the App Store in 2019. The cause was human trafficking. (Original, paywalled report here).

The BBC published a sweeping undercover investigation of the practice, prompting Apple to threaten to remove Facebook from its store, the paper said.

An internal memo found that Facebook was aware of the practice even before then: A Facebook researcher wrote in a report dated 2019, “was this issue known to Facebook before BBC inquiry and Apple escalation?,” per the Journal.

Do the right thing, Apple: Remove Facebook.

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It’s Easy for Minors to Bypass App Store Age Restrictions

Andrew Orr ·

On Wednesday, the Campaign for Accountability published a report that shows how easy it is for minors to bypass App Store age restrictions.

Using an Apple ID for a simulated 14-year-old, TTP examined nearly 80 age-restricted apps on the App Store and discovered that the underage user could easily evade the apps’ age restrictions in the vast majority of cases, often with minimal effort.