app store – Techdirt (original) (raw)

Judge In Apple / Epic Case Is Spitting Mad At Apple’s Willful Contempt

Back in 2021, Apple mostly won the antitrust case that Epic brought against it, and the Ninth Circuit largely agreed. The court rejected most claims about Apple’s App Store being an illegal monopoly. The company just had to make one small change: let developers tell users they could make purchases elsewhere. Simple enough.

Instead, Apple apparently decided that the best response was to design elaborate schemes to make that “elsewhere” as scary and expensive as possible, hide evidence of those schemes from the court, and then lie under oath about all of it. This strategy has worked out about as well as you’d expect, leading to what may be one of the most scathing judicial opinions you’ll ever read.

As we noted at the time, this seemed like the correct outcome. Many of the antitrust claims from Epic seemed ridiculous and the court agreed, but the provisions forbidding app developers from even communicating to users that it was possible to do non in-app purchases seemed extremely restrictive and problematic.

Apple should have been happy with this result. But Apple apparently was not. Yesterday, District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers issued one of the most scathing rulings I’ve ever seen a court issue, calling out what appears to be Apple’s willful decision to disobey the injunction and play games to avoid doing the little bit it was required to do.

Let’s let the judge take it from here:

To summarize: One, after trial, the Court found that Apple’s 30 percent commission “allowed it to reap supracompetitive operating margins” and was not tied to the value of its intellectual property, and thus, was anticompetitive. Apple’s response: charge a 27 percent commission (again tied to nothing) on off-app purchases, where it had previously charged nothing, and extend the commission for a period of seven days after the consumer linked-out of the app. Apple’s goal: maintain its anticompetitive revenue stream. Two, the Court had prohibited Apple from denying developers the ability to communicate with, and direct consumers to, other purchasing mechanisms. Apple’s response: impose new barriers and new requirements to increase friction and increase breakage rates with full page “scare” screens, static URLs, and generic statements. Apple’s goal: to dissuade customer usage of alternative purchase opportunities and maintain its anticompetitive revenue stream. In the end, Apple sought to maintain a revenue stream worth billions in direct defiance of this Court’s Injunction.

In stark contrast to Apple’s initial in-court testimony, contemporaneous business documents reveal that Apple knew exactly what it was doing and at every turn chose the most anticompetitive option. To hide the truth, Vice-President of Finance, Alex Roman, outright lied under oath. Internally, Phillip Schiller had advocated that Apple comply with the Injunction, but Tim Cook ignored Schiller and instead allowed Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri and his finance team to convince him otherwise. Cook chose poorly. The real evidence, detailed herein, more than meets the clear and convincing standard to find a violation. The Court refers the matter to the United States Attorney for the Northern District of California to investigate whether criminal contempt proceedings are appropriate.

Cook chose poorly? Yikes. Being referred for criminal contempt? Double yikes.

This is an injunction, not a negotiation. There are no do-overs once a party willfully disregards a court order. Time is of the essence. The Court will not tolerate further delays. As previously ordered, Apple will not impede competition. The Court enjoins Apple from implementing its new anticompetitive acts to avoid compliance with the Injunction. Effective immediately Apple will no longer impede developers’ ability to communicate with users nor will they levy or impose a new commission on off-app purchases.

Ouch.

Apple has a history of engaging in malicious compliance to regulatory requirements, but this seems particularly egregious.

The court’s ruling reveals a deliberate three-part strategy by Apple: First, design a system that would appear compliant while actually maintaining their monopoly. Second, hide evidence of this strategy through dubious privilege claims. And finally, when caught, lie about it under oath.

The deliberate nature of Apple’s defiance is perhaps best captured in internal communications about their “scare screen” strategy.

In Slack communications dated November 16, 2021, the Apple employees crafting the warning screen for Project Michigan discussed how best to frame its language. (CX-206.) Mr. Onak suggested the warning screen should include the language: “By continuing on the web, you will leave the app and be taken to an external website” because “‘external website’ sounds scary, so execs will love it.” (Id. at .2.) From Mr. Onak’s perspective, of the “execs” on the project, Mr. Schiller was at the top. (Feb. 2025 Tr. 1340:4–6 (Onak).) One employee further wrote, “ to make your version even worse you could add the developer name rather than the app name.” (CX-206.4.) To that, another responded “ooh – keep going.”

Again, Apple decided on the most anticompetitive option, that is, the “even worse” option of including the developer’s name rather than the app name … All of this was hidden from the Court and not revealed in the May 2024 evidentiary hearings.

Apple folks tried to claim that when they said “scary” they didn’t mean “scary” and really said that “scary” was “a term of art” rather than what everyone knows it means:

Mr. Onak testified that “in term of UX writing, the word ‘scary’ doesn’t . . . mean the same thing as instilling fear.” (Feb. 2025 Tr. 1340:10–12 (Onak).) Rather, “scary” is a term of art that “means raising awareness and caution and grabbing the user’s attention.” (Feb. 2025 Tr. 1340:13– 15 (Onak).) Mr. Onak repeatedly asserted that the team’s goal was simply “to raise caution so the user would have all the facts so that they can make an informed decision on their own.” (Feb. 2025 Tr. 1340:22–1341:2 (Onak).) Mr. Onak’s testimony was not credible and falls flat given reason, common sense, and the totality of the admitted exhibits. The designers’ discussions contextualize their use of the word “scary” to indicate its ordinary meaning and, most applicable here, indicate the goal of deterring users as much as possible from completing a linked-out transaction.

Beyond the psychological manipulation through the UI, Apple’s strategy centered on implementing a 27% commission on outside purchases — just a 3% discount from their usual rate for on-platform purchases — while knowing full well this would make external payment options economically unviable for developers.

Apple senior management held a meeting after the injunction was upheld by the Ninth Circuit, in which notes were taken, discussing two options: one where they didn’t charge for off-platform purchases (but which “would restrict the placement and appearance” of any links to off-AppStore purchasing options). The other one, which they went for, was to let them place the info more broadly, but take a 27% cut, rather than a 30% cut.

Unfortunately for Apple, the notes for that meeting noted that a reason to reject the first proposal was that it would “create competitive pressure.” As the judge notes: that was exactly the point of the injunction, to create competitive pressure. So, Apple’s meeting to figure out how to minimize competitive pressure can be seen as seeking to get around the injunction.

And then, on top of that, Apple went with a combination of both proposals to make it designed to stymie the injunction’s purpose. They included the link-out restrictions from the first proposal AND the commission from the second proposal.

Even more damning, Apple’s internal notes reveal that Apple (most likely correctly) predicted that the 3% discount on commissions wouldn’t be economically viable, because the cost to run your own payment setup would likely exceed that 3%. And, Apple already knew that no one would sign up for this because they had used similar off-site commission programs in Korea and the Netherlands:

At the time, Apple also knew of the virtually nonexistent adoption rates of the Netherlands and Korea programs. Those, similar to the at-issue program, additionally suggested to Apple the non-viable economics of the proposed program. See Feb. 2025 Tr. 1407:1-5 (“Q. [F]or example, as of October 2022, ten months into the Netherlands program and four months into the Korea program, only one developer had signed up for alternative payments across the two programs. A. That seems roughly correct, yes.”) (Oliver).

If you only have one developer, you don’t have to say “roughly correct.” There’s no estimating there.

But amazingly, it gets worse. Apple’s internal documentation more or less admits that they might be violating the injunction with this approach:

Crucially, at this point, Apple’s notes reflect uncertainty about whether it could in fact impose a commission without violating the Injunction. In one slide deck, Apple’s notes explain that “[i]f we decided and had the ability to charge a commission, we believe there would be very little developer adoption of link-out, assuming a scenario where we would give a cost of payments discount at 3%.” (CX-859.33 (emphasis supplied).) Those same notes indicate that Apple planned to “[c]ome up with a couple of models in the spectrum of what we think the judge will accept” but to “[s]tart with the minimum.”

The judge also points out that the exec who was pushing for the “no commission” approach, Phil Schiller, had closely followed the trial and read the injunction, while the execs pushing for the sketchy commission approach had not.

Prior to the June 20 meeting, there were individuals within Apple who were advocating for a commission, and others advocating for no commission. (Feb. 2025 Tr. 1521:3–12 (Oliver).) Those advocating for a commission included Mr. Maestri and Mr. Roman. (Id. 1522:3–10 (Oliver).) Mr. Schiller disagreed. (Id. 1521:13–18 (Oliver).) In an email, Mr. Schiller relayed that, with respect to the proposal for “a 27% commission for 24 hours,” “I have already explained my many issues with the commission concept,” and that “clearly I am not on team commission/fee.” (CX-224.1.)29 Mr. Schiller testified that, at the time, he “had a question of whether we would be able to charge a commission” under the Injunction, a concern which he communicated. (Feb. 2025 Tr. 1177:24–1178:9 (Schiller).) Unlike Mr. Maestri and Mr. Roman, Mr. Schiller sat through the entire underlying trial and actually read the entire 180-page decision. That Messrs. Maestri and Roman did neither, does not shield Apple of its knowledge (actual and constructive) of the Court’s findings.

When faced with judicial scrutiny of these practices, Apple didn’t just defend its actions — it launched an extraordinary campaign of document suppression and delay tactics that would ultimately backfire spectacularly.

As testimony unfolded, and Apple attempted to justify its response, the Court became increasingly concerned that Apple was not only withholding critical information about its business decision for complying with the Injunction, but also that it had likely presented a reverse-engineered, litigation-ready justification for actions which on their face looked to be anticompetitive. The Court immediately ordered Apple to produce all injunction-compliance related documents

And then Apple appeared to play games in providing the demanded documents:

Apple engaged in tactics to delay the proceedings. The Court later concluded that delay equaled profits. By September 30, 2024, Apple represented that it had produced around 89,000 documents out of the 1.5 million it had reviewed and expected to produce a few thousand more by October 7, 2024. (Dkt. No. 1024.) Apple, however, had asserted privilege over more than a third of responsive documents….

Magistrate Judge Hixon largely found Apple’s privilege claims to be unsubstantiated after reviewing eleven exemplar documents (characterized by Epic as evidence of Apple’s overreach). (Dkt. No. 1056.) Apple used this decision to delay further and “offered” to re-review all 57,000 documents for which it claimed privilege in full or in part. Ultimately, Apple withdrew approximately 42.1% of its privilege claims. Although Apple now tries to recast its re-review as “of its own accord,” that framing belies the reality that the documents should have never been withheld in the first instance. (Dkt. No. 1151 at 5–6.) Ultimately, Epic and Apple hired three special masters to review Apple’s privilege claims after its re-review.

But Apple’s strategy of obstruction eventually crumbled, revealing something even more serious: executives appearing to deliberately lie under oath.

The judge describes how Apple hired some consultants, “Analysis Group” or “AG,” to conduct research on the value of their platform to try to find justification for the 27% costs charged to developers. They then told the court that they used that analysis as the basis of what to charge, even though the notes now prove that the decision was actually made about six months earlier. In other words, Apple execs appear to have lied under oath.

On top of that, Apple execs claimed that they hadn’t evaluated if external costs of a developer running their own payment setup would exceed the 3% discount, even though it has since come out that they very much did do that analysis, and it was a key part of the decision to only discount commissions by 3%. More lies:

Despite its own considerable evaluation, during the first May 2024 hearing, Apple employees attempted to mislead the Court by testifying that the decision to impose a commission was grounded in AG’s report. (See, e.g., May 2024 Tr. 544:16–24 (Oliver); see also Dkt. No. 1324, Apple Trial Brief at 12.) The testimony of Mr. Roman, Vice President of Finance, was replete with misdirection and outright lies. He even went so far as to testify that Apple did not look at comparables to estimate the costs of alternative payment solutions that developers would need to procure to facilitate linked-out purchases.

The Court finds that Apple did consider the external costs developers faced when utilizing alternative payment solutions for linked out transactions, which conveniently exceeded the 3% discount Apple ultimately decided to provide by a safe margin. (See CX-265.27 (Apple’s estimates of external costs for developers); Feb. 2025 Tr. 1627:15–1628:10 (Vij) (discussing external costs).) Apple did not rely on a substantiated bottoms-up analysis during its months-long assessment of whether to impose a commission, seemingly justifying its decision after the fact with the AG’s report.

Also, given that the decision to charge 27% commissions happened in July of 2023, and the AG report was only delivered in January of 2024 (well after the decision was made), the same Apple exec then apparently lied and claimed the commission decision was made after the report was delivered, which the now-revealed notes show was just blatantly false:

Mr. Roman did not stop there, however. He also testified that up until January 16, 2024, Apple had no idea what fee it would impose on linked-out purchases:

Q. And I take it that Apple decided to impose a 27 percent fee on linked purchases prior to January 16, 2024, correct?

A. The decision was made that day.

Q. It’s your testimony that up until January 16, 2024, Apple had no idea what — what fee it’s going to impose on linked purchases?

A. That is correct. (May 2024 Tr. 202:12–18 (Roman).)

Another lie under oath: contemporaneous business documents reveal that on the contrary, the main components of Apple’s plan, including the 27% commission, were determined in July 2023.

Neither Apple, nor its counsel, corrected the, now obvious, lies. They did not seek to withdraw the testimony or to have it stricken (although Apple did request that the Court strike other testimony). Thus, Apple will be held to have adopted the lies and misrepresentations to this Court.

Ouch.

There’s a lot more as well, but the judge is rightly pissed off. She has issued an injunction making it pretty clear that Apple has to knock off all its tricks:

PERMANENTLY RESTRAINS AND ENJOINS Apple Inc. and its officers, agents, servants, employees, and any person in active concert or participation with them, from:

1. Imposing any commission or any fee on purchases that consumers make outside an app, and as a consequence thereof, no reason exists to audit, monitor, track or require developers to report purchases or any other activity that consumers make outside an app;
2. Restricting or conditioning developers’ style, language, formatting, quantity, flow or placement of links for purchases outside an app;
3. Prohibiting or limiting the use of buttons or other calls to action, or otherwise conditioning the content, style, language, formatting, flow or placement of these devices for purchases outside an app;
4. Excluding certain categories of apps and developers from obtaining link access;
5. Interfering with consumers’ choice to proceed in or out of an app by using anything other than a neutral message apprising users that they are going to a third-party site; and
6. Restricting a developer’s use of dynamic links that bring consumers to a specific product page in a logged-in state rather than to a statically defined page, including restricting apps from passing on product details, user details or other information that refers to the user intending to make a purchase.

Normally, I would say some of those go a bit far in limiting certain things that Apple would be expected to do, but… given just how much Apple tried to lie and mislead the court, it’s kinda what you’d expect. It also says it will not put a stay on this assuming Apple appeals “given the repeated delays and severity of the conduct.”

While Apple also has to pay for the special master that it and Epic had to bring in to review the falsely claimed “privileged” documents, there aren’t any other sanctions (nor did Epic seek them). And that’s why there’s a criminal referral.

What makes this ruling so remarkable isn’t just the scathing language or even the criminal referral — it’s the sheer pointlessness of Apple’s defiance. The company had won almost all of this case. All it had to do was make one small change. Instead, its executives chose to lie, obstruct, and treat the judicial system with contempt. Even with Tim Cook’s recent cozying up to Trump and the Trump/Bondi Justice Department’s tendency to view justice through the lens of personal loyalty (which might help make the criminal referral disappear), it’s hard to understand what Apple thought it would gain through such brazen actions.

Yes, Apple managed to drag out its monopoly rents on app commissions for a bit longer. But it could have crafted a more open system that would have satisfied the court while preserving significant control over its platform (along with the associated commissions) — all without executives potentially facing criminal contempt charges. The short-term profits from delay hardly seem worth the cost of credibility with courts and regulators going forward.

As Judge Gonzalez Rogers put it simply: Tim Cook chose poorly.

Filed Under: alex roman, antitrust, app store, competition, contempt, criminal contempt, in app purcases, luca maestri, obstuction, phil schiller, tim cook, yvonne gonzalez rogers
Companies: apple

And Just Like That, PC Emulator Apps Are Allowed On Apple’s App Store Afterall

from the about-face! dept

It was just a few weeks ago that we were discussing how an update Apple made to its rules for its App Store allowed for some retro-console game emulator apps, but not retro-PC game emulator apps for some reason. When Apple made the policy change, developer Chaoji Li submitted his app, iDOS, for consideration, only to have it rejected. Adding to the frustration were reps for the App Store suggesting that Li “make changes” to the app and resubmit it, but could not articulate what those changes should be. Elsewhere, Apple pointed that the policy change specifically allowed for “console” emulators and not PC emulators, though why that particular distinction made it into the policy at all was never explained.

What this all creates is a platform that is changing its own policies for its own reasons, all behind an opaque wall, with those attempting to submit to the app store left in the dark. And it all comes off as an organization that is making these changes haphazardly. Including welcome changes, which just occurred with Apple revising the policy yet again such that iDOS is now allowed after all in the App Store.

Developer Chaoji Li’s announcement of iDOS 3’s availability didn’t have a tone of triumph to it, though—more like exhaustion, given the app’s struggles over the years:

“It has been a long wait for common sense to prevail within Apple. As much as I want to celebrate, I still can’t help being a little bit cautious about the future. Are we good from now on?

I hope iDOS can now enjoy its turn to stay and grow.

P.S. Even though words feel inadequate at times, I would like to say thank you to the supporters of iDOS. In many ways, you keep iDOS alive.”

And so now it’s live in the App Store. What caused Apple to change its stance on retro PC emulation? Who knows! Will Apple change its mind somewhere down the road and nix the app from its platform once again? Who knows! Can other PC emulator apps successfully be listed alongside iDOS? Definitely maybe!

But at least for now we can recognize that the policy change from Apple is a good one. There is zero reason why console emulators should be allowed but not an app like iDOS. But to foster a really healthy ecosystem for its App Store, it sure would help for Apple to be more transparent about its rules in the future.

Filed Under: app store, emulators, gatekeepers, idos
Companies: apple

Apple Continues To Genuflect To Vladimir Putin In The Russian Apple App Store

from the cowards dept

Back when Vladimir Putin first launched his aggressive war of choice on Ukraine, much of the Western world mobilized into action in a way that was fairly impressive. All kinds of companies and brands voluntarily began pulling out of the market, sometimes at the request of Ukraine itself. Much was made of tech firms pulling out of the market or suspending service in Russia at that time, specifically. Apple was one of those companies, suspending hardware sales and some services in Russia, though it kept the Russian App Store live and available.

In the intervening couple of years, however, that voluntary embargo in Russia has softened. And, with the App Store still open, Apple has continued to bend to the will of Vladimir Putin when it comes to policing the App Store for anything the Kremlin decides it doesn’t like.

Apple has removed several apps offering virtual private network (VPN) services from the Russian AppStore, following a request from Roskomnadzor, Russia’s media regulator, independent news outlet Mediazona reported on Thursday.

The VPN services removed by Apple include leading services such as ProtonVPN, Red Shield VPN, NordVPN and Le VPN. Those living in Russia will no longer be able to download the services, while users who already have them on their phones can continue using them, but will be unable to update them.

So, what to think about all of this? Certainly some folks will point out that Apple has no choice but to comply with Russian law while operating the App Store in country. And, sure, that’s true. But operating the store is in and of itself a choice that Apple is making. And Apple is a company that has been particularly vocal when it comes to protecting the privacy and rights of its users. It seems that moral stance includes some kind of a carve out for Russians, however.

Apple can do this, of course. But what it cannot do is accept the cheers for pulling out of Russia and for its customer-privacy focus while also accepting its role as digital policeman for the Kremlin. Pick a lane, you can’t have both. And the company is specifically doing the political bidding of the Russian Big Bad, it should be pointed out.

Despite suspending all sales of its own products in Russia in March 2022, Apple has continued to comply with Russian government regulations and has deleted at least 19 apps from the Russian AppStore since 2023.

At Roskomnadzor’s request, in March Apple removed an app developed by late Russian opposition politician Alexey Navalny’s team that was designed to help Russians choose who to vote for to maximise the impact of the anti-Putin vote, in a move that echoed the removal of another Navalny-designed app in 2021.

So the question is what Apple wants to be. A privacy advocate for its customers that is willing to stand up to government, as it has done in the United States? Or a cynical money-focused corporation willing to take what is essentially political action in favor of government against both opposition forces and its own customers, as it has in Russia.

Pick one, Apple. It cannot be both.

Filed Under: app store, content moderation, russia, vpn
Companies: apple, nordvpn, protonvpn

First Approved Emulator App Appears In Apple’s App Store Under New Rules

from the good-start dept

Well, that was fast. It was just earlier this month that we talked about some interesting new rules Apple instituted for its App Store when it comes specifically to emulation apps. While emulators in and of themselves are not in anyway illicit, Apple did its best to keep them off its platform, and off iPhones generally. It did so under the public theory that apps that allow in-app callouts to outside software that is not within the app itself represented a security risk. ROMs to run on these emulators was the example that precluded emulator apps from appearing in the store. The reality is that Apple has a history of both valuing strict control over what goes on its devices combined with the never ending hatred console-makers have for emulators generally.

So it was with all of that historical context that I viewed the rule changes Apple announced in early April pessimistically. A lot of the commentary surrounding what Apple would actually allow centered on it being primarily console manufacturers or game publishers themselves releasing their own emulators for purchase. Well, it turns out that pessimism was somewhat misguided, as the App Store just saw its first approved third-party emulator released.

Apple’s decision earlier this month to open the iOS App Store to generic retro game emulators is already bearing fruit. Delta launched Wednesday as one of the first officially approved iOS apps to emulate Nintendo consoles from the NES through the N64 and the Game Boy through the Nintendo DS (though unofficial options have snuck through in the past).

All that history means Delta is far from a slapdash app quickly thrown together to take advantage of Apple’s new openness to emulation. The app is obviously built with iOS in mind and already integrates some useful features designed for the mobile ecosystem. While there are some updates we’d like to see in the future, this represents a good starting point for where Apple-approved game emulation can go on iOS.

Now, the rest of the Ars Technica post delves mostly into a review of the app itself, what it does well, and what it fails at. And that’s all fine, but the point here is that emulation outside of the strict control of Apple and/or console-makers appears to be officially back in the App Store. I can already hear the gnashing of teeth from the folks at Nintendo over all of this, and I certainly don’t expect that we won’t hear from the company in some disapproving form on this and other emulators that might appear, but they really don’t have much of a leg to stand on.

As we’ve mentioned in the past, emulators are not, by themselves, infringing on copyright typically. They don’t typically ship with BIOS files to make the emulator do its thing. Nor do they ship with ROMs that might be infringing. Instead, it’s a tool with plenty of legitimate uses. Homebrew games for old consoles are out there. Games where the companies that made and published them no longer exist, in some cases with rights never having been bought or transferred to another entity exist. Ripped ROMs from owned games by individuals exist.

So the emulator embargo is gone. Somehow, I don’t believe that companies like Nintendo are going to see their livelihoods ruined as a result.

Filed Under: app store, emulator, ios
Companies: apple

Apple Threatens To Remove Top Nostr App Because It Allows Tipping

from the it-doesn't-take-nostradamus-to-see-this-ends-badly dept

I’ve mentioned a few times that one of the decentralized social media services I’m following closely is nostr, which is an incredibly lightweight protocol, enabling lots of people to (very simply) create their own relays and clients. Unlike Mastodon or Bluesky, Nostr isn’t federated. You don’t join a server. You just get a key pair… and go (and, yes, I realize even that is too complicated for some, which may limit eventual adoption)*.

But the extremely decentralized setup, combined with the simplicity of the protocol, has resulted in a ton of third party development on nostr over just the past few months. When I first checked it out in December it was… very limited and very buggy. But every month or so, as new clients and features are added, it gets better and better. While it still has some rough edges, it’s starting to look like a truly decentralized, fully functional social media system.

Of course, given the lightweight nature of the protocol, most users’ experience is actually driven by their client choice, and different clients have different features, but they do seem to be converging on features over time.

Probably the first of the fully functional clients was Damus (get it? nostr… damus??), which is an iPhone app. It actually had been initially rejected from the app store, before being allowed in in early February.

However, in the last few months, one of the things that many nostr clients have adopted is the concept of “zaps,” sending money to other nostr users. And, yes, they’re doing so using Bitcoin (actually, the Lightning Network, which is a “second-layer” to Bitcoin to help it scale), so feel free to groan. Even if you’re a cryptocurrency skeptic (or hater), it is interesting to see how the economy around it is developing in nostr. And you don’t need to use cryptocurrency at all to use nostr.

However, it appears that Apple decided to freak out this week after realizing that users on nostr can send each other money without Apple getting its cut. And so it threatened to kick nostr out of the App Store:

This is… somewhat silly. “Zaps” and the transfer of money are not directly a Damus feature. It’s part of nostr. It’s kind of like saying that no browser could be in the App Store because someone might use it to PayPal someone without giving Apple its 30% cut.

Eventually, Apple apparently told Damus’ developer that they can continue to allow payments (“zaps”) on profiles, but not on individual posts, because that’s… “selling digital content” according to a very confused Apple person:

Except… that’s not right either. Zaps are literally just a kind of tipping.

And, again, you can think all of this is silly. Nostr, zaps, all of it. But even so, you should recognize how very problematic it is when Apple is basically saying you can’t have any app in the app store that connects you to a protocol that allows money to exchange hands… unless Apple gets its cut.

I get that Apple is looking at this (incorrectly) through the prism of a world in which every service and every app is some centralized thing run by a single company. But this isn’t that. This is a decentralized protocol that happens to have the possibility of transferring money, as tips, built in to many of the clients.

I can kind of understand Apple’s position when dealing with centralized services, even if it’s still somewhat silly. But with a decentralized protocol, this just looks completely clueless. If it were Apple enabling the payments, then, sure, take a cut. But Damus is basically just a browser of the nostr protocol.

As we see more decentralized services take off, someone at Apple is going to need to learn how they work, because this is just embarrassing.

* Also, the screenshots I posted above are all from nostr, but I find it amusing that basically every news source I’ve seen covering this story (including the crypto focused ones) is showing the comments Damus’ developer made on Twitter, not on nostr. Which seems odd. But perhaps points to the media not really using nostr much yet either, and even more to the point: on the difficulty in getting started with nostr.

Filed Under: app store, damus, in-app payments, nostr, tipping, zaps
Companies: apple

Google Finally Restores ‘Downloader’ App To Store

from the insanity dept

A couple of weeks back, we discussed how Google had delisted the app Downloader from the Play Store after a DMCA notice was issued by a firm representing several Israeli TV networks. The problem with all of this is simple: Downloader doesn’t have anything to do with copyright infringement or piracy. All it does is combine a file manager and basic web browser. The DMCA notice centered on the latter, complaining that users could get to piracy sites from the browser. You know, just like you can from any browser.

Well, take heart, dear friends, because Google reinstated Downloader on the Play Store 20 days after it was removed.

Google has reversed the suspension of an Android TV app that was hit with a copyright complaint simply because it is able to load a pirate website that can also be loaded in any standard web browser. The Downloader app, which combines a web browser with a file manager, is back in the Google Play Store after nearly a three-week absence.

In addition to the rejected appeal, Saba filed a DMCA counter-notification with Google. That “started a 10-business-day countdown for the [TV companies’] law firm to file legal actions against me,” Saba wrote today. “Due to the app being removed on a Friday and the Memorial Day holiday, 10 business days had elapsed with no word from the law firm on June 6th and I contacted Google to have the app reinstated.”

All of which is why Google, further down the article, is quoted as saying they followed the standard playbook to DMCA takedown notices. The counter-notification kicked off that process, giving the firm that issued the original notice time to decide whether to file a lawsuit or not, which it presumably did not. The quote has all the hallmarks of Google resting on that process to wipe its hands clean of the whole situation.

But that’s stupid. It also serves as an example proving Saba’s point: the DMCA takedown process is broken. That a bunch of foreign TV networks can get a perfectly legit app removed from the app store for weeks just by pushing paperwork around is absurd.

As is Google’s continued inability to get things right with regard to this particular app.

In yet another example of the Google Play Store’s absurdity, Google had determined that my app collected email addresses without declaring so. Since there is no way for my app itself to collect email addresses, and without any additional information or help from Google, I can only assume that Google is referring to the email mailing list signup form on this website, which loads by default in the web browser of the Downloader app.

Once again, that isn’t the app doing a thing; it’s the web browser doing it if someone signs up to be on an email list.

So, the app is back, a lawsuit has not yet been filed, and everyone will probably forget about this entire thing, meaning the broken nature of the DMCA process will remain broken. Bang up job all around.

Filed Under: android, app store, copyright, dmca, dmca takedown, downloader, play store
Companies: google

Google Nixes ‘Downloader’ App From Store After DMCA Says Its Browser Can Get To Piracy Sites

from the bye-bye-browsers! dept

As anyone who reads this site regularly will know, DMCA abuse happens all the time. Typically you see this sort of thing resulting from clear attempts to hobble a competitor, or to silence content someone doesn’t want to see, or pure trolling for the purposes of producing mayhem. But we also see this kind of “abuse” stemming from entities, foreign and domestic, that simply don’t know the strictures under which DMCA and copyright law actually operate.

A potential example of this would be what just happened to an app called “Downloader,” which was bounced from the Google Play store after a DMCA notice from a law firm representing several Israeli television organizations. The app’s creator, Elias Saba, shared the details of the notice Google sent to him, as well as his confusion over why any of this is happening, given what his app actually is and does.

“You can see in the DMCA description portion that the only reason given is the app being able to load a website,” Saba told Ars. “My app is a utility app that combines a basic file manager and a basic web browser. There is no way to view content in the app other than to use the web browser to navigate to a website. The app also doesn’t present or direct users to any website, other than my blog at www.aftvnews.com, which loads as the default homepage in the web browser.”

Saba also detailed his frustrations with the takedown in a blog post and a series of tweets. “Any rational person would agree that you can’t possibly blame a web browser for the pirated content that exists on the Internet, but that is exactly what has happened to my app,” he wrote on his blog.

He follows up in a later comment with the exact question I would have: if “Downloader” is going to be nixed from the Play Store, then so should every other browser application in the store. Like, oh I don’t know, Google Chrome. After all, if Chrome can get to that site, and it can, then the same complaint can be lodged against Chrome.

And whether this is simple ignorance or true DMCA fraud, the fact is that none of this makes sense from a DMCA perspective. And, yet:

Saba said he filed appeals on Friday through the Google Play Console and Google’s DMCA counter notification form. Saba’s Google Play Console appeal was rejected within about an hour, but he’s still waiting for a response to the appeal filed via Google’s DMCA counter notification form, he told Ars today.

“We’ve reviewed your appeal request but we’re still unable to reinstate your app,” the Google Play appeal rejection notice said on Friday.

My wild guess is that once an actual conversation happens between Saba and Google so that he can explain what his app actually does, it will be reinstated. The app is still in a published state on other stores, such as for the Amazon FireTV. There is absolutely no reason it should have been delisted from the Play Store.

Filed Under: app store, copyright, dmca, downloader, elias saba, google play, play store
Companies: google

Big News: Apple Will Allow Outside App Stores In Response To EU Law

from the opening-up-is-good dept

Here’s some potentially very big news in the world of the mobile internet: after years of refusing to do so, Apple is finally going to allow third party app stores on iOS devices. This has been a discussion for a long, long time. Many people forget now, but the app store didn’t even exist until the second generation of iPhones. On the first version, the only thing allowed were web apps, and frankly, that state of affairs was probably better for those who believe in an open, interoperable internet.

However, there are limitations to what can be done in web apps, and (especially) the ability of such apps to reach into deeper parts of the phone to take advantage of other phone-related services, which could make apps faster and more powerful. So, Apple pretty quickly launched its app store, which it made sure was basically the only way to get apps onto the phone. Google, on the other hand, has allowed third party app stores and direct sideloading of apps on Android for years, but more recently has tended to make that more and more difficult — even paying wireless carriers to not develop their own app stores.

Both Apple and Google have long insisted that putting themselves in as gatekeepers helps ensure a higher level of security, by allowing their teams to review apps more carefully before they can reach phones. In practice, however, it doesn’t always work that way. Security compromising apps still get through. And we hear stories of apps being blocked for what certainly appear to be anti-competitive reasons.

So, this new move is a big one. It appears to be in direct response to the Digital Markets Act in the EU, which is set to take effect shortly.

The main new European law, dubbed the Digital Markets Act, takes effect in the coming months, but companies aren’t required to comply with all of the rules until 2024. Government officials in the US and other countries have pushed for similar laws but haven’t gotten as far as the EU yet.

The act requires technology companies to allow the installation of third-party apps and let users more easily change default settings. The rules demand that messaging services work together and that outside developers get equal access to core features within apps and services.

The laws apply to technology companies with market valuations of at least €75 billion ($80 billion) and a minimum of 45 million monthly users within the EU.

The report from Bloomberg notes that Apple seems to be doing this grudgingly, and notes that “it hasn’t been a popular initiative within Apple” and that “engineers working on the plan also see it as distraction from typical day-to-day development of future features.” Which, sure, whatever. You’ll get over it. Having more sideloading should open up more opportunities for innovation, which could make your devices more useful. Enough with thinking everything needs a gatekeeper.

And, in fact, now that it’s close to being required, we’re seeing that for all the talk from Apple about the security risks associated with this, they may be figuring out ways to deal with that:

To help protect against unsafe apps, Apple is discussing the idea of mandating certain security requirements even if software is distributed outside its store. Such apps also may need to be verified by Apple — a process that could carry a fee. Within the App Store, Apple takes a 15% to 30% cut of revenue.

Of course, we’ll need to see the details of how all this works in practice, but on the whole this is a good thing.

Now, here in the US, we’ve talked about bills that would effectively try to do the same thing, and while supportive of the concept, the bill that made its way through Congress, the Open Apps Market Act, had serious problems in that it had added language, at the request of certain Republican lawmakers, to make the bill a content moderation bill in disguise. There are ways to fix that, but if Apple just moves forward with being more open in general, we wouldn’t even need such a bill in the US anyway.

Filed Under: 3rd party app stores, app store, competition, dma, eu, open app markets, sideloading
Companies: apple

Apple Gives Chinese Government What It Wants (Again); Pulls Quran App From Chinese App Store

from the consequences-of-heavy-buy-in dept

Apple has generally been pretty good about protecting users from government overreach, its recent voluntary (and misguided) foray into client-side scanning of users’ images notwithstanding. But that seemingly only applies here in the United States, which is going to continue to pose problems for Apple if it chooses to combat local overreach while giving foreign, far more censorial governments greater and greater control.

Like many other tech companies, Apple has no desire to lose access to one of the largest groups of potential customers in the world. Hence its deference to China, which has seen the company do things like pull the New York Times app in China following the government’s obviously bullshit claim that the paper was a purveyor of “fake news.”

Since then, Apple has developed an even closer relationship with the Chinese government, which culminated in the company opening data centers in China to comply with the government’s mandate that all foreign companies store Chinese citizens’ data locally where it’s much easier for the government to demand access.

On a smaller scale, Apple pulled another app — one that encrypted text messages on platforms that don’t provide their own encryption — in response to government demands. Once again, Apple left Chinese citizens at the mercy of their government, apparently in exchange for the privilege of selling them devices that promised them security and privacy while actually offering very little of either.

The latest acquiescence by Apple will help the Chinese government continue its oppression of the country’s Uighur minority — Muslim adherents that have been subjected to religious persecution for years. Whoever the government doesn’t cage, disappear, or genocide into nonexistence will see nothing but the bottom of a jackboot for years to come. Apple is aiding and abetting the jackboot, according to this report by the BBC.

Apple has taken down one of the world’s most popular Quran apps in China, following a request from officials.

Quran Majeed is available across the world on the App Store – and has nearly 150,000 reviews. It is used by millions of Muslims.

The BBC understands that the app was removed for hosting illegal religious texts.

The app is developed by Pakistan Data Management Services, a software company that dates back nearly 50 years. China pretty much owns Pakistan at this point, but this has nothing to do with Pakistan’s purchased allegiance to the Chinese government, and everything to do with punishing religious beliefs (and believers) the Chinese government doesn’t like.

Apple’s compliance cuts off access to nearly 1 million Chinese users of the app, as the BBC reports. This is happening despite the fact the Chinese government pays lip service to a limited form of religious freedom.

The Chinese Communist Party officially recognises Islam as a religion in the country.

And yet, it claims the primary religious text of the faith is “illegal.

Apple is also at least partly owned by China, albeit not in any formal sense. It relies heavily on Chinese manufacturing to produce its devices. This means Apple faces both upline and downline issues if it refuses to comply with the Chinese government’s demands. The company is in a difficult position, what with shareholders in the US (and all over the world) expecting continued growth and profitability. But it’s not as though it’s an impossible situation. Sometimes you have to sacrifice profits for principle.

Apple — with its reliance on Chinese manufacturing — may be in too deep to make a principled stand. China has the upper hand for now. If Apple wants to continue to be seen as a world leader in device security and personal privacy protections, it needs to start figuring out how to end its abusive relationship with the Chinese government.

Filed Under: app store, china, content moderation, ios, quran, religion
Companies: apple

Google Facing Yet Another Antitrust Lawsuit Over Its App Store Practices, Even Though Android Is Quite Permissive

from the not-sure-I-get-this-one dept

Another day, another antitrust lawsuit against Google. This one, filed by 36 states and Washington DC, says that the company’s practices regarding its Android app store violate antitrust law. This is now the fourth antitrust lawsuit filed by various governments in the US against Google. There’s the DOJ lawsuit, one from nine state AGs, another from 10 state AGs, and now this new one. I get that everyone wants to hate on the big tech companies these days, and they also want to throw a bunch of things at the wall, but would it really have been that difficult to go through all of this in one single lawsuit?

As with the previous lawsuits, this one leaves me scratching my head. I kept expecting there to be some bombshell or some smoking gun. But, once again, this lawsuit seems to take things that were done for perfectly reasonable reasons and attack them as anti-competitive.

The oddest thing, of course, is that of any “app store” out there, Android is the most permissive around. Apple’s iOS is much more restrictive. You can’t get apps onto an iPhone without first getting them approved by Apple. Ditto for other proprietary platforms like video game consoles. Google, on the other hand, allows users to sideload apps and also to install alternative app stores entirely. For example, Amazon has long had its own Android app store (and, notably, in the new version of Windows, users will be able to install Android apps on their desktop machines via Amazon’s app store). That’s a lot more open than most similarly situated platforms.

The complaint makes a big deal about how Google “discourages” people from sideloading apps or using alternative app stores:

Although Google leaves open the technical possibility for Android consumers to acquire some apps without using the Play Store, this can only be accomplished through a competing app store installed on the device (either through preloading by an OEM or through the user sideloading the store), or through sideloading of individual apps. Google takes various steps to discourage OEMs from directly competing or sponsoring any app store competition. Google makes the sideloading process unnecessarily cumbersome and impractical by adding superfluous, misleading, and discouraging security warnings and by deterring users by requiring them to grant permission multiple times for a single app installation (discussed in more detail in Sections I.C. and I.D. below). The effect of Google?s conduct is to practically eliminate competition in Android app distribution.

But, uh, this kinda leaves out some of the details here — which is that earlier, when Google was much more permissive about sideloading apps, there were lots of complaints about the dangers of sideloading and third party app stores. Indeed, some device makers used to refer to Android allowing sideloading as creating a “chaotic cesspool” of security problems and piracy.

In response, Google did get more serious about making sure users really understood the risks and really wanted to install 3rd party apps. But, again, it still does allow this — much more readily than others. And yes, it’s true that this probably makes it more difficult for third party app stores to survive, but if Google didn’t do this it would also be slammed left, right, and center by everyone for not “policing” its phones and allowing security risks and piracy to run rampant. It’s a damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation.

I don’t disagree that it would be nice if Google were more open to 3rd party app stores, and didn’t necessarily make you jump through so many hoops, but is that seriously an antitrust violation? Even the market definition (the key to any antitrust case) is… weird. Obviously, how you define the market will show whether or not there’s a monopoly — and if you define the market as “the products that only this company makes” then of course that’s a monopoly. But that’s not really relevant for a question of whether or not there is anti-competitive behavior. But here, these states have come up with a market definition that is basically just Android. They’re not even doing the “mobile operating system” market. Instead, they claim that the relevant market is specifically “the licensable mobile OS market” — meaning that Apple iOS (which is not licensable from Apple) is excluded.

The licensable mobile OS market also excludes OSs that are unsuitable for mobile devices, such as OSs for simple cell phones, ?flip phones,? or feature phones, or for other electronic devices (such as laptop computers, desktop computers, and gaming consoles, e.g., Nintendo DS, Xbox, PlayStation) that are not mobile devices.

If I’m reading this right, they’re actually suggesting that if Google had decided not to license its OS, and not to let competing device manufacturers build their own competing phones, then they would have less of an antitrust case against Google. And that seems… weird? And kind of nonsensical.

Maybe I’m missing something here, but it seems like Apple’s control of iOS is a lot more strict, ditto for Nintendo, Microsoft with Xbox, and Sony with the PlayStation. Google’s decision to license its OS and enable much wider competition, as well as allowing some sideloading and 3rd party app stores, seems a hell of a lot more competitive than all those other services — and yet that’s all being used against Google, but not the others?

It also seems like this lawsuit may run into the same problem that resulted in various states’ lawsuits against Facebook to get tossed: why now? Android has acted this way for years, and why are these state AGs suddenly deciding it’s a problem?

I’m all for having more competition at every level of the stack, but I’m confused as to how this is a legitimate antitrust claim.

Filed Under: 3rd party app stores, android, antitrust, app store, competition, licensable mobile operating system, market definition, mobile operating systems, play store, sideloading
Companies: google