EU Probes Apple's Decision to Shut Down Epic's Developer Account

https://www.macrumors.com/2024/03/07/eu-probes-apple-termination-epic-account/

by dataking • 2 years ago

106 104 2 years ago

akmarinov• 2 years ago

What's Apple's reasoning here?

An american subsidiary lied once and an american court said they didn't have to keep them around, so we kicked a european subsidiary out of the european mandated DMA.

Yeah, that's gonna go over great with the EU. Apple really deserves the 10% of global revenue fine to be brought down a peg.

thallium205• 2 years ago

They don’t want a litigious bad mouthing customer onboard so they fired them. It’s a story as old as time that happens daily.

b800h• 2 years ago

That might work if you're a local plumber, but not if you're a massive global firm with a de-facto monopoly.

pavlov• 2 years ago

Things are different when you’re in antitrust crosshairs and have been designated a “gatekeeper” by new legislation that explicitly intends to force you to open your product to competitors.

It’s not a great look when your first action in that gatekeeper role is to block access to a competitor because of actions the competitor’s parent company took years ago in another country and a different jurisdiction.

scottfr• 2 years ago

Epic is not a customer of Apple.

Many of Apple's customers are also customers of Epic.

Apple is trying to prevent those shared customers from accessing Epic.

andylynch• 2 years ago

Enabling adverse risk interoperability is a main point of the Digital Markets Act.

misnome• 2 years ago

an american court said they didn't have to keep them around

They also said that they didn’t have to keep any subsidiaries around.

It’s not even _pretending_ to be an independent subsidiary.

_cenw5• 2 years ago

US law does not apply in the EU, and having subsidiaries in the EU is common and almost required for GDPR compliance.

voidUpdate• 2 years ago

Didn't Epic Games violate the app store ToS a while back? I'm not a fan of Apple but it still seems reasonable to me to terminate a developer account for breaking ToS

JanSt4• 2 years ago

You can't just use your ToS to circumvent the law of the market you operate in. If they have to allow Epic to operate in the EU under the DMA they can't kick them out unless it's in compliance with EU law. The EU law overpowers Apple's ToS.

jsnell2• 2 years ago

It's not reasonable when Apple has set up artificial roadblocks whereby Epic can't compete with Apple in the iOS app store market without a developer account. As of yesterday, Apple is legally mandated to enable competition in that market, so using those roadblocks to aggressively block competition is a pretty big problem.

Apple could easily resolve this by just removing their their bogus constraints around the requirements for launching a competing app store on iOS. After that they could probably keep Epic banned all they want from the main App Store based on future ToS violations. (Though with the caveat that the ToS would need to be reasonable, and it seems clear that Apple has no intent of making a reasonable ToS unless forced).

But they're not going to do that, are they? None of Apple's restrictions were about security or user safety, they were always intended as an exclusionary measures, to make sure nobody can launch a viable competing store. When it looked like Epic was going to do it despite the ridiculous business terms, Apple reached for the next excuse in their toolbox.

prmoustache6• 2 years ago

Well it seems reasonable to me they terminate their developer account ONLY AND ONLY IF a developer account is not mandatory to be able to have a foot in the iOS market.

Apple has the responsibility to safeguard apps delivered by its own store, but it will be each third party store responsibility to do the same while also complying to EU laws.

jemmyw• 2 years ago

My understanding is that they had to break the ToS to take it to court. I mean they could have taken it to court anyway but they wouldn't have had standing.

cultureswitch2• 2 years ago

Yes they did?

Violating some company's ToS is completely irrelevant when it comes to actual laws.

And more importantly, it makes no sense that Epic has to interact with Apple at all in order to sell software to owners of Apple products. Apple has implemented systems which makes this very hard or impossible for non-expert users. Which means Apple violates basic principles of ownership.

margana2• 2 years ago

This might be fine if Apple allowed creating alternate App Stores and developing apps for that store to be done without a developer account. However, the alternate App Store is a right granted to Epic by an EU regulation, so Apple can't just block them from doing it because they didn't follow the ToS for APPLE's App Store.

stingraycharles• 2 years ago

A US judge ruled that Epic has a pattern of “malicious compliance”.

Epic created a new account in Sweden so they can create an App Store in the EU.

Apple used the judge’s reasoning of a pattern of malicious compliance to preemptively shut down Epic’s account. Because they believe Epic will not play by the rules.

So it’s a kind of pre-crime reasoning, they’re shutting down Epic’s account before they can do anything wrong. And probably also because Epic publicly criticized Apple’s malicious compliance around the EU rulings.

KptMarchewa• 2 years ago

A US judge ruled that Epic has a pattern of “malicious compliance”.

Seems like a great fit for Apple.

prmoustache6• 2 years ago

Isn't “malicious compliance” the business model of Apple and most successful companies?

lagadu3• 2 years ago

Apple used the judge’s reasoning

Using an American court's decision as a basis to try and break EU law tends to very well over on our side of the pond. Good luck with that.

lapcat2• 2 years ago

A US judge ruled that Epic has a pattern of “malicious compliance”.

What "pattern" are you referring to? There was one incident with Fortnite, and Apple banned Fortnite permanently immediately after that one incident.

TheLoafOfBread• 2 years ago

If European judge would decide anything about European company operating in USA, do you honestly believe that American judge would even consider it?

margana2• 2 years ago

The thing here is that the potential "crime" they were trying to prevent is opening an App Store in the EU, which EU literally forced Apple to allow. So if this was the reasoning, then Apple is the one breaking the law here.

TheAceOfHearts• 2 years ago

I don't understand what Apple executives are even thinking to keep engaging in these actions. How do they justify continuing to burn bridges with developers and tarnish their reputation in the public eye?

rapsey2• 2 years ago

Their market share makes them arrogant. They are very much like Microsoft in the 90s.

graemep• 2 years ago

Microsoft did not suffer much as a result. They mostly got away with anti-competitive behaviour.

tempodox• 2 years ago

Despots and bullies are the same everywhere. They bully while they can.

_cenw5• 2 years ago

Thankfully EU legislation has very severe penalties built-in that are mostly deterrants (think the 4% turnover maximum GDPR fine), but if anyone deserves to be hit with the full force of the law, it's Apple.

Even Meta, who are also happy to rack up fines instead of fixing their privacy issues, aren't this reckless.

benreesman3• 2 years ago

I’ve had my disagreements with Meta’s leadership (I quit after all) but they do try hard to comply with the law on privacy. It’s a hard, hard problem that they spend a lot of money on.

The results have been mixed: they should probably spend even more.

In general these are some of the “least evil” people in the valley. I have personal disputes with some of them, some mutually pretty unpleasant. But that increases, not decreases my responsibility to be fair.

Bosworth in particular is about as close to a good guy as you can be in a job like that.

I don’t think very highly about how I’ve been treated personally, but that’s irrelevant to the broader point: Meta’s team is playing at the “least rough” end of the field. They’re great on open models and research, their lobbying is at the low, low end of shady (by the dismal standards of the day), employees have historically been treated well, it’s less bad.

If you want to get on them about something, the availability of Reels to minors needs to change.

ankit2194• 2 years ago

Think Apple's argument about Epic having previously flouted the rules openly might be good enough. For a third party app store, Apple is pretty much giving the keys to your phone to the said app store. If there is a company which has demonstrated they won't play by the rules, it's not a huge stretch to say that it may harm the security of the model. While the EU wants the company/iphone to be more open, it also puts the onus of keeping it secure on the company itself.

Another reason I believe they are on sure footing is that they got the rejection from the law firm, which I presume knows what they are doing, just as they did during the 2020 shenanigans from Epic.

goosedragons• 2 years ago

There shouldn't be rules from the manufacturer about what a third party app store can do. If so, this scheme is already a complete failure.

ankit2194• 2 years ago

How do you ensure security of a device without rules from a manufacturer?

jsnell2• 2 years ago

If Apple's security model really is that weak, it sure sounds like they should pull their products off the market until they fix it.

cultureswitch2• 2 years ago

The problem with that argument is that Apple is demonstrably incapable or unwilling of securing their devices, despite the walled garden. Pegasus and a dozen other spyware exploit iOS vulnerabilities which have remained open for at least a couple of _years_ and Apple seemingly doesn't care.

The only way to secure a device is to actually give control of the device to the user. But that would imply no more Apple tax, so Apple would rather die on that hill than follow the DMA. Add to that their psychopathic need for control.

JanSt4• 2 years ago

Really interesting to see how hard Apple is fighting with everything they have to keep their profits and not open up. This is a fight Apple can't win because the EU will strike back again and again. It's Apple trying to win time and thus bank profits. But I believe the strategy will fail hard: high fines and even tighter regulations that will break up Apple's monopoly completely, much broader than intented before. The more actions like this one Apple takes to squash competition, the stronger the rules will be that will be forced upon them.

_cenw5• 2 years ago

At this point I'm wondering what happens if the EU invokes their malicious compliance clause, and tells Apple outright what to do. Will they just refuse and hope they don't lose the EU market?

I think one point lost in most of these conversations is that the existence of an open iOS will spawn a lot of "change your region to Europe" how-to articles in the rest of the world, creating an escape hatch from the walled garden (and finally a good reason to use a VPN), similar to what Apple keeps attacking sideloading for. Maybe they'd rather keep control of their other markets than be in the EU one.

JanSt4• 2 years ago

Refusing is moot. They make $3bn profit every month in the EU. Shareholders would certainly send Cook off if Apple loses access to the EU market. Apple will play this game until the EU takes the gloves off, and they will.

rapsey2• 2 years ago

There is zero chance of Apple abandoning the EU market. It is simply too large.

newbie578• 2 years ago

Time for the fines to start accumulating. I am all for making an example out of Apple. Monopolistic behavior needs to be punished.

supermatt• 2 years ago

Apple must have realised this would provide direct evidence of their control over the iOS app market, regardless of their apparent compliance with the DMA. The loss of a developer account means that epic cant even release their own app store on apple devices, undermining apples responsibility to open up to competition. Cant wait to see how big the next fine is *grabs popcorn*

JanSt4• 2 years ago

Yeah it could even lead the EU to mandate that no business relation to Apple is required to operate your store and Apple has no saying whatsoever over you and may not charge you for installs, updates etc. Also, no penalties or changes may be applied to Apps choosing to use other stores. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

This might lead to a complete opening-up of the iPhone as a result for the EU market.

dns_snek4• 2 years ago

This is why their petulant behavior, as brazen as it is, doesn't really bother me. Every action they take just provides further evidence and support for further anti-trust action that will affect the entire big tech industry. Now it's up to the regulators to deliver on enforcement and take a bite out of the poisoned apple.

anon3738392• 2 years ago

Apple’s recent behavior in Europe sure is perplexing to me. The arrogance suggests a kind of legal naïveté that a $2.6T multinational can’t possibly have. It must be a calculation. Do they figure Washington will pull strings to bail them out of their predicament?

lagadu3• 2 years ago

Much like the usb charging situation, it's a delaying tactic. Of course they're aware that this isn't something they can win but they can fight and delay it for as long as possible in order to both have some profits from it while it lasts and to weaken the competitor's (in this case Epic) position by delaying their entry in the market.

anon3738392• 2 years ago

If so, I hope Europe prices the fines high enough to make the strategy backfire.

EU Probes Apple's Decision to Shut Down Epic's Developer Account

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