Thierry Breton: Under DMA, there is no room for threats by gatekeepers

https://twitter.com/ThierryBreton/status/1765793776692326891

by beejiu • 2 years ago

132 92 2 years ago

input_sh• 2 years ago

Dupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39627240

Kuinox• 2 years ago

This is not a dupe. The post you linked is an article based on another paywalled article about EU starting an investigation.

Here it's an EU official making a statement about Apple actions.

zx8080• 2 years ago

Sounds like the eu-us trade war 2.0 (?).

ginko2• 2 years ago

Why do (mostly Americans) always make this out to be an EU vs. US thing? This is about getting large companies to stop abusing their market dominance.

If anything people in the US should be glad the EU is doing this, since it might also benefit them in the long term.

cryptonym• 2 years ago

Agree. That rhetoric is mostly used to defend multi-bilions companies, even when that's against consumer and market interest.

soco6• 2 years ago

Why do people criticize the idea of unionizing? Why do people defend any action of big companies? Why do dictators have followers? Why do people act against their own interest? There are entire sciences dedicated to answering this...

bryanrasmussen3• 2 years ago

Well relatively a lot of people on HN have worked at big tech companies, hope to work there in the future, or are currently working there - anyone matching one of those criteria might be more inclined to view it as an EU vs. U.S thing and arguing that it is the EU being mad because they can't make any of that U.S big tech magic happen in their area.

nottorp• 2 years ago

There's a strong "large" fetish which I think is mostly an US cultural problem.

It probably started with public companies not paying dividends and instead rewarding the shareholders by share price increases.

This means they have to grow indefinitely. The logical outcome is having one all-encompassing monopoly that handles everything. Kinda like a state economy, but they don't get the irony.

dns_snek• 2 years ago

Part of the reason seems to be that a significant chunk of them have apparently forgotten that antitrust laws and enforcement are hard requirements for capitalism to actually work and deliver on any of its touted benefits.

Unregulated free market capitalism that so many people seem to root for (knowingly or unknowingly) is just a degenerate version of the system that invariably results in cartels, price-fixing, rent seeking, thought policing, human exploitation and suffering, which is really just a different version of the "communist" boogeyman that they fear for the same reasons.

hx8330012• 2 years ago

Many Americans do not like foreign governments attempting to take control of American corporations by government fiat. For instance, the EU insisting they can steal money from Apple based on its global revenue, rather than EU revenue, is obscene.

madsbuch2• 2 years ago

This has nothing to do with the US. This has something to do with a small set of companies (less than 10) and how they act in the EU.

Apple is free to do whatever they want that is legal in the US.

raverbashing• 2 years ago

Apple is free to do whatever they want that is legal in the US.

Yes but if Apple thinks nobody in the US will look at what's happening to Epic games from a competition point of view, they're wrong

CogitoCogito• 2 years ago

This applies equally to the US and EU companies operating in the EU.

rsynnott• 2 years ago

Apple could soon be the subject of a federal antitrust lawsuit, according to a report from The New York Times. The publication says that the US Department of Justice (DOJ) is in the “late stages” of an investigation into Apple and its moves to keep customers locked into its ecosystem.

Is it a US/US trade war, too?

Not everything is a trade war; sometimes a naughty company is just a naughty company.

rvense• 2 years ago

This is not a trade war, it's about the power balance between consumers, corporations and governments.

nonrandomstring2• 2 years ago

Can't give upvotes, but +1 for this insightful framing.

The "Police and thieves in the street" problem as I call it, is that in most discussions we hear about the two big noisy players duking it out for control.

In reality it's a three way struggle. By far the largest and most powerful group is often completely silent and omitted from the analysis.

"Consumers" or "Voters" (although I would prefer the term "people") are subsumed into the other camps, each claiming to "represent" the people.

Yet the silent, overwhelming majority are starting to reclaim a voice of their own. This is a worrying sign. Not because people shouldn't have a voice, but because it shows clearly that at best, governments and commercial markets are failing to represent the actual interests of people. Perhaps we've become complacent allowing plurality of power structures, unions, assemblies, societies etc to weaken?

baq• 2 years ago

IOW if you're a developer in EU you can now voice your stance (whatever it might be) about whether companies have only duties to their shareholders (not an easy sell in this case anyway) or perhaps they have some duties to the society they provide services to and benefit from.

I have no opinion whether Epic was a good customer or not. 'They were asking for it' sometimes isn't enough... maybe?

madsbuch2• 2 years ago

There is also this one: https://digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu/events-poolpage/app...

mjburgess8• 2 years ago

Pretty much every gov in the world regards there being a collective duty on markets to benefit society, and some duties on some companies.

The shareholder models isnt about de facto or de jure duties, it's about the practice of governance. Should boards regard shareholder interests as the primary setters of company goals (assuming all other required obligations are met).

This was tried, but wen't terribly, as customer interests dont align with shareholder interests-- and customers were lost.

This is, another lens on enshittification -- a switch back from customer to shareholder alignment

soco6• 2 years ago

The reason/pretext/excuse for governments to benefit companies is also the society - like providing jobs, trickle down, all that, of course with various degrees of efficiency and believability.

andybak• 2 years ago

IOW = "In other words"

(It's less common and therefore confusing for some. Probably best to write it out in full)

MrScruff• 2 years ago

I have to say, speaking as someone that is generally very happy to live in Apple's walled garden for my phone and couldn't really give a toss about Tim Sweeney's crusade, this most recent continuation of the Epic spat seems like a pretty spectacular own goal from Apple. I can't think of any non-emotive motivation for their actions, and I can see plenty of large downsides.

classified• 2 years ago

My guess would be greed and totalitarian power fantasies as motivations.

johnnyanmac3• 2 years ago

I can't think of any non-emotive motivation for their actions, and I can see plenty of large downsides.

Epic wants to play the long game. They want the Epic Games store on PC and mobile and Apple is half of mobile. Having an opportunity to become the Steam of mobile is a very valuable proposition, especially given that IOS was apparently less than 10% of Fortnite income.

I see it as the opposeite of emotive; it's a cold calculation playing a very long game with hopes of market capture in a scene where no one else seems to care about premium games (including Epic. But who knows how that will turn out over the decade).

aeurielesn• 2 years ago

I always thought Epic wanted to push Apple's button until they showed their true face which, by the way, it seems to have worked wonders on EU upon DMA.

pseudocomposer• 2 years ago

Of course… what’s to stop Valve letting Epic spend all this money on lawyers getting the market set up, and then simply making Steam, with its immense market share, developer support, and positive consumer sentiment, the Steam of iOS?

AFAIK the only reason anyone uses Epic Games Store is for Fortnite. Can Epic really count on that to carry them? It’s been a lasting fad for sure, but all fads end.

jauntywundrkind• 2 years ago

I think you misread the comment, no? The comment isn't about Epic, it's about Apple being temperamental & emotional & digging themselves into deeper and deeper trouble.

dann0• 2 years ago

I have sympathy for Apple. They are essentially being forced to do business with a known bad actor, and that bad actor has continually demonstrated a pattern of behaviour that is unreliable and untrustworthy.

But Apple really should have handled this better. Being made to look like the bad guys against Epic seems impossible, but they’ve done it.

I guess private toll operators can’t prevent repeat drunk drivers using their roads, even if they do the same “trust us, just because” nonsense Sweeney has written.

Vespasian3• 2 years ago

In a post DMA world they are forcing themselves to do business with Epic.

Their restrictions are the only reason why Epic can do what they are doing. If a developer account was not necessary to publish anything on iOS no one would care.

Tim Sweeney can (or hopes he can) get away with it because the DMA really doesn't care about feeling and limits the contractual freedom of the gatekeeper (aka Apple) at least in the spirit and quite likely also in the letter of the law after this goes to court (or if Apple folds of course)

yxhuvud• 2 years ago

The stance of EU is clearly that you should not have to do business with Apple to publish to the iPhone. As such, no one forces Apple to do any business with Epic.

fennecbutt3• 2 years ago

Apple is a bad actor lmao. They're selling houses and then setting up a bouncer at the door of the house you own to turn away people you invited, that Apple doesn't like and not giving you a choice in the matter.

reissbaker• 2 years ago

This is a good start, but they'll need to lay a pretty hefty fine on Apple if they want a result different from another malicious compliance shell game. As long as it's profitable for Apple to continue doing this kind of stuff, Apple's shown they'll keep doing it.

andersa• 2 years ago

In this case, the DMA theoretically allows a $38 billion fine for every year in which Apple shows any non-compliance (10% of global revenue, assuming it does not change from 2023 numbers)

Given this legislation was specifically created to tackle the Apple problem, and Apple is clearly intentionally failing to comply, they may want to make an example out of them and go straight for the maximum.

map222• 2 years ago

It can even go up to 20% for repeated infringement: https://www.eu-digital-markets-act.com/#:~:text=The%20Commis....

noirscape• 2 years ago

The Epic case is a textbook example as to why the DMA is needed.

Especially since Apple has given one of the easiest examples of gatekeeper abuse just by doing this; I kinda expected them to not be this boneheaded but they're really just going "we personally don't trust you, so piss off" because of the US lawsuit. Like, that doesn't fly anymore in the EU. Legally speaking, Apple has reached the size where regulators are recognizing that their gatekeeping has the potential to ruin the EUs free market and here we see that in action.

And mind - I don't like Epic Games in the slightest. They still shouldn't be gatekept from iOS because Apple personally dislikes them over the lawsuits.

bjornsing2• 2 years ago

EUs free market

You mean single market. It’s very far from free.

Jensson• 2 years ago

About as free as USA.

eastbound• 2 years ago

I can’t suppose the US, lead by Apple and Google, aren’t preparing a counter-attack on us (the EU).

There are many ways to weaken them using lobbying, or manipulate the laws by threatening MPs with the help of the CIA… The USA has a legendary set of tools for this, and why wouldn’t they use them — Europe is threatening the US corporate hegemony on European soil.

Which means soon those benevolent laws that we’re cheering as EU citizen will turn back upon us, and we’ll once again enjoy the same fate as our other public sectors.

RandomLensman2• 2 years ago

What happened to other public sectors and what are those?

realusername• 2 years ago

I can’t suppose the US, lead by Apple and Google, aren’t preparing a counter-attack on us (the EU).

They can but it's too little, too late now. The EU is very slow to move but once it's moving it's equally as hard to stop and change course.

fennecbutt3• 2 years ago

Lmao this dude wants the US to invade the EU because consumers are getting more rights.

aargh_aargh• 2 years ago

DMA = Digital Markets Act

https://digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu/about-dma_en

m000• 2 years ago

Well, that escalated quickly.

sylware• 2 years ago

This is only a small part of the pb.

The stuff happens on technical interop, client and server alike. Namely simple but able to do a good enough job, stable in time open protocols.

(smtp/irc/noscript&basic (x)html/etc)

Only regulation and legal can do things here as technically, eveything has always been there.

bjornsing2• 2 years ago

Maybe Thierry Breton has picked a good fight this time… That would certainly be a first.

dagmx4• 2 years ago

Genuine question, and I’m not trying to sealion:

Can the EU compel two companies to do business with each other under the DMA?

Like let’s forget about this preemptive block, and say that hypothetically either:

1. An app from a third party store does something malicious

2. A third party store does something against the system terms of use

Does the DMA compel the gatekeeper to continue enabling them? Or does it have some provisions for blocking them and under what terms those might be?

Edit to clarify: Put another way, Does the DMA allow for terms of service in the first place? If it doesn’t explicitly allow for it, does it explicitly disallow it.

And please, I am not asking for opinions on this, of which there are many I could have just read. I am legitimately asking for what the law says with regards to this specific point. I can’t find it myself so I asked here.

KptMarchewa2• 2 years ago

"Malicious" is debatable, "against the terms" is meaningless since laws > TOSes.

dagmx4• 2 years ago

You’re not really answering the question I’m asking though.

I am not asking whether TOS <> Laws or not. That is perhaps one step beyond what I’m asking.

I’m asking whether the Laws under the DMA have any mention in either direction on whether the gatekeepers have the ability to set (reasonable) terms and act against violation of those terms. Or is that undefined?

pquki4• 2 years ago

If Apple's reason to refuse to do business with Epic is explicitly and specifically forbbiden by DMA, why not? Otherwise what is DMA for?

lukeschlather2• 2 years ago

If Apple doesn't want to do business with Epic, they don't have to. Epic doesn't have to do business with Microsoft to provide a Windows installer. Apple is the one who is insisting that Epic is required to do business with them if they want to provide an iOS installer.

jonhohle• 2 years ago

Is Windows documentation unencumbered by copyright? Certainly you have to agree to Microsoft’s license for their documentation.

johnnyanmac3• 2 years ago

I can’t find it myself so I asked here.

Here you go: https://digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu/about-dma_en

pas• 2 years ago

It's a general principle that the ToS has to conform to the law.

(In other works the rules of DMA preempt whatever rules are in the ToS.

If the law explicitly says that parties can agree to opt-out of specific rules, then the ToS can say - in those specific questions - something different. More/less strict, better for one or the other party, etc.)

As linked by `johnnyanmac`, the DMA summary site explicitly says that gatekeepers have to allow 3rd parties to inter-operate with their services.

fennecbutt3• 2 years ago

There are already existing laws to compel one company to do business with another, in America and in the EU, even before DMA...

I think in the US it's refusal to deal.

And the EU can make companies do _anything_ they want to, within the jurisdiction of the EU. If they want to ban phones that are coloured green then they bloody well could, with the repercussions being fines, legal action and bans from the market.

Thierry Breton: Under DMA, there is no room for threats by gatekeepers

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