Today, we have opened five non-compliance investigations under the Digital Markets Act.
It concerns:
🔹Alphabet’s rules on steering in Google Play
🔹Alphabet’s self-preferencing in Google Search
🔹Apple’s rules on steering in the App Store
🔹Apple's choice screen for Safari
🔹Meta’s ‘pay or consent model’
NEW: WhatsApp will soon make it possible to chat with people who use other messaging apps. It's revealed some more details on how that will work.
— Apps will need to sign an agreement with Meta, then connect to its servers.
— Meta wants people to use the Signal Protocol, but also says other encryption protocols can be used if they can meet WhatsApp's standards
— WhatsApp has been testing with Matrix in recent months, although nothing is agreed yet. Swiss app Threema says it won't become interoperable
We are happy to confirm that your gift delivery service meets our #DigitalEU and Data Protection rules:
🎅 No record of personal data breaches
🎅 Valid consent obtained via kids' letters
🎅 Naughty kids have the right to be forgotten
🎅 Transparency and accountability remain the game’s rules
🎅 Fair and open treatment of toy makers or parents as per #DMA
We hope you enjoy a smooth and safe journey over our Single European Sky.
Apple is not your friend. The company that used the governments to become a monopoly, is now crying because the government told them to allow iPhone users to install applications from other sources.
We live in a world where we need government regulations to allow us to run whatever code we want on our computers.
Oh and stop calling it 'side loading'. It's just called 'installing software'. 😪
🔴 We designated Apple’s iPadOS as a gatekeeper under the Digital Markets Act.
Our investigation shows that its tablet operating system is an important gateway for businesses to reach consumers due to its large and commercially attractive user base and its importance for specific use cases.
We also discovered that Apple leverages its large ecosystem to disincentivise end users from switching to other tablet operating systems.
We will keep monitoring #DMA compliance very closely.
So, what exactly did Apple break in the EU 🇪🇺? A new blog post in which I analyze the current situation for Home Screen Web Apps on iOS 17.4 in the European Union.
Are you aware of harmful practices by companies under the Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act?
We've launched whistleblower tools to report violations of obligations by Very Large Online Platforms, Search Engines and gatekeepers under the #DSA and #DMA.
Why wait for Microsoft to catch up with what we've been doing for decades?
Get Plasma, a modern, fully functional, clean, privacy-respecting, non-intrusive operating system now, regardless from where you live and ditch Windows for good.
In the many discussions about #threads promise to add #activitypub support, regulations such as the #DMA and the #DSA, as well as the Canadian Online News Act have come up.
In this piece I dive deep into the specific articles of the Acts to see if they might impact Meta's decision making.
"Just like Apple, Meta is behaving as though the #DMA permits it to carry on its worst behavior, with minor cosmetic tweaks around the margins. Just like #Apple, #Meta is daring the #EU to enforce its democratically enacted laws, implicitly promising to pit its billions against #Europe’s institutions to preserve its right to spy on us."
I’m not sure who’s to blame in the #EU for giving up to the lobbying efforts of #Apple and #Microsoft (I can’t think of anything short of public official corruption behind the last minute reversal of the #DMA definition of “gatekeeper” for the two most valuable companies in the world), but these are some consequences of this decision:
If Apple isn’t labelled as a gatekeeper when it comes to #iMessage (an app used by 1.3B people), then they won’t have to comply and open up their walled garden to 3rd-party clients, while, for example, Messenger and WhatsApp will have to.
If Microsoft isn’t labelled as a gatekeeper when it comes to #Edge (a piece of software installed as the default browser on an OS used by at least 1.5B people), then they’ll be free to keep rewriting https:// URLs as microsoft-edge:https:// just for the sake of intercepting everything and breaking compatibility, they’ll no longer have to provide browser selection pop-ups on fresh Windows installations, and they can keep opening all the web views and PWA on Windows devices in their own browser without providing alternatives - while, for example, Chrome and Safari will have to comply.
Shame on the EU for bending to them. Shame on these companies. Shame on their filthy lobbying efforts. Shame on everybody who uses their products.
The DMA and the “gatekeeper” definition was supposed to be the proof that these companies are now run by responsible adults. Being a “gatekeeper” is the acknowledgment that you are running platforms used by billions, and with great power comes great responsibility - towards society, towards the rules of the open market, towards your own competitors.
My employer might be included on the list soon as well, and I’m more than happy to comply. Large tech companies like ours have enjoyed lavish profits and outrageous market shares and ignored anti-competition laws for too long: now it’s time to prove that we’re all grown ups who want to play by the rules.
Instead, Apple and Microsoft have unleashed their overpaid legal counsels and lobbying crews, who have engaged in a pathetic dance to gaslight Brussels officials, and force them to say that one of the largest messaging platforms and one of the most used browser in the world, run by the two companies with the highest evaluation in the world, for some reason are not expected to play by the rules written for everyone else.
Shame on them, and shame on the childish selfish sociopaths who run them.
The DMA is having an impact and the choice screen is coming! Soon you will be asked to select your browser of choice, when setting up a new phone or updating it. This only applies in the EU and Europe, at this time.
Soon it will be possible to run browsers on iOS that are not using Webkit. That is a big deal.
Apple is trying to frame it as dangerous.
Sadly it will only possible to run those browsers in the EU and browser makers need then to provide different browsers in the EU and outside. This requires more resources, which makes it harder for smaller developers.
Apple also wants developers to pay for the right to provide downloads from other app stores, which now become possible in the EU, and directly.
IMHO every user on an iPhone, as well as on any other device, should be allowed to run the browser of their choice!
We have introduced new whistleblower tools to help employees and other insiders report harmful practices of Very Large Online Platforms or Search Engines under the DSA and violations of obligations by gatekeepers under the DMA.
These tools are empowering whistleblowers to share relevant information anonymously, in any EU official language and format, from reports to data metrics and internal research.
Interesting... @apple (which is not on @Mastodon ) hates the #DMA but here they have been traped by their own logic, both on legal aspects and their reputation with apps developers and users
I'm very excited to be presenting at FOSDEM in February! I've been working on messaging interoperability for about 2 years now with much of that focus being on developing an open standard for that exact purpose. We'll be exploring how #Matrix works as an existing decentralized open standard for interoperable communications, and how other protocol development work interacts with Matrix.
Der Facebook-Messenger wird auch interoperabel, möglicherweise auch iMessage.
Anonyme Nutzung der teilnehmenden alternativen Messengerdienste bleibt übrigens möglich, und Daten erhält Whatsapp nur zu den dienstübergreifend verschickten Nachrichten.
Auch wenn Threema und Signal anfangs außen vor bleiben wollen, bin ich zuversichtlich, dass mit der Zeit immer mehr Messengerdienste mitmachen werden, denn Interoperabilität ist die Zukunft und bringt echten Wettbewerb und echte Wahlfreiheit!
🇬🇧Consumer-hostile #Whatsapp messenger will soon be interoperable - we #Pirates ensured this via the #DMA. In the coming months, we will be able to switch to better and open messenger services such as Matrix and continue to communicate with our consenting Whatsapp contacts securely and end-to-end encrypted across platforms using the Signal protocol. Wired reports: https://www.wired.com/story/whatsapp-interoperability-messaging/
Facebook Messenger will also become interoperable, possibly iMessage too.
Anonymous use of the participating alternative messenger services remains possible, and Whatsapp only receives data on messages sent across platforms.
Even if Threema and Signal want to stay on the sidelines at first, I am confident that more and more messenger services will join in over time, because interoperability is the future and brings real competition and real freedom of choice!
"It’s not just Big Tech that’s playing for all the marbles - it’s also the systems of democratic control and accountability. If Apple can sabotage the DMA’s insistence on taking away its veto over its customers’ software choices, that will spill over into the US Department of Justice’s case over the same issue, as well as the cases in Japan and South Korea."