The European Commission’s VP, Margrethe Vestager, casts doubt on the legality of the CTF (Core Technology Fee) and cautions Apple against denigrating the security of AppStore alternatives as a way to deny consumers the benefits of the #DMA
The #DigitalMarketsAct mandates Meta to "enable end users to freely choose to opt-in to [combining or cross-using personal data] by offering a less personalised but equivalent alternative".
When I pointed out to Meta that by offering users to either #consent to #SurveillanceAds or pay € 275 per year for #Instagram & #Facebook isn't "equivalent alternative" they said, Meta has to do that because of #GDPR 😤 Really??
Benieuwd hoe de Europese Unie Big Tech in bedwang probeert te houden? Kom op 2 mei naar de Staat van het Internet lezing met @kimvsparrentak. Ontdek hoe zij strijdt tegen de Internetgiganten en hun macht om zo Europese burgers te beschermen.
It is quite interesting. I am kind of thinking that a platform should be thankful for developer support, but Apple is making it very clear that all of us should be thankful for the privilege of our apps being allowed on their platform. They have spent so much time making APIs and the like, so they need to be paid for that by application vendors. Seems like they are not making enough from selling phones. They must be struggling.
I'm sitting in the @EU_Commission#DMA compliance workshop for #Apple right now and as much as I appreciate the format, it's frustrating to see that Apple is the only party on the panel and in addition has its proxies like #CCIA and the #AppAssociation#ACT in the audience that are allowed to ask convenient questions and steer the discussion in Apple's interest.
The thing that amazes me about Apple’s response to the #DMA is this: The DMA response is a project with a multibillion dollar impact and they’re putting in minimal effort. They’re half-assing it. It’s so weird.
Google rollt seine - dem Druck des #DMA geschuldeten - Änderungen am Pixel Launcher wohl gerade aus.
So berichten einige Nutzende dass ihnen nach einem spontanen Neustart ihres Gerätes alternative Suchmaschinen neben Google zur Auswahl gestellt wurden.
Spannend ist die doch sehr eingeschränkte Auswahl an Suchmaschinen, wobei ich als #DuckDuckGo Ultra zufrieden sein darf.
Meine Empfehlung wäre weiterhin, sein Pixel-Smartphone mittels @GrapheneOS weitestgehend zu entgoogeln. Wer den Aufwand scheut, darf sich über das (erzwungene) Entgegenkommen von Google dennoch freuen.
Sanity checking myself: does anyone else feel like the (US) punditry anger directed at the EU for forcing Apple to let devs sell things easily from a website and to ask users what default browser they want to use, is way more intense than any of the concessions (app censorship, 🇹🇼 flag vanishing, iCloud data moved to state-controlled data centers, etc.) they've made for China over the years?
My memory is the vibe for China stuff is always, “it's not good, but what can you do, it's the law 🤷♂️”
@gruber@matt The #DMA didn’t require Apple to implement a shitty browser choice screen. The poor quality of the implementation is on Apple. Apple gets to cut the cake and choose the slice. All they’ve got to do is cut the cake without being so ungracious as to smash their hands into the frosting because they feel like they should get to eat all the cake.
»#Firefox saw an increase in users following #Apple’s default browser changes in the EU.
Firefox spokesperson Christopher Hilton tells The Verge that the browser has seen a more than 50 percent jump in users in Germany and a nearly 30 percent increase in France«
The AI Act has been voted in Brussels. Still a major event - the first in the world such broad law for AI (still not as big of event as #GDPR or #DMA). Some would like to modify immediately. In the next term of the EC/EP.
It looks like #Apple is using salami tactics with the @EU_Commission on #DMA compliance, giving up tiny slices in hope that might sway (and shut up) the regulator and the public.
I sincerely hope the Commission's enforcement team is not being fooled by this.
Vor 10 Tagen hatte ich das Vergnügen, die Internationale Kartellkonferenz des Bundeskartellamts zu besuchen. Sie zeigte den positiven Kurswechsel zu einer strikteren Kartellpolitik, aber auch Herausforderungen und Reformbedarf von der #DMA-Umsetzung über KI.
➡️ Was ist nötig, damit KI nicht von Tech-Konzernen dominiert wird?
➡️ Wie können wir den Missbrauch von Marktmacht besser bekämpfen?
The EU finally sinks its regulatory teeth into tech titans
"Last week the six biggest operators – Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft and ByteDance – were forced to toe the line on competition, advertising, interoperability and more. It was a gamechanger [...]
The existential challenge for societies today is whether they are capable of reining in tech power. [... T]his is a critical experiment for democracies"
#EU#DMA#WhatsApp#Cybersecurity#Interoperability#Encryption: "Europe’s DMA mandates that interoperability should not weaken security and privacy: “The level of security—including end-to-end encryption where applicable—that the gatekeeper provides to its own end-users shall be preserved across the interoperable services.”
This was always going to be a near impossibility. End-to-end encryption with endpoint assurance clearly only works where the two “ends” can actually be assured, which means—realistically—they are the same. Two WhatsApp or iMessage or Signal apps. DMA envisages a world where Signal messages might be sent to WhatApp users. And that so-called interoperability, by its very nature, breaks that model.
As EFF warned back in 2022, “requiring interoperability without unacceptable tradeoffs in security or privacy is a very high hurdle, one that might turn out to be insurmountable.”
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!
@echo_pbreyer
Gibt es Neuigkeiten zum Thema #Interoperabilität#DMA ? Ich hatte das so verstanden, dass im März was passieren sollte, aber ich finde nichts aktuelles dazu.