Sure, too many choices can be overwhelming. But regardless of the number of options, context is paramount. Context makes decision-making that much easier, especially when the decision has an everyday impact.
And, with the web browser being an integral part of your everyday digital life at work or otherwise, it should be obvious that you're able to make an informed choice and pick from the best options given to you.
❌ However, this isn't the case for most of you.
Our CEO, Jón von Tetzchner @jon shared with Reuters that if you're using an iPhone, you see the list of browser choices only when you select Safari, with no additional information.
"The process is just so convoluted that it's easiest for (users) to select Safari or potentially some other known name." - Jon.
🇪🇺 This has prompted the European Commission to start a non-compliance investigation against Apple, in light of the recently enforced DMA (Digital Markets Act) to investigate whether Apple may be preventing you from truly exercising your choice of services, for example, with their design of the browser Choice Screen.
Clearly spring is in the air for turkeys, and while enjoying the seasonal wildlife activity I was also able to listen to some talks for my #AcademicRunPlaylist! (1/8)
In response to the European Union's DMA (Digital Market's Act) Apple’s current Choice Screen design is flawed as they look at it very narrowly, per platform and country.
We think priority should be given to cross-platform browsers.
The main browser choices should be visible and we aren't. Quality matters and we should be on the list for all countries.
Find out more about what we think about the current state of affairs with Apple's Browser Choice Screen.
Jedną ze zmian, które Apple musiał wprowadzić, aby zachować zgodność z unijną ustawą o rynkach cyfrowych (DMA), było przedstawienie klientom listy przeglądarek internetowych dla systemu iOS podczas jego konfiguracji. Przeglądarki muszą być wymienione w losowej kolejności, aby Safari nie było wyróżnione.
Właściciele iPhone’a w Europie są teraz proszeni przez system iOS o wybranie domyślnej przeglądarki internetowej podczas pierwszej konfiguracji urządzenia. Należy wyświetlić listę 11 najpopularniejszych przeglądarek, a ich kolejność musi być losowa. Własnej przeglądarki Safari, Apple nie może w żaden sposób wyróżnić.
To samo dotyczy telefonów z Androidem, gdzie przeglądarka Google Chrome nie jest traktowana w żaden specjalny sposób.
Przeglądarka Brave odnotowała gwałtowny wzrost zainteresowania po wprowadzeniu zmiany w iOS 17.4, a Reuters podaje, że to samo dotyczy innych przeglądarek. W tym Opery, o czym pisaliśmy.
Wszystkie sześć wiodących przeglądarek odnotowało wzrosty instalacji w UE od czasu debiutu iOS 17.4.
Dla przykładu, założona w 2016 r. firma Aloha, która reklamuje się jako skupiająca się na prywatności alternatywa dla przeglądarek należących do dużych technologii, ma średnio 10 mln użytkowników miesięcznie i zarabia na płatnych subskrypcjach, zamiast sprzedawać reklamy poprzez śledzenie użytkowników.
Wcześniej UE była naszym rynkiem numer cztery, teraz jest numerem dwa.
– powiedział w wywiadzie dla Reuters dyrektor generalny Aloha Andrew Frost Moroz.
The fact that after EU passed Digital Markets Act, non-Chrome/Safari browsers begin to increase their share, shows that even a watered down law can make a difference. That's not to say it's all over – on the contrary, it's important to push further and make sure Apple/Google truly give people the choice – but the signs are so far positive https://www.reuters.com/technology/eus-new-tech-laws-are-working-small-browsers-gain-market-share-2024-04-10/
How do you feel about #Beeper, #Automattic and Automattic acquiring Beeper?
TBH credit is due where credit is due. Nobody can predict the real intentions of a company, least of all engineers, but Beeper has from day 1 built its product on top of #Matrix, it has made it much easier to install and configure messaging bridges (even to those less likely to go through the hassle of configuring a full Synapse server and install bridges with huge configuration files), and it has challenged Apple head-to-head with the iMessage bridge.
I feel that Beeper joining forces with Automattic will give the company both:
Stronger shoulders to defend themselves from lawsuits coming from the likes of Apple and anybody who has made it their business mission to oppose inter-operability as long as they can - Apple can’t simply take down a Github repo with a snap of their fingers if that Github repo is owned by the same company that also owns Wordpress, at least not without a lengthy legal battle on the blueprint of Epic v Apple. Moreover, sclerotic corporate scum with an outdated business model like Apple will just never understand how big of a favour they do to small companies like Beeper when they attack them. Beeper was in beta until recently. Then it got a lot of attention after Apple declared war to its iMessage bridge. Consequence: the largest company on earth suddenly put a relatively small product like Beeper under the spotlight, its user-base went up by an order of magnitude or so within a short time frame, they rushed their way out of beta, and now Automattic is acquiring them. There’s no better publicity than an aggressive rent-seeking parasite waging war against your product.
More opportunities to sit at a table with the likes of Google, Meta etc. and get them to actually build the open alternatives together, instead of reverse engineering their closed garden and play and endless catch-up game with them.
The timing of this announcement is also perfect, as the EU’s #DMA is just about to make inter-operability a requirement for messaging gatekeepers - and Beeper seems to be eager to capitalize on its opportunity of being at the right place at the right time.
Let’s keep an eye on how this product develops. I see a lot of potential for growth, and I’ll be looking for all the signals of early-exit/lock-in/enshittification.
Cool ideas for an alternative app store in the EU:
-Privacy focused, real privacy not the "We believe privacy is a fundamental human right" nonsense
-An option to remove ads, even if paid
-An option to disable subscription auto-renewals by default
Margrethe Vestager, the Vice-President of the EU Commission on the #DMA & ‘based on her almost ten years of experience in the competition sector said "This will be a fight” …. affected companies "will not simply change their business models.”
Describes Apple’s claims of privacy & security risks presented by changes demanded by the DMA as “nonsense.”
iOS 17.5 Beta 1 is out now, and it's the first version of Apple's iPhone operating system that lets users install apps downloaded from the web... but only in the EU, and only from developers that opt into Apple's new terms (assuming they're not rejected by EU regulators). https://buff.ly/4cIXSGl#iOS#Apple#iPhone#EU#DMA
From 7 March, the designated gatekeepers – Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, ByteDance, Meta, and Microsoft – must comply with all obligations in the Digital Markets Act.
These changes give you control of your:
📱 data: decide freely how your data is used
📱 phone: choose your default apps, browsers and search engines
📱 apps: install the apps you want and remove pre-installed apps
This one definetively is in the right directiion, it only came 'a bit late' and is way too short.
There is no choice, if soneone wants me to use WhatsApp, AirDrop or AirPlay.
In my private environment I can say 'no, thanks' (and socially isolate myself), but when it comes to companys (e.g. discounts), communities (e.g. soccer for kids) or public services (e.g. schools), I have no choice. I simply have to use a device that supports it.
Still no chance for other manufacturers or data sensible devices.
continua da https://mastodon.uno/@francal/112149656770470517
Ora su #iPhone è possibile scegliere il browser di default grazie a un nuovo pop-up a schermo. #Brave :brave: e #Firefox :firefox: hanno visto un netto incremento nell’uso dei loro software.
Un portavoce di Firefox ha detto che, a seguito del #DMA e dell’aggiornamento a iOS 17.4, il browser ha registrato un incremento del 50% in Germania e del 30% in Francia.
Me: “After a long consideration, I’ve decided not to defederate Threads from my personal instance, because the benefits of being able to reach out to my friends and relatives using the open tools that I’m contributing to build and run outweigh the risks, but I’ll keep an eye on it, I may reserve the right to block Threads later, and I respect and understand those who prefer to block them instead“.
Easily triggered strangers: “You self-entitled privileged cis tech bro, you are not doing enough to protect vulnerable minorities from the fascist harassers in the world out there, I hope you die from a gut infection“.
So much for “the Fediverse is an open place that embraces diversity and mutual respect where everybody should feel safe”.
@dg3hda I still don’t see the problem. If me, as an admin of an individual instance, wants to federate with Threads, that shouldn’t automatically make me a part of a “Fediverse subset” in mutual exclusion with others. If there are concerns about “second hand smoke” and ways to circumvent defederation, then we can talk about them, but at least AFAIK from a technological point of view most of those loopholes should be either closed, or provide configuration options (like authenticated fetch), if a specific instance admin is actually concerned about them.
If Threads goes haywire fascist or full E-E-E tomorrow, I can always defederate it and keep interacting with the other instances I usually do. I don’t see a whole universe “deteriorating”.
That also partly answers the “why be Meta’s guinea pigs?” problem: we’re not. If we have a solid fabric and good distributed governance, Threads can do whatever they want: the Fediverse will keep existing with or without them.
And the other half of the answer is: the chicken-and-egg problem. We all know what’s the ideal final outcome - all social media solutions use at most 1-2 open protocols with low entry barriers, without sufficient incentives to develop new proprietary protocols. Just like today there’s no incentive to reinvent proprietary versions of TCP or HTTP: you don’t reinvent a functioning wheel that everybody can use unless you have an amazingly brilliant reason to do so.
But that means that also the existing large platforms have to start in some way. For as much as I would love #Meta to implode into itself tomorrow, that’s statistically unlikely to happen. Until then, we have to create the right incentives for them to change, or most of the human population will still be trapped in the same cages even a decade down the line with no viable alternatives.
The #DMA gives a nudge in the right direction, by forcing gatekeepers to make their platforms inter-operable, but it doesn’t suffice by itself. Without sufficient incentives to implement ActivityPub (like being able to potentially interact with a couple of millions of users on existing platforms that already implement it), these companies just won’t have enough incentives to seriously commit themselves to adopt it. In a couple of months they’ll come back to Brussels or Washington and say “well, we’ve tried to adopt an existing open W3C-approved protocol, but we met too much resistance from the existing communities, so instead we’ve decided to build <put-tech-bro-foundation-name-here>, a consortium that includes Meta, Alphabet, X, BlueSky and ByteDance, to build a new “open“ protocol that allows anybody to join - provided that they pay a fee to the foundation, sign a couple of NDAs and accept a couple of custom EULAs, and we allow them to join the club”.
I have no doubt of which outcome is the best for technology and society at large.
#EU#DMA#DSA#BigTech#SocialMedia#ContentModeration#Monopolies: "As the EU’s new flagship tech laws, the Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act, are coming into full application, Big Tech is working hard to shoot them down. As of today, the Digital Markets Act (DMA) becomes fully applicable, following its counterpart the Digital Services Act (DSA) on 17 February.
However, as the EU’s new tech laws are coming into full application, tech corporations like Apple, Amazon, Meta and TikTok are already undermining them at every turn. To subvert these new regulations, tech corporations have filed a number of lawsuits against the European Commission and attempted to weaken the rules with malicious compliance that protects their profits at the expense of their users.
Malicious compliance pretends to follow the letter of the law in such a way that ignores or otherwise sabotages the law’s intent. That’s why civil society organisations like EDRi are holding tech corporations to account for their actions and support the European Commission in fully utilising its oversight authority.
The DSA regulates how social media platforms deal with potentially illegal online content uploaded by their users, without unduly limiting people’s freedom of expression. The DMA contains powerful obligations and prohibitions to prevent those tech firms from monopolising key markets like smartphones, chat apps, app stores, and more." https://edri.org/our-work/delay-depress-destroy-how-tech-corporations-subvert-the-eus-new-digital-laws/
First, today we are opening a case against Meta. We suspect that Meta is breaching the DMA rules on data combination [Article 5(2) DMA].
You all heard about Meta's “Subscription for No Ads” model. With this new model, users have to pay if they want to use Facebook and Instagram without targeted advertising. And this has forced millions of users across Europe into a binary choice: “pay or consent”. And if you consent, Meta can use your data, generated for example on Messenger, to target ads on Instagram.
But the DMA is very clear: gatekeepers must obtain users' consent to use their personal data across different services. And this consent must be free! We have serious doubts that this consent is really free when you are confronted with a binary choice. With the DMA, users who do not consent should be provided with a less personalised alternative of the service, for example financed thanks to contextual advertising. But they do not have to pay.
This is because with the DMA, we want to give back to our users the power to decide how their data is used: to pave the way for business models where citizens' rights are at the centre of operations.
Some of you may recall, we are already looking into this practice of Meta under the DSA: earlier this month, we sent Meta a request for information to verify how this “Subscription for No Ads” model complies with the DSA obligation to offer at least one option of their recommender systems not based on profiling, but also to assess the risks stemming from the personalisation of digital services.
(...)
Second, today we are also opening a second case against Alphabet. We suspect that Alphabet is breaching the DMA prohibition of self-preferencing [Article 6(5) DMA]." https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/speech_24_1702
This figure is probably still dominated by DNS requests according to Cisco, so I wouldn't rely on it yet. (I'm not even sure what domain names the mobile app is contacting.)