[HN Gopher] Japan enacts law to curb Apple, Google's app dominance
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Japan enacts law to curb Apple, Google's app dominance
Author : pjmlp
Score : 70 points
Date : 2024-06-12 19:43 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (english.kyodonews.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (english.kyodonews.net)
| tmtvl wrote:
| Related from 3 hours ago:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40660936
| r00fus wrote:
| Looks like comments have been merged into this current thread
| janice1999 wrote:
| > Violations of the new law will bring a penalty of 20 percent of
| the domestic revenue of the service found to have breached the
| rules. The fine can increase to 30 percent if the companies do
| not cease the anticompetitive practices.
|
| Wow, fines that actually hurt. We here in the EU should take
| note.
| enragedcacti wrote:
| The equivalent EU regulation (Digital Markets Act) allows for
| up to 10% of global revenue and up to 20% of global revenue for
| repeat offenses.
| Johnny555 wrote:
| _The law will prohibit the providers of Apple 's iOS and Google's
| Android smartphone operating systems, app stores and payment
| platforms from preventing the sale of apps and services that
| directly compete with the native platforms' own._
|
| I'm not sure what this means -- does this just mean that Apple
| can't prevent a third party from selling an app that does
| something an Apple app does, or does it mean they have to allow
| third party app stores? Or is it more about opening the payment
| platform so an app can take direct payments instead of having to
| go through Apple?
| BadHumans wrote:
| I read this as Apple can't ban Spotify because they have Apple
| Music. The question is what happens when an app is competing
| with Apple but also is breaking Apple's TOS?
| bbarnett wrote:
| I think Apple might have to enforce the ToS on their own
| apps, if they want to levy them on competition, with such a
| law.
|
| But that's me thinking common law thoughts, not sure whst
| Japan's legal system is like.
|
| (There are alot lf things like this, such as when you are a
| distributor selling to more than your own stores.)
| oidar wrote:
| I read the article, and I'm not sure if this opens up alternative
| ways to download apps in Japan or if just ensures that apps
| competing with the platform owner are not to be downranked or
| handicapped.
| crmd wrote:
| My concern with curbing Apple's anti-competitive platform abuse
| is that they will pivot away from privacy into
| advertising/surveillance to make up for the lost revenue. Maybe
| as a consumer I'm better off leaving their ATM machine alone for
| now.
| idle_zealot wrote:
| Apple is already doing this anyway. Their shtick is privacy,
| but they still locally collect data on you and use it to serve
| ads in the App Store, and I believe a few other surfaces like
| News and Stocks. The idea of the "if you're not the customer
| you're the product" dichotomy is fallacious. Any profit-
| motivated company will do everything it can to make money.
| Charge you upfront the maximum you're willing to pay. Spy on
| you to sell your attention to advertisers. Charge you in
| regular intervals the maximum the market will bear. If they're
| not already exploiting an avenue it's either because (a) they
| haven't gotten around to spinning up a business unit for it yet
| or (b) because their strategy is such that it would harm their
| revenue more than benefit it. Apple isn't going to shed its
| privacy marketing or privacy-oriented features. It _is_ going
| to build richer user profiles and sell more attention to
| advertisers, whether they maintain control of app distribution
| on iOS or not.
| cjk2 wrote:
| Yeah good luck with that. If it wasn't for foreign motivation and
| competition from Google and Android etc, everyone there would
| still be using pink Docomo flip phones and 1990s style Yahoo.
| UtopiaPunk wrote:
| Japan was the leader of cool phones until smartphones
| dominated. I unironically would like a cute modern flip phone
| today, but the market isn't exactly delivering. There are few
| flip phones, but they're pretty ugly and seem to be designed to
| meet the needs of senior citizens.
| pezezin wrote:
| But they are still using Yahoo.
| cactusplant7374 wrote:
| It's too bad this new law doesn't mirror the European Digital
| Markets Act. Then users would be prompted to choose their browser
| instead of having it selected for them.
| toomim wrote:
| So would Apple have to allow browsers other than Safari to exist
| on iOS?
| lemoncucumber wrote:
| That's already happening in the EU:
| https://www.theverge.com/2024/1/25/24050478/apple-ios-17-4-b...
| benatkin wrote:
| Pure evidence of malevolence on Apple's part. Though people
| have fuzzy feelings about Nestle, so it shouldn't be
| surprising that a company people have fuzzy feelings about
| can be downright nasty.
| bamboozled wrote:
| Replace it with ? Toshiba software?
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