That’s a trend I was hoping the EU would start. Come on nations, jump on the bandwagon!
The law allows local authorities to name “designated providers” of a certain scale – currently only achieved by Apple and Google – and require those providers to do three things:
- Allow third-party app stores on their devices;
- Allow application developers to use third-party billing services;
- Enable users to change default settings with simple procedures, and offer choice screens for tools like browsers;
And it forbids them doing three more:
- Engage in any form of preferential treatment of their services over those of competitors in the display of search results without justifiable reason;
- Use acquired data about competing applications for their own applications;
- Prevent application developers from using features controlled by the OS with the same level of performance as the one used by Designated Providers.
This… this is amazing
In your fucking face, apple (and apple simps)
Yup, I like some apple products as much as the next girl but I go crazy when people defend Apple being unfair.
I used to love apple products. It took a few years of noticing distinctly greedy and anti-consumer practices, then I started to despise them. And so many people will defend anything they do, which makes it feel like a cult.
I’m trying to get into the linux phone and pine watch but there are a lot of trade offs at the moment.
We need this in the USA too! Innovation is stifled when platforms can directly affect the growth of other services, too bad the majority of our politicians are useless. I will continue to vote those fools out to pave the way for this type of legislation! I’m using Apple due to them not being as awful with LLMs as Google is; however, I don’t approve of their anti-consumer and anti-competition measures in their ecosystem.
I’m totally fine with 3rd party stores if that’s what people really want, but don’t confuse that with unsigned or self-signed app loads by 3rd parties. That will never happen.
