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I am really impressed how much time and effort Apples legal department spends to find every single loop hole in the wording of the DMA. The 50ct per install for

I am really impressed how much time and effort Apples legal department spends to find every single loop hole in the wording of the DMA. The 50ct per install for alternate app stores, 50ct per install for non-App Store apps after the millionth install, 1 million dollar in securities for alternate app stores, etc all follow the words of the DMA, but not the spirit. I am really interested to see the European Commissian drag Apple in front of a court and them having to legally defend their actions. I assume that all of those things they are setting up to circumvent people from using their rights will really blow up in their faces.

internetter 3y ago
The EU has always been enthusiastic about the spirit of the law, and Apple is not used to this. You can see their temper tantrum unfold every time they find this out.
- procgen 3y ago
  Disregarding the letter of the law seems arbitrary and capricious.
  - klaustopher 3y ago
    There's different ways to interpret laws for courts. One of them is called teleological interpretation where you follow the intent of the law. For this courts also look into the documentation the legislation provided when defining the law. This is usually not done by lower courts, but courts like the CJEU use those when the letter of the law is unclear to define this for the lower courts to follow.
    - abigail95 3y ago
      This would be more valid if the law was passed with a message that says "please interpret this law according to this documentation teleologically"
  - internetter 3y ago
    Is it? Developers used to determinism in software frequently don't understand that in all jurisdictions the law is ultimately interpreted by humans. I've been going through some legal processes myself, and my friend who is a lawyer reminded me more times than I care to admit that this is the case. In the US, SCOTUS's job is literally to interpret the spirit of the law in the event of ambiguity.
    - AshamedCaptain 3y ago
      Developers are fully used to this ambiguity and "spirit of the law" when interpreting standards. Search for WeirdNIX (popularly known as Windows NT and other names too).
  - Hamuko 3y ago
    The situation in the US seems to suggest that trying to finely analyze the exact sequence of words in a law or the consitution still leaves a whole lot of room for arbitrary decisions. Abortion was a constitutional right until it wasn't and the constitution was not changed between.
    - anon373839 3y ago
      All language carries inherent ambiguity. However, developments in American constitutional law aren’t really about that. The Constitution is very general and it uses terms that lack an objective meaning (for example, “Due Process” - what counts as “process”? What process is “due”?) It can’t really be implemented without bringing in a pile of philosophy and policy making. At the same time, SCOTUS has been guilty of stretching its terms to include ideas that are clearly out of scope. (For example, the dubious invention of “substantive” due process - which all of the abortion stuff hinges on.)
      - jquery 3y ago
        Of all the examples you could've brought up and you thought a person's right to control their body is a stretch? Try "qualified immunity" if you want an example of justices reasoning with their bare ass showing.
        anon373839 3y ago
        I was responding to the parent comment. Also, substantive due process was not invented for reproductive rights. It was invented in Dred Scott v. Sandford, to prevent “free” states from depriving slave owners of their “property”.
        jquery 3y ago
        So, apparently what you're saying is controversial https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substantive_due_process https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substantive_due_process -- "The phrase substantive due process was not used until the 20th century, but the concept arguably existed in the 19th century. The idea was a way to import natural law norms into the Constitution; prior to the American Civil War, the state courts were the site of the struggle. Critics of substantive due process claim that the doctrine began, at the federal level, with the infamous 1857 slavery case of Dred Scott v. Sandford.[11] Advocates of substantive due process acknowledge that the doctrine was employed in Dred Scott but claim that it was employed incorrectly. Indeed, abolitionists and others argued that both before and after Dred Scott, the Due Process Clause actually prohibited the federal government from recognizing slavery. Also, the first appearance of substantive due process, as a concept, had appeared in Bloomer v. McQuewan, 55 U.S. 539 (1852)"
  - justin66 3y ago
    > Disregarding the letter of the law seems arbitrary and capricious. There's a distinction to be made between principles-based and rules-based regulation which I bet you're unfamiliar with.
  - rekoil 3y ago
    But that's the thing, when your law is legally binding in 24 different languages it's really impractical if not entirely impossible to have a system based on letter-of-the-law interpretations...
- isodev 3y ago
  I’m so tired of this, instead of doing the right thing, Apple just keeps trying to brute force the legal framework. You don’t need fancy legal team to know this is not the way.
  - klaustopher 3y ago
    From a business point, I can totally understand what Apple is doing. Making this as painful and unpredictable (as a developer you never know if your app will be successfull and gain more than 1 million installs) is the way to keep developers using the old contract and keep them on the app store. This makes sense for Apple to find every loophole possible ... As a consumer, and an Apple users, I want them to be slapped as hard as possible for how they implement this.
    - frizlab 3y ago
      Funny how things go. As a consumer especially, but even as a developer I don’t want the DMA to succeed and purposefully want iOS to be a walled garden. It’s literally one of the reasons why I’m on iOS!
      - klaustopher 3y ago
        That's the nice thing about the DMA ... Nobody forces you to install a 3rd party app store, nobody forces you to install apps from websites, nobody forces you out of the walled garden. For you nothing changes. Those that want to use their 1000€ device differently than you now have the chance to.
        frizlab 3y ago
        As the “tech guy” in the family things might change actually. (One of) the reasons why I like the walled garden is how it simplifies everything troubleshooting-wise. I have a few quirks to know, the rest is because of hardware failure and that’s it. My peer not being tech-savvy might install stupid things from stupid places and it might be a problem. The way it’s done it’s unlikely, but still it just complexify things for next to no reasons in my book. (Yes 30% is a lot; I personally don’t care, though I do recognize I’m a good position and I can afford not to–but then again, the most vocal about the 30% are not the most unwealthy…)
jug 3y ago
There is also an explicit clause about on anti-circumvention in the DMA so they're on thin ice here. Article 13 is the fun one for Apple: https://www.eu-digital-markets-act.com/Digital_Markets_Act_Article_13.html https://www.eu-digital-markets-act.com/Digital_Markets_Act_A...
sneak 3y ago
Complying with what you guess at the lawmakers' intentions was/were is a fool's errand. The law is the text, nothing more, nothing less. That's the point of the law. If the law falls short or has loopholes, it's a bad law and it's the legislature's job to fix it, not citizens' to suss it out. To assume the law means things that aren't written in the law is, quite basically, undemocratic.
- klaustopher 3y ago
  Written it in another comment. If there are ambiguities in the written law, for example because the legislature did not specify in the text of the law, that you can't charge for the access to the platforms, high courts like the CJEU will take approaches where they determine the spirit of the law (i.e. by looking at the discussion material the legislature presented for passing the law) to find out what the intent of the legislature was and then defines this law. This is for example how Germany now has a basic right to data protection. It's not written in the constitution, it was formed by our supereme court by looking at what the intentions of the author's of our constitution were. Same principle applies to EU laws. I agree that this is not a citizen's job. That's why I wrote that I am very happy to see the EU commission drag Apple in front of the CJEU.
- isodev 3y ago
  The DMA is perfectly clear regarding its intention and context. Trying to split hairs to find wiggle-room in the text just so a gatekeeper can maintain the status-quo for a while longer is absolutely malicious. Furthermore, Apple’s behaviour is quite discouraging for us EU based developers who actually understand and aspire to the EU’s values and what we consider “normal” treatment of the people using our apps and services.
  - xvector 3y ago
    Obviously Apple doesn't hold the EU's values in high regard (few people in the Bay or even the US do), so of course they will try to fight it. It's perfectly rational and even expected behavior.
sircastor 3y ago
> I am really impressed how much time and effort Apples legal department spends to find every single loop hole in the wording of the DMA. Maybe this is an American trait, but I would be surprised at any company that wouldn't be doing this. A law has been made that affects our business: How do we comply with the law with as little impact as possible to us? Some of the comments here seem to expect Apple to simply give up, as though a parent just walked in the room and said "You better do it or else." If it's really the spirit of the law that counts, then the law should require no specificity. A simple "Treat everyone fairly, installs can come from anywhere" would be sufficient.
- Nevermark 3y ago
  Perhaps it seems unusual, as Apple has so much technical control, an unusually extensive legal budget, and doing a very effective job of castrating any "threats" or as the EU might say "significant competition". And Apple has the cash to play chicken with any potential fines if it comes to it, so its not hedging much if at all. It is clear that the EU is going to have to get very tough, before Apple is going to proactively take into account any of the "spirit of the law" that the EU would like it to understand.
- zb3 3y ago
  Can't they just make their devices more expensive instead?
osrec 3y ago
Being a complacent market leader may come back to bite them in the backside. The world is getting more technical. People will demand openness. If I buy a product, I should have reasonable flexibility to use it how I want. Even if I break it, repurpose it or improve it, I want the choice to do so, just like I have with pretty much every other thing I own. People will vote with their wallets if Apple refuses to open things up a bit.
HDThoreaun 3y ago
Theres literally billions of dollars of pure profit on the line here. Id be surprised if they dint do absolutely everything they could to keep the app store the way it is.

internetter 3y ago

The EU has always been enthusiastic about the spirit of the law, and Apple is not used to this. You can see their temper tantrum unfold every time they find this out.

procgen 3y ago
Disregarding the letter of the law seems arbitrary and capricious.
- klaustopher 3y ago
  There's different ways to interpret laws for courts. One of them is called teleological interpretation where you follow the intent of the law. For this courts also look into the documentation the legislation provided when defining the law. This is usually not done by lower courts, but courts like the CJEU use those when the letter of the law is unclear to define this for the lower courts to follow.
  - abigail95 3y ago
    This would be more valid if the law was passed with a message that says "please interpret this law according to this documentation teleologically"
- internetter 3y ago
  Is it? Developers used to determinism in software frequently don't understand that in all jurisdictions the law is ultimately interpreted by humans. I've been going through some legal processes myself, and my friend who is a lawyer reminded me more times than I care to admit that this is the case. In the US, SCOTUS's job is literally to interpret the spirit of the law in the event of ambiguity.
  - AshamedCaptain 3y ago
    Developers are fully used to this ambiguity and "spirit of the law" when interpreting standards. Search for WeirdNIX (popularly known as Windows NT and other names too).
- Hamuko 3y ago
  The situation in the US seems to suggest that trying to finely analyze the exact sequence of words in a law or the consitution still leaves a whole lot of room for arbitrary decisions. Abortion was a constitutional right until it wasn't and the constitution was not changed between.
  - anon373839 3y ago
    All language carries inherent ambiguity. However, developments in American constitutional law aren’t really about that. The Constitution is very general and it uses terms that lack an objective meaning (for example, “Due Process” - what counts as “process”? What process is “due”?) It can’t really be implemented without bringing in a pile of philosophy and policy making. At the same time, SCOTUS has been guilty of stretching its terms to include ideas that are clearly out of scope. (For example, the dubious invention of “substantive” due process - which all of the abortion stuff hinges on.)
    - jquery 3y ago
      Of all the examples you could've brought up and you thought a person's right to control their body is a stretch? Try "qualified immunity" if you want an example of justices reasoning with their bare ass showing.
      - anon373839 3y ago
        I was responding to the parent comment. Also, substantive due process was not invented for reproductive rights. It was invented in Dred Scott v. Sandford, to prevent “free” states from depriving slave owners of their “property”.
        jquery 3y ago
        So, apparently what you're saying is controversial https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substantive_due_process https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substantive_due_process -- "The phrase substantive due process was not used until the 20th century, but the concept arguably existed in the 19th century. The idea was a way to import natural law norms into the Constitution; prior to the American Civil War, the state courts were the site of the struggle. Critics of substantive due process claim that the doctrine began, at the federal level, with the infamous 1857 slavery case of Dred Scott v. Sandford.[11] Advocates of substantive due process acknowledge that the doctrine was employed in Dred Scott but claim that it was employed incorrectly. Indeed, abolitionists and others argued that both before and after Dred Scott, the Due Process Clause actually prohibited the federal government from recognizing slavery. Also, the first appearance of substantive due process, as a concept, had appeared in Bloomer v. McQuewan, 55 U.S. 539 (1852)"
- justin66 3y ago
  > Disregarding the letter of the law seems arbitrary and capricious. There's a distinction to be made between principles-based and rules-based regulation which I bet you're unfamiliar with.
- rekoil 3y ago
  But that's the thing, when your law is legally binding in 24 different languages it's really impractical if not entirely impossible to have a system based on letter-of-the-law interpretations...
isodev 3y ago
I’m so tired of this, instead of doing the right thing, Apple just keeps trying to brute force the legal framework. You don’t need fancy legal team to know this is not the way.
- klaustopher 3y ago
  From a business point, I can totally understand what Apple is doing. Making this as painful and unpredictable (as a developer you never know if your app will be successfull and gain more than 1 million installs) is the way to keep developers using the old contract and keep them on the app store. This makes sense for Apple to find every loophole possible ... As a consumer, and an Apple users, I want them to be slapped as hard as possible for how they implement this.
  - frizlab 3y ago
    Funny how things go. As a consumer especially, but even as a developer I don’t want the DMA to succeed and purposefully want iOS to be a walled garden. It’s literally one of the reasons why I’m on iOS!
    - klaustopher 3y ago
      That's the nice thing about the DMA ... Nobody forces you to install a 3rd party app store, nobody forces you to install apps from websites, nobody forces you out of the walled garden. For you nothing changes. Those that want to use their 1000€ device differently than you now have the chance to.
      - frizlab 3y ago
        As the “tech guy” in the family things might change actually. (One of) the reasons why I like the walled garden is how it simplifies everything troubleshooting-wise. I have a few quirks to know, the rest is because of hardware failure and that’s it. My peer not being tech-savvy might install stupid things from stupid places and it might be a problem. The way it’s done it’s unlikely, but still it just complexify things for next to no reasons in my book. (Yes 30% is a lot; I personally don’t care, though I do recognize I’m a good position and I can afford not to–but then again, the most vocal about the 30% are not the most unwealthy…)

jug 3y ago

There is also an explicit clause about on anti-circumvention in the DMA so they're on thin ice here. Article 13 is the fun one for Apple: https://www.eu-digital-markets-act.com/Digital_Markets_Act_Article_13.html https://www.eu-digital-markets-act.com/Digital_Markets_Act_A...

sneak 3y ago

Complying with what you guess at the lawmakers' intentions was/were is a fool's errand. The law is the text, nothing more, nothing less. That's the point of the law. If the law falls short or has loopholes, it's a bad law and it's the legislature's job to fix it, not citizens' to suss it out. To assume the law means things that aren't written in the law is, quite basically, undemocratic.

klaustopher 3y ago
Written it in another comment. If there are ambiguities in the written law, for example because the legislature did not specify in the text of the law, that you can't charge for the access to the platforms, high courts like the CJEU will take approaches where they determine the spirit of the law (i.e. by looking at the discussion material the legislature presented for passing the law) to find out what the intent of the legislature was and then defines this law. This is for example how Germany now has a basic right to data protection. It's not written in the constitution, it was formed by our supereme court by looking at what the intentions of the author's of our constitution were. Same principle applies to EU laws. I agree that this is not a citizen's job. That's why I wrote that I am very happy to see the EU commission drag Apple in front of the CJEU.
isodev 3y ago
The DMA is perfectly clear regarding its intention and context. Trying to split hairs to find wiggle-room in the text just so a gatekeeper can maintain the status-quo for a while longer is absolutely malicious. Furthermore, Apple’s behaviour is quite discouraging for us EU based developers who actually understand and aspire to the EU’s values and what we consider “normal” treatment of the people using our apps and services.
- xvector 3y ago
  Obviously Apple doesn't hold the EU's values in high regard (few people in the Bay or even the US do), so of course they will try to fight it. It's perfectly rational and even expected behavior.

sircastor 3y ago

> I am really impressed how much time and effort Apples legal department spends to find every single loop hole in the wording of the DMA. Maybe this is an American trait, but I would be surprised at any company that wouldn't be doing this. A law has been made that affects our business: How do we comply with the law with as little impact as possible to us? Some of the comments here seem to expect Apple to simply give up, as though a parent just walked in the room and said "You better do it or else." If it's really the spirit of the law that counts, then the law should require no specificity. A simple "Treat everyone fairly, installs can come from anywhere" would be sufficient.

Nevermark 3y ago
Perhaps it seems unusual, as Apple has so much technical control, an unusually extensive legal budget, and doing a very effective job of castrating any "threats" or as the EU might say "significant competition". And Apple has the cash to play chicken with any potential fines if it comes to it, so its not hedging much if at all. It is clear that the EU is going to have to get very tough, before Apple is going to proactively take into account any of the "spirit of the law" that the EU would like it to understand.
zb3 3y ago
Can't they just make their devices more expensive instead?

osrec 3y ago

Being a complacent market leader may come back to bite them in the backside. The world is getting more technical. People will demand openness. If I buy a product, I should have reasonable flexibility to use it how I want. Even if I break it, repurpose it or improve it, I want the choice to do so, just like I have with pretty much every other thing I own. People will vote with their wallets if Apple refuses to open things up a bit.

HDThoreaun 3y ago

Theres literally billions of dollars of pure profit on the line here. Id be surprised if they dint do absolutely everything they could to keep the app store the way it is.