For short codes in the USA, it technically does not have to be. And in fact businesses have to regularly check for requests even like "please don't send me messages" to be compliant.
Well, they certainly shouldn't and this needs to be legislated out of existence, but right now if you're an apple user that is literally what you are agreeing to. Apple's customer base in particular is exceptionally gullible.
The content died around the same time the app was released. It made Reddit more accessible and thus it got a much wider and worse (and younger) audience than it previously had.
What really amazes me is how a random high-profile website has like 400+ "partners" listed in the cookie dialogs. Each one is building a profile of people in various ways based on the site usage, and internet usage in general.
Where does all that information go? What is the information used for in the end?
The tracking technologies enable many things, and the continuum from "to show you interest-based ads" to full-on Stasi is rather large.
But given the massive scale of tracking and profile-building, at least I have no idea exactly where we are now (though clearly we're not at the worst-case extreme).
Remember when local US companies with zero EU presence were geo-blocking EU visitors in-case they were found to be in-violation of the GDPR? Presumably the fear was a crack team of EU secret service agents would kidnap and illegally extradite them to stand trial in Brussels.
Let me start with this: I fully support any effort to regulate markets and ensure rights of users especially privacy.
The fact that not a single European company was declared a gatekeeper is getting a lot of attention, some are even calling it a “shakedown of American companies”.
There are a lot of European companies that have monopoly-like powers in the markets they’re in. ASML is one for semiconductor lithography. Just look at the patents many European companies hold and how Europe makes money.
The point that I’m trying to make is that yes the mobile computing platforms should be open and free. However, the line between regulation of markets and going after specific companies not because they’re stopping innovation but instead because they’re not European. I’m afraid that if Trump gets elected, there will be a similar trade war between Europe and the United States as well.
These regulations are about consumer protection. They're not about protecting companies from each other, necessarily. Sure, in this case the focus is on iOS and iOS developers but in the end that's because end users are getting fucked because of it.
Do you have any example of EU companies that are fucking over consumers like the US ones tend to do? I'm not aware of any. I'm also not aware of any EU company that would be in the position to do so, sadly.
Then the focus must be on the consumer protection itself. I’ve seen all ten hours of regulation discussions with Apple executives, and they were all about dismantling the iPhone and using all Apple products and services for free.
In 90s when Ericsson and Nokia held almost 100% of the cell phone market, none of these topics were brought forward. That is quite the irony.
It is incredibly hard to create a platform like iPhone and also create customer trust into spending money on it. And now that this is a place a significant percent of the commerce is taking place on this platform, it must be regulated. This must be done by laws and regulations. Not with anti-Apple or anti-Europe sentiments. We are even at least 5 years late in doing this.
However, we simply cannot force anybody to work for free or take their possessions. As the Apple executives said in the commission hearing, it is their platform and they have to be compensated for any work they put into it. We want open access to this platform, not kill it.
If an app is being side-loaded, then Apple is under no obligation to provide them any additional services that is not part of the OS. Which things like push notifications, and iCloud are not. Every app would either pay Appple to use those services or setup a connection to their own servers to distribute such notifications and use other object storage services.
We’ve had Windows computers forever and they still don’t support push notifications unless you have the app or the browser open.
Manufacturing the iPhone is one thing but there is billions of dollars of cost in developing and running the iOS. Apple will either recoup this cost somehow, with CTF or some other charge, or simply stop doing it, or worse stop selling it in Europe.
FAANG companies are really powerful and I’m as worried about their downward effects on the society and consumers as you are.
I just firmly disagree that a company selling a device that they are making a profit on can be considered "working for free".
> We’ve had Windows computers forever and they still don’t support push notifications unless you have the app or the browser open.
Not sure what you mean. They support TCP without weird limitations applied to it by the operating system. Every app that wants it has push notifications. They get the choice of implementing this themselves or using a service like firebase to help them out if they so choose. Their choice. Not Microsoft's. Not Apple's.
Android, iOS, Console and TV Devices aren't that different, none of them allow you to install what you could on them.
I hope there will be a country that forces manufacturers to let you install any operating system of your choice on the devices you buy as long as they have screen output and USB/Bluetooth input.
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