New EU regulation strengthens hand of developers in dealings with storefronts
mcvuk.com
mcvuk.com
> The various exceptions to the 30-day notice period can in particular arise in connection with illicit or inappropriate content, the safety of a good or service, counterfeiting, fraud, malware, spam, data breaches, other cybersecurity risks or suitability of the good or service to minors.
Original Post
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I'm a bit concerned that "Article 4" will protect malware and fraudulent software from being removed:
> Platforms will have to provide 30 days notice to publishers before removing content from stores, allowing them time to appeal or make changes to their software. So no immediate and opaque bans (article 4).
Minimizing malware is one of the selling points of App Stores, and this seems to kneecap that to some extent.
Not having it would effectively render markets mutually exclusive as the terms are "do something which would cause a shitstorm here" like saying they can't take down a Zwarte Pete face swap app. The law prohibiting it would turn it into an international incident as a "EU demands a right to profit from blackface" scandal and nobody wins.
> I think you forget how serious Americans are about free speech.
I'm also serious about free speech which is why I don't want unelected capitalists to restrict it.
I am really interested to know what you mean by "an American sense of moral". Is there some better "universal sense of moral" that we could be following?
> apply an American sense of moral onto countries
This is an interesting comment because it could go both ways. You have the EU and Australia where there are somewhat more permissive morals (nudity isn't considered obscene for example), and on the other hand you have many other countries like the Middle East where the moral code is much more stringent (alcohol is not allowed, face coverings, etc).
Also, this isn't any worse than the current state, the App Store owners have complete control here already. It just doesn't fix this particular potential abuse.
The app stores are maturing and so comes regulation into play.
From the definitions:
(2) ‘online intermediation services’ means services which meet all of the following requirements:
(a) they constitute information society services within the meaning of point (b) of Article 1(1) of Directive (EU) 2015/1535 of the European Parliament and of the Council (12);
(b) they allow business users to offer goods or services to consumers, with a view to facilitating the initiating of direct transactions between those business users and consumers, irrespective of where those transactions are ultimately concluded;
(c) they are provided to business users on the basis of contractual relationships between the provider of those services and business users which offer goods or services to consumers;
IANAL, of course.
This happend to me a few times with one particular app on Google Play Store and a company I worked for.
In all cases the app was removed from the store without any prior notice and very limited information on why it was removed in the first place. To make it worse, it took days to get a reply back which felt to be build out of predefined text blocks and did not address the questions nor solution.
Apple on the other hand always provided great feedback and offered solutions and never simply took an app from the store.
Hence I welcome this change greatly. Also noteworthy, the apps in question were absolutely clean and were to please the users. No spam, spy, advertisements boosters.
Lets just hope this 30 day rule does not apply to the numerous bad apps, those should be removed more quickly and in fact not even approved in the first place.
[1] https://forum.juce.com/t/apple-developer-support-is-unreacha...
It might allow the government to combine data it has on citizens with this data. On top of the fact that in that situation one single entity (the government) would see everything from everyone.
> why is it better that that control be in private hands?
That argument is not being made. But right now you got Apple and Google competing, and new players might compete with those two at some point to. If you got a government no one can compete with that controls this data on everyone (as opposed to it currently being split between two big providers).
Europe does not have the built-in distust of the governments that the US does but it's dangerous.
I think a more interesting point is how EU companies can hope to compete with the likes of Google if non-EU companies can effectively subsidise their EU operations by using revenue from more profitable markets. The EU is most certainly profitable to operate in, it is the wealthiest block on earth. It's just that margins are slimmer and cost of business is higher.
Heavy regulation of local comanies forces either heavy subsidies (basically all r&d in Europe is 50%+ subsidised) or a Chinese style blanket ban on competition.
I am both American and an EU citizen. While I love the United States dearly, I have a safer, more stable life working in the EU.
Outside of universal education and healthcare, my conclusion is that the value of the European tax dollar is unfairly distributed. At the local level, European grants and subsidies create jobs for educated people who chose the right course of study. At the Eurozone level, you have the northern "export based" economies essentially using a devalued currency to outcompete the southern countries. Relatively that means more tax dollars for the northern countries, when ideally those would be spread somewhat evenly across Europe.
I think Europe needs a technocratic tool that makes the economic performance of all countries everyone's problem. Denmark has an unemployment and retraining scheme called a-kasse that is reasonably well implemented. I could see a centrally funded, Europe wide implementation could be a solution.
EU's mandate is creating a harmonized, balanced marketplace within it's collective borders, through regulation and incentives.
(A few years ago our conservative government sold it off because they are ideologically allergic to the idea, and/or they're just corrupt fucks in the pants of corporates)
Report then where?
And if this law passes, to EU authorities...
Still, I think this is good regulation. We have seen random bans from apps that didn't hit the correct taste and a mechanism to appeal is surely needed.
I get that mobile developers don't have much choice if the want to monetize their software, but at least we should keep these ecosystems to unproductive devices.
Sadly, I think we're several years away from actually getting this information.
Move along, nothing to see here...
> Regulations are legal acts that apply automatically and uniformly to all EU countries as soon as they enter into force, without needing to be transposed into national law. They are binding in their entirety on all EU countries.
And:
> Public authorities in EU Member States have the main responsibility for the application of EU law.
"any person or company who has had their interests harmed as a result of the action or inaction of the EU or its staff can take action against them through the Court"