The Digital Markets Act is in force What happens now? | Hacker News Reader

The Digital Markets Act is in force What happens now?

open-web-advocacy.org

I didn't know about the "free of charge" clause. Apple's Core Technology Fee will be absolutely destroyed.

I would love to see the EU swiftly put down the law and make an example of Apple in this case. I'm sure it won't take too many 10% of global revenue-fines before they get in line.

Why should the EU fine 10% of Apple's global revenue when they're violating an EU-specific law? Shouldn't they just fine 10% of EU revenue?

> I'm sure it won't take too many 10% of global revenue-fines before they get in line.

I'm sure it won't take too many of those before Apple just decides to leave the EU wholesale, as it only accounts for around 10% of their own annual revenue.

The EU should fine as much as it is necessary to financially impact the corporation for violating the laws.

> Why should the EU fine 10% of Apple's global revenue when they're violating an EU-specific law? Shouldn't they just fine 10% of EU revenue?

The precedent for global enforcement of rules has already been set by the US.

It's global revenue (all the way up the ownership structure) because that closes one of the world's most obvious loopholes, where you create an EU-based subsidiary that takes a tiny commission for selling products/services from non-EU companies, therefore having minimal revenue to fine. The GDPR fine structure works the same way. Though, 10% is a limit, fines usually start smaller.

If you've read up on BEPS, or most forms of tax-minimization that occur in EU countries, it makes perfect sense that they'd expect that to happen.

That's true, I forgot about the subsidiary sneakiness that corps do all the time. My thought process when asking the question was that yesterday I'd read a discussion here on HN about the US District Court testimony where Tim Sweeny/Epic said that they had deliberately flouted and broken Apple's developer agreement; the argument was that this testimony "doesn't count" because it happened outside of the EU – despite Epic and Epic Sweden being the same business run by the same guy.

Apple's entire answer to the DMA will be destroyed, just like how they rolled back on PWA.

It's super weird because it feels like they were dealing with the US public instead of EU : they are FAR from the same market share here, and the public is much more not only tolerant but asking for regulations.

It can't be that simple because they have a lot of very smart people dealing with those things, but I still don't get what they thought they would accomplish trying to weaponize their customers like that.

It reminds me of the GDPR and companies making threat, culminating with Meta saying if the GDPR is passed then facebook and instagram would leave the EU market, which got answer by the french and german gov by "okay, you go right ahead". We know how that one ends. You earn a lot more dozens of billions by complying than by leaving out of spite.

The problem with the DMA's "free of charge" language is that the DMA sits below the WIPO treaties [1] in terms of its legal authority.

> Under this treaty, authors are provided with the exclusive rights of distribution and rental and with a broader right of communication to the public of their works in the digital environment. Computer programs are protected as literary works and the arrangement or selection of data or other material in databases is also protected. Specific protection is also provided for technological measures and electronic rights management information used to identify and manage works.

The DMA's "free of charge" doesn't mean what everyone wants it to mean :-/

[1] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/EN/legal-content/summary/accession...

> Apple's Core Technology Fee will be absolutely destroyed.

Google doesn’t seem to think so: https://techcrunch.com/2024/03/06/google-announces-the-new-f...

I don't think the two are at all comparable.

Google's External offers program is the ability to pay a percentage to allow apps installed through Google Play to link directly to external offers.

Apple's Core Technology Fee, on the other hand, is a fee per app if the developer uses alternative app stores.

I’m very excited about WhatsApp having to interoperate with other messengers. As far as I know this starts Monday. But I also read that most other messengers are not interested as it would hurt their users privacy.

Does anyone know if interoperability with XMPP or Matrix will be possible?

XMPP and Matrix already have WhatsApp bridges, though through they are not officially supported or accepted by WhatsApp.

Hopefully what will change now is that such bridges can be updated to use officially-supported methods, which (if WhatsApp play nice) means they will be more reliable and user-friendly than they are today.

Isn't the bigger issue that these bridges require you still to have a whatsapp account? So it's just a different frontend, but you're still bound by Meta's TOS, PP and data collection.

It’s like sending an email to someone’s gmail address! Its content will be scanned, but yon don’t have to deal with Gmail running on your computer. With this, you can have a nicer client (especially desktop) that don’t have whatever unnecessary features WhatsApp wants to promote (like status and channels). Discord, Slack, Teams and Spotify are other services that are begging for alternative frontend.

https://engineering.fb.com/2024/03/06/security/whatsapp-mess...

In fairness to Facebook this is a very well written and fair post.

This is how the DMA should be done.

https://element.io/blog/the-eu-digital-markets-act-is-here/ gives some answers on the Matrix side

A bit off topic, but does anyone know how "EU" only features/changes are determined? I'm Canadian by citizenship but live in Europe. My Apple account is still tied to Canada mainly due to having my Canadian bank/credit cards tied to that account. Would I need to officially change countries? Start a new Apple account? Does it matter that my phone was purchased in Canada? I'm hoping that it might be tied to the SIM card somehow, since I have a European carrier, obviously.

It is tied to your SIM card so when in the EU you should get the European "features".

That's great news, thanks!

What if you don’t have a SIM card?

I think this information might be incorrect. I upgraded to 17.4 on an iPhone purchased in Canada, with an Apple account based in Canada but with a EU SIM card and being physically located in the EU and didn't get the "pick a browser" dialog when opening Safari. I think it might not be SIM based after all. The only possible thing I could think of is that I have an activated but turned off eSIM from Canada on the phone as well. The physical SIM is EU, though (and is what is turned on and connected to the towers).

Rumors have it that Apple won't remove home screen web apps in iOS 17.4 after all, but I don't trust them. Did anybody install 17.4 already? Are home screen web apps still there?

Yes, the work correctly again in the EU.

It's not a rumor, Apple has officially confirmed it, see https://developer.apple.com/support/dma-and-apps-in-the-eu#d...

Where in that endless wall of corporate effluent do they speak about home screen web apps?

“UPDATE: Previously, Apple announced plans to remove the Home Screen web apps capability in the EU as part of our efforts to comply with the DMA. The need to remove the capability was informed by the complex security and privacy concerns associated with web apps to support alternative browser engines that would require building a new integration architecture that does not currently exist in iOS.

We have received requests to continue to offer support for Home Screen web apps in iOS, therefore we will continue to offer the existing Home Screen web apps capability in the EU. This support means Home Screen web apps continue to be built directly on WebKit and its security architecture, and align with the security and privacy model for native apps on iOS.

Developers and users who may have been impacted by the removal of Home Screen web apps in the beta release of iOS in the EU can expect the return of the existing functionality for Home Screen web apps with the availability of iOS 17.4 in early March.”

The Digital Markets Act (DMA) is now in force. Here's a breakdown of what that means.

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