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Comment by surgical_fire | Hacker News Reader

Apple should just follow the regulations. It would be more transparent than breaking the law and being fined for it.

“just”... The DMA is intentionally vague about how to comply and the EU refuses to tell companies ahead of time whether their plans to comply are actually in compliance. When the amount of money at stake over the long term is far more than the fine, getting fined is the more cost effective option to learn the EU’s actual expectations. This is “just” the incentive structure the EU created. They could avoid most of this by working with gatekeepers to preclear their plans and avoid the wasted time. But I think the EU actually likes the unnecessary noise because it makes it clear they are doing something rather than quietly ensuring compliance. There is a perverse incentive for them not to cooperate to achieve their goals efficiently.

They aren't even attempting good faith interpretation of the law.

How are they not attempting good faith interpretation of the law?

This seems like a "personal judgement" sort of thing. Personally Apple's actions seem like a giant middle finger to the EU (not to mention humanity)

But what are you basing your personal judgment on? What would have been reasonable to you?

My comment was about how under the EU's framework, Apple's behavior is totally rational. If Apple complies more than necessary, it could cost them far more than the fine, so obviously they undershoot compliance, accept the fine, and then proceed with minimal compliance. If the commission were simply upfront with about specifics of compliance, it could all be avoided.

Can you please point out specifically which regulation Apple is infringing.

Because DMA was designed not to be explicit so relies on interpretation.

That is hardly unique to DMA. Law is rife with things requiring interpretation. See, for example, the reasonable person standard: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_person

Yes, and laws involve intent. A lot of laws "when you do a thing that has a result and you intend that result to happen, you're guilty of creating the result". It doesn't matter the thing you do. If you invent some new way of killing someone, and kill someone with it, you're guilty of murder even if the never heard of this particular way of killing someone, etc.

In Apple's case, the edict was to create competition by opening up the app stores. Apple "opened" its app store in a way that failed to actually allow competition and so it is subject to the fine. This is exactly why laws work this way - to prevent what is now called "gaming" the system.

The edict was intentionally vague and overbroad.

It’s a law that establishes no measurable compliance guidelines, while providing absolutely no limitations on what the EU can decide counts as a violation retroactively. It’s basically “We’re not going to tell you what we want you to do. You need to guess what we want you to do, and fuck you if you guess wrong.”

And it's a law which was crafted with the intent that it apply to a small number of specific companies. How Apple is supposed to comply is hardly an unexpected question.

incisive, if not optimally reductive, summary of the underlying reality.

Not arguing it is unique to DMA.

But my point is that you can't say "just comply with the law" when compliance has been a much more interactive process.

Laws are not designed to be explicit, they aren’t code.

Are you telling me that a trillion dollar company cannot hire proper lawyers to make sure they comply with the laws?

You may think you are defending Apple, but in truth you are just saying they are horribly incompetent. If that is the case, they deserve to keep being fined.

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