UK's antitrust watchdog is very angry and has written a letter telling Apple and Google how angry it is with them
- Reference: 1639556653
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2021/12/15/uk_cma_apple_google/
- Source link:
In a [1]blunt assessment , the Competition and Markets Authority's department of what-took-you-so-long noted that Brits pretty much get their smartphone apps from just Apple and Google's software stores; that Apple only lets you use Safari on its handhelds; and that Google pays Android device makers to ensure its Chrome browser and app store are bundled.
That means the pair of US tech giants get to shape what applications and content you use – and, importantly, what you can't use – and may unfairly drive up subscription costs and prices for people, the watchdog said.
[2]
We're told it is "extremely difficult" for someone else to compete against Apple and Google's ecosystems with alternative offerings. Apple and Google can therefore take virtually whatever cut they want from developers and publishers' sales as there's little or no meaningful competition for marketplaces. Web apps are discouraged or disadvantaged by system software.
[3]
[4]
It's very much what we all know already. And though while it may be a bit on the bleedin' obvious side, it's at least a clear and concise evaluation by a regulator that's politely and diplomatically, in a very British way, quite cross with what Apple and Google have done.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said it should be easier for folks to move their apps and data between Apple's iOS and Google's Android when changing or upgrading their phones; that people should be able to easily install apps from other stores, and that web apps should work without any hindrance; that people shouldn't be forced to use Apple and Google's payment systems as they are now; and that people should be free to choose what web browser they use.
[5]
"Apple and Google have developed a vice-like grip over how we use mobile phones and we’re concerned that it’s causing millions of people across the UK to lose out," said CMA chief exec Andrea Coscelli in a canned statement.
Apple and Google have developed a vice-like grip over how we use mobile phones and we’re concerned that it’s causing millions of people across the UK to lose out
Why is this all happening now? This week the CMA issued an interim report, laying out the findings of a probe it launched earlier this year into whether or not Google and Apple exert too much control over our mobile devices. So far, the watchdog has "provisionally found that Apple and Google have been able to leverage their market power to create largely self-contained ecosystems."
And what's going to happen next? Not an awful lot. The CMA is going to wait to see what Apple and Google say in response, which it hopes to hear by February next year, and then it'll issue a final report in June, and then we'll find out how powerful Google and Apple's lobbying machine is in Britain, and then maybe we'll have some kind of outcome.
This is a waiting game. For one thing, legislation may emerge in the UK to create a so-called [6]pro-competition regime for digital markets. If that happens, the CMA believes Apple and Google may face "legally enforceable codes of conduct to govern their behaviour and to prevent them from exploiting their powerful positions."
The CMA is also separately [7]looking into complaints from developers regarding Apple's strict app store rules, as well as [8]probing the nature of Google's Privacy Sandbox.
[9]
Perhaps the powers that be in Blighty have observed the continuing rise of American Big Tech and the after-effects of Facebook swallowing up WhatsApp and Instagram with zero resistance from regulators, and figured the country should have put its foot down earlier and so now it's definitely putting its foot down: first with [10]freezing Nvidia's takeover of UK-based Arm on national security grounds, and next with [11]ordering Facebook to sell Giphy on the grounds of animated emoji security.
It's a warning shot. And don't forget Google et al are facing antitrust action and probes back at home in the United States. There's a sense of irritation among some lawmakers and officials on both sides of the pond.
[12]US states' antitrust lawsuit against Google's advertising business keeps growing
[13]These six proposed bipartisan antitrust laws put Big Tech in the cross-hairs – and a House committee just OK'd them
[14]Antitrust battle latest: Google, Facebook 'colluded' to smash Apple's privacy protections
[15]Apple's Safari browser runs the risk of becoming the new Internet Explorer – holding the web back for everyone
Responding to the interim report, Apple said it will "continue to engage constructively with the UK Competition and Markets Authority as their work on this study progresses." Google added: "We’re committed to building thriving, open platforms that empower consumers and help developers succeed."
You can check out this week's [16]report here . There's more info on the study [17]over here , in which you can read through Google and Apple's formal responses, and responses from other organizations, to earlier investigations by the CMA into the mobile ecosystem world.
We note that Oracle – which [18]lost its long battle against Google over Android code – couldn't help but stick its boot in
[19]PDF
, telling the CMA that Google uses Android as a massive data-collection operation. ®Bootnote
Page 21 of the interim report
[20]PDF
details how Apple ensures non-Safari browsers on iOS must use its WebKit engine, and even then are disadvantaged by the operating system. The overall goal seems to be to make web apps less attractive to use, and native apps obtained from Apple's app store more appealing.Get our [21]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/news/apple-and-google-duopoly-limits-competition-and-choice
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YbnK2x0WWQWDuv94TPvL9gAAANE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YbnK2x0WWQWDuv94TPvL9gAAANE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YbnK2x0WWQWDuv94TPvL9gAAANE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YbnK2x0WWQWDuv94TPvL9gAAANE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/a-new-pro-competition-regime-for-digital-markets
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2021/03/05/uk_apple_antitrust/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2021/11/26/cma_google/
[9] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YbnK2x0WWQWDuv94TPvL9gAAANE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2021/11/16/nvidia/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2021/11/30/uk_competition_regulator_facebook/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2021/11/16/google_antitrust_extension/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2021/06/24/us_antitrust_big_tech/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2021/10/22/google_facebook_antitrust_complaint/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2021/10/22/safari_risks_becoming_the_new_ie/
[16] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/mobile-ecosystems-market-study-interim-report
[17] https://www.gov.uk/cma-cases/mobile-ecosystems-market-study
[18] https://www.theregister.com/2021/04/05/google_prevails_over_oracle_in/
[19] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/617aa60ed3bf7f55fbc3ac03/Oracle_Corporation.pdf
[20] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1040662/Mobile_ecosystems_interim_report_-_FINAL__-_.pdf
[21] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
I kind of stopped reading...
I kind of stopped reading half way through as I knew what the rest of the article would say, but, unless I've missed some context, is this actually true : "that Apple only lets you use Safari on its handhelds"
I have Firefox on both my iPad and iPhone with Safari purposefully never really getting a look in - and have tested many other browsers that I downloaded.
As I said though, I may have missed some context or meaning.
Re: I kind of stopped reading...
You should have kept reading to the end.
Re: I kind of stopped reading...
Firefox on iOS, is just a skin, it uses the underlying Apple WebKIt rendering engine not Firefox's own Gecko engine, so what looks like Firefox on iOS/IPadOS is pretty much, a customised skinned/themed version of Safari. As the Bootnote states.
Re: I kind of stopped reading...
What you've missed is that all browsers on iOS are just skins over the Apple Webkit rendering engine.
Apple does not allow third party rendering engines on their non-desktop platforms. Alternative web browsers are just skins with a little functionality (synchronisation, other features) added.
This would be less of an issue if Apple were still leading with their webkit engine. In the early days of the iPhone they definitely were, but since then they seem to have de-prioritised webkit development. New features are slow to arrive and often incomplete or buggy. Bugs linger for far too long. And Apple have a few standard excuses for this which people are tired of hearing.
Here are two decent summaries I found with a quick search:
https://httptoolkit.tech/blog/safari-is-killing-the-web/
https://infrequently.org/2021/04/progress-delayed/
Both of them make reference to the Web Platform Tests dashboard. I checked that to ensure that their arguments were still valid, and was surprised to see it now looks pretty good for Safari:
https://wpt.fyi/compat2021?feature=summary&stable
It's on 90, 1 point behind Firefox and 5 behind Chrome - not bad, eh? So surely those earlier links are outdated?
But look at the graph below the figures. That sudden huge lurch forwards! Webkit had languished in the high 60s/low 70s for ages, and has suddenly jumped up - can anyone really think that there aren't bugs in those newly implemented features? Does anyone really want to make an argument that this is a sign of healthy, safe development for webkit?
The sudden recent improvement doesn't negate the points web developers have been making about webkit holding them back. Indeed, it bolsters them - now they have a large number of features that they may need to look at implementing, whilst knowing that they're new enough that they may be too buggy to implement. Not an enviable position. So most won't bother, and webkit will continue to hold back web development.
And that's why Apple's webkit-only position worries so many people. It's not healthy, and there's no good reason for the restriction. If Chrome or Firefox could use their own engines on Apple's devices, things would be much better.
(Disclaimer: I am not a web developer, I just know/work with web developers and am reflecting their views.)
Ironic?
Page 21 of the interim report [PDF] details how Apple ensures non-Safari browsers on iOS must use its WebKit engine, and even then are disadvantaged by the operating system. The overall goal seems to be to make web apps less attractive to use, and native apps obtained from Apple's app store more appealing.
Huh. I find that quite ironic, given that the original iPhone had no app store and we were told that everything would be delivered via the web...
It's almost like the sudden influx of a 15% cut of all sales when they released an SDK and app store (alongside the iPhone 3G) was addictive for Apple.
The "web first iPhone" definitely didn't last very long, did it? One model and OS version. Was the original iPhone a rush job and shipped incomplete knowingly? Or was the success of the app store a genuine surprise that required a change of history for Apple?
As for the finding of the report - surely the Holiest of Holies and Purest of the Pure couldn't possibly be putting preserving its profits ahead of providing practical productivity for its customers?
(I shall no doubt now be corrected by those who bask in the Reality Distortion Field...)
Microsoft over in the corner still nursing the whip marks from bundling IE with windows wondering why it was the only one singled out
They have returned to form. In Windows 10 there's 1 selectable option for you to tell it that you want to use Chrome and not Edge. In windows 11 I've counted 11 so far, and I probably haven't found them all. Each time Edge pops up, I have to figure out what called it, have a google for the fix (because MS haven't documented it) then go hunt down this setting and change it, and hope that Edge hasn't reset the defaults for all the other settings when it fired up, which it has twice so far, but I'm sure that's unintended teething issues for MS to fix in a later patch, and isn't at all a deliberate attempt to get people moving back to Edge.
Apple and Google may face "legally enforceable codes of conduct"
I'm sure they have plenty of lobbyists and lawyers working out the most publicly palatable way of saying "Nice country ya got there - shame if all your smartphones stopped working".
While the CMA is shaking a stick at Google, it shouldhave a nose around the Manfestv3 plans
They should easily come within the scope of limiting competition and innovation.