Reuters: ‘EU’s Vestager Warns About Apple, Meta Fees, Disparaging Rival Products’

Foo Yun Chee, again reporting for Reuters, after an exclusive interview with Margarethe Vestager, EU commissioner and renowned user-experience designer:

A new fee structure includes a core technology fee of 50 euro cents per user account per year that major app developers will have to pay even if they do not use any of Apple’s payment services, which has triggered criticism from rivals such as Fortnite creator Epic Games.

Vestager said the new fees have attracted her attention.

“There are things that we take a keen interest in, for instance, if the new Apple fee structure will de facto not make it in any way attractive to use the benefits of the DMA. That kind of thing is what we will be investigating,” she told Reuters in an interview.

There are already several marketplaces that have announced plans to open: AltStore, Setapp, Mobivention, and of course Epic’s game store, to name four. So the CTF obviously isn’t making it “not in any way attractive to use the benefits of the DMA”. But whether this is Vestager’s code-speak for “We’re going to declare the CTF non-compliant not because it violates the terms of the DMA but simply because we don’t like it”, I don’t know.

From a transcript of yesterday’s workshop on Apple’s DMA compliance plans, the opening remarks from the EC included this gem: “The reason is that we want to achieve compliance with the spirit of the DMA not just with the letter.”

That’s not how the rule of law works in the U.S.

Vestager expressed her reservations on Meta’s new fees. The company earlier on Tuesday said it has offered to almost halve its monthly subscription fee for Facebook and Instagram to 5.99 euros from 9.99 euros but Austrian privacy activist Max Schrems said the issue is not about the level of the fee.

“I think there are many different ways to monetize the services that you provide. Because one thing are the very targeted advertising that builds on data being consumed. Another way of showing your advertising is to make that contextual,” she said. “So I think it’s important to continue the conversation with Meta and we will assess also finally, what is the next push in order for them to be compliant with the DMA.”

If the EC wants to ban targeted advertising, they should pass a law banning targeted advertising. But they haven’t. Targeted advertising is legal in the EU; Meta simply has to offer users a reasonable opt-out. It seems like Vestager is hinting that the only acceptable opt-out — “spirit”-wise — is non-targeted advertising that generates only pennies on the dollar compared to Meta’s incredibly lucrative targeted ads. This is quite a message the EC is sending to businesses around the world.

Vestager also warned companies against discouraging users from switching to rivals by disparaging them, saying this kind of behaviour could trigger an investigation. Apple has said some of its changes could expose users to security risks.

“I would think of it as unwise to say that the services are not safe to use, because that has nothing to do with the DMA. The DMA is there to open the market for other service providers to get to you and how your service provider of your operating system, how they will make sure that it is safe is for them to decide,” she said.

So it doesn’t matter whether sideloaded apps are dangerous, or, say, that third-party browser engines may adversely affect battery life — Apple can’t make honest recommendations to its customers if those recommendations would discourage switching. Even though the entire reason many, if not most, people choose Apple products is that they trust Apple. The EU is not, obviously, America, but holy hell does it sound wrong to my American ears to claim it’s illegal for a company to offer customers the truth. (And this is exactly why I’ve been so adamantly opposed to Apple’s own anti-steering rules in the App Store all along.)

★ Tuesday, 19 March 2024