back to article Apple and Meta trade barbs over interoperability requests

The European Commission (EC) has continued pushing Apple to open up more of iOS to third parties, and Apple has pushed back, warning that doing so risks user privacy. It's all part of the interoperability measures in the European Digital Markets Act (DMA), which, among other things, requires gatekeepers – such as Apple – to " …

  1. Mentat74
    Big Brother

    "doing so risks user privacy."

    What privacy ?

    "If Apple were to have to grant all of these requests, Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp could enable Meta to read on a user's device all of their messages and emails, see every phone call they make or receive, track every app that they use, scan all of their photos, look at their files and calendar events, log all of their passwords, and more."

    Yup... and Apple wants to keep all of that data for itself...

    1. Throatwarbler Mangrove Silver badge
      Devil

      Re: "doing so risks user privacy."

      Say what you will about Apple, their brand is about user experience, which now includes security. They also make actual products that they sell to people for money, unlike Meta, for whom their users are the product. Undercutting security could directly impact device sales, so hopefully Apple has the good sense not to violate users' privacy. Anecdotally, my experience with Apple has been that they do value user privacy. I was trying to help a friend get into her late child's iPad, and Apple Support required legal verification of the child's passing and a court order to provide access.

  2. balrog

    Meta are so dodgy they make Apple look good. Wow.

    1. WolfFan

      Heh. Meta are so bad that they make _Microsoft_ look good and are closing on Google.

      1. WolfFan

        Look! Zuck has an account at El Reg! Who knew?

  3. cookiecutter

    Metà are the scummiest

    I'm expecting the usual apple bashing here but I WANT a locked down phone! If you want an open device get an android.

    Meta are a company that LITERALLY facilitated a genocide in Myanmar. They refused to block "yahoo boys" running sextortion manuals & training in Facebook groups. They refuse to police Facebook marketplace which is a huge of fraud.

    When they kicked off their instagram for 13 year olds, they initially stated PUBLICLY that they'd BLUR nice pictures 13 were sending & had to be shamed into NOT allowing their platform to openly be used to spread CSAM & allow even more kids to be driven to suicide.

    Let's not forget the shenanigans when they used an apple developer certificate to push applications to kids on the app store & when apple cancelled the cert, no one at Facebook HQ could book meeting rooms or use internal systems.

    I'm HAPPY that they lost $10 billion / year when apple rolled out the feature that forced developers to tell iphone owners what tracking their apps did.

    Apple have a lot to be said against them but fuck me! Meta?! Apple aren't an advertising firm & I'm happy with that. They don't scrape your screen even when you tell them not to, as Google did with the pixel 2.

    I want my privacy And I want apps that I put on the phone to be sandboxed. If metà get what that want, who knows what shenanigans they'll get up to with WhatsApp scraping everything an anything. And if you're a sysadmin...YOU try explaining to uses why you've banned it on their work phones becsuse you can't guarantee they're not scraping your company details and using it to train their AI

    1. Tom Chiverton 1 Silver badge

      Re: Metà are the scummiest

      Well then, you won't be stepping through the high regulated, 2FA requiring, oAuth-like flow (that's why even mentioning 'passwords' is just Apple being a dick) to grant Meta limited access to some Apple APIs with your account then.

      For other people, being able to do this wil be valuable.

      1. werdsmith Silver badge

        Re: Metà are the scummiest

        If it is valuable then they have the choice to use it. Nobody forces anyone to use Apple. Apple offer an alternative and it's pretty popular.

        The EU or anyone else are not helping consumers by forcing all products to be the same and removing that choice.

        I would rather keep the creepy sewer of the internet that is Meta at barge pole distance.

    2. ACZ

      Re: Metà are the scummiest

      Absolutely. A fundamental thing here is GDPR, and whether compliance with it can be guaranteed using rh information which would be made available if these requests (whatever they are) are allowed.

      Given that Apple have zero control over the third parties who are requesting access to APIs/interoperability features, I could easily (and understandably) see Apple arguing that where allowing any request could result in personal information being made available (particularly about people other than the device user) then the GDPR provisions require them to refuse the requests.

      1. DS999 Silver badge

        Re: Metà are the scummiest

        Yes I think Apple ought to be leveraging the GDPR here, because this could put them in a situation where they are fined for not opening up iOS or fined for violating user privacy by letting other companies steal personal information. You can't interoperate with privacy rapists like Meta and maintain any semblance of user privacy.

        So let's say the EU forces Apple to open up as requested, giving third party apps such as Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp access to your private data. The naysayers will say "well yeah but you can refuse to allow such access or not use the apps". The later is probably not practical for a lot of people who use Meta apps (especially WhatsApp in the EU) to communicate with family and friends, and they may be loathe to change just because you're worried about privacy.

        But even worse, you might not even have a CHOICE about giving such permission. Because the EU is attacking Apple on another front, allowing alternate app stores. Right now Apple's Settings app controls per app settings for privacy for things like accessing Contacts and so forth. Is the EU going to be content to allow Apple to maintain such control for apps downloaded from third party app stores, or will they require Apple to allow managing that from the third party app store?

        I think you can see where this is going. Meta would open their own app store, and drop their apps from Apple's EU App Store. Then you'd have no choice - if you want to use their apps you MUST give up your privacy. And you'd see other big companies like Google, Epic, Melon's Twitter and so forth doing the same because they will all want access to everyone's juicy personal data. And you won't be able to stop it. I'm not saying this will happen, because who knows how it all shakes out. But if you say what I'm suggesting here absolutely 100% for sure can't happen, your head is firmly in the sand.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Metà are the scummiest

        Erm, my phone, I decide who gets access to what info. Not Apple, not Google, not Xiaomi, not Huawei. OK?

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    cry wolf

    I think Apple have been crying wolf. The EC have asked them to open up in lots of ways (3rd party app stores, payment processers, etc) and Apple have been obstructive and pretended to open up but with convoluted rules that can't be met. Depending on the request, Apple have two reasons not to comply: 1, it hurts their monopoly profit and 2, it damages user privacy or security. They have been shouting that every request will damage user security and privacy, when it clearly won't. It's all been reason 1 up until now. Now they get requests from Meta, who are the poster child for damaging user privacy but Apple's position is very weak because of their earlier lies. If they stop trying to defend clearly monopolistic behaviour then people might listen when they have a good reason to deny access.

    1. Throatwarbler Mangrove Silver badge
      FAIL

      Re: cry wolf

      "monopoly"

      To quote Inigo Montoya, "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

      1. Throatwarbler Mangrove Silver badge
        FAIL

        Re: cry wolf

        Okay, downvoter, you tell me: in what specific market segment does Apple hold a monopoly?

        1. doublelayer Silver badge

          Re: cry wolf

          IOS app distribution. IOS browser engines.

          I'm sure you have your counterarguments lined right up, for example how smartphone apps as a whole aren't an Apple monopoly. It doesn't work, and has never worked, that way because the phone you have only runs one operating system and is limited to the facilities of that. The argument didn't work for Microsoft, either in the IE case or the Windows Media Player case, even though the restrictions in Windows were much weaker than those in IOS and you could install another operating system on the same computer, either instead of or alongside Windows. Unsurprisingly, it's not working for Apple either.

          In this case, I'm much more on Apple's side. I disagree with the EU that interoperability is necessary in most of these cases*, and I am much more confident in Apple's privacy practices than Meta's. Apple does abuse privacy at times**, but Meta abuses privacy every second of every day. I think a GDPR-based argument is likely to go Apple's way if they have it adjudicated by someone knowledgeable.

          * For example, I assume the request to have full access to iMessage is because of the theory that all messaging apps should be interoperable and thus that WhatsApp needs to be able to send to and receive from iMessage, and to avoid confusing everyone it probably needs to sync all the messages in one place. This may be correct from a technical perspective, but I don't trust Meta to have that access. Since I see no reason why WhatsApp and iMessage need to be interoperable when I can use both if I wish, I disagree with the EU and agree with Apple here.

          ** I am not likely to forget Apple's on-device scanning attempt. That significantly harmed their privacy record in my mind. I don't give them credit for not actually doing it because it took a lot of screaming to get them to back down, they tried hard not to tell people important information about it, and it feels too much like giving someone credit for not actually following through on a plan to punch me.

          1. Throatwarbler Mangrove Silver badge
            Meh

            Re: cry wolf

            I think you're mistaking "monopoly" for "vendor lock-in." Apple definitely wants you to stay within their walled garden, but you can get comparable (or superior, depending on your needs and point of view) products to iOS devices from other vendors. One analogous set of products would relational databases: if, god forbid, you should happen to buy Oracle, then Oracle will try to keep you in their ecosystem, but you can always move to another database vendor. Oracle does not maintain a monopoly over database servers. If you want a mainframe, on the other hand, your choice is basically IBM, and IBM has historically abused their monopoly position to keep other potential mainframe vendors out of the market.

            The question of how other products interface with those closed systems is an interesting one, and I tend to fall on the side of letting the market decide in this case. Minimal, if any, harm is being done to the average consumer by a lack of direct interoperability with iMessage (as an Android user, myself, I am frequently irked by the inability of iDevices to reliably use RCS, but I wouldn't say I'm harmed per se), and I find merit in Apple's argument that their brand will be harmed by letting the likes of Facebook pillage their users' private information. In short, while far from being an Apple fanboi, I don't think their unwillingness to open up their ecosystem requires regulatory intervention.

            1. aks

              Re: cry wolf

              Specifically regarding IBM:

              IBM were quite lax regarding any lock-in to their mainframes. I worked on many of their, and three competing machines in the 1970s and 1980s.

              IBM diid use litigation against them with little real effect. It was when the world changed from massive centralised power to smaller, more varied equipment that their semi-monopoly was fully broken.

  5. Jonathon Green

    Buying into the iThing infrastructure and swallowing the Apple Kool-Aid was always something of a pact with the devil but you know what?

    I knew that when I wrote the cheques. I looked at the alternatives, I signed the cheques anyway, and I’ll still take Apples blend of seamless experience and barely concealed avarice over Google and X’s brands of clunky enshitification every time.

    1. DS999 Silver badge

      I just hope if the EU forces Apple to enshittify that as a non EU resident I'll be able to visit the EU without my iPhone changing its behavior simply due to my physical location. If the EU wants to force Apple to continue to enforce EU type rules for iPhones owned by EU residents when they travel outside the EU (as they appear to be wanting) then they damn well better not try to enforce their stupidity on my iPhone simply because I decide to visit.

      Because I would be really annoyed if I had to travel with a "burner" phone that had all my personal information removed simply because I was worried one of the apps I had installed on it might activate a "now I'm in the EU so I can rape your privacy under the guise of interoperability and iOS isn't allowed to prevent it" mode.

      1. mistersaxon

        You need a separate phone for China and the USA anyway so what’s the difference? Fundamentally the issue is that big companies don’t let you own your phone or software and hence your data and in this interconnected world you have limited options to prevent that access.

  6. Alex Stuart

    go Apple

    I am no big Apple fan because I am a tinkerer, but Meta make them look like angels, they are an incomparably more moral company.

    Apple are not faultless, but they make genuinely good products, care about the impression and experience people have about their products, and their security/privacy (to the kind of extent expected these days)

    Meta would happily get the entire world hooked on slop for 8 hours a day from childhood if it made them extra billions in ad money. Zuck is either a sociopath or a synth. Teenage depression, addiction, political polarisation, CSAM, animal abuse, extremism, data theft? Who cares, just keep scrolling and click that ad, the lawyers will see the govts in court.

    1. DS999 Silver badge

      Re: go Apple

      the lawyers will see the govts in court

      I think Musk has shown Zuck the way forward is simply to buy the government. Heck, yesterday HE made policy by killing a bipartisan deal in congress with a handful of tweets and Trump only meekly followed later in the day. It is clear who the daddy is in that relationship. Musk is like Putin, both own Trump and he clearly defers to them.

      1. Alex Stuart

        Re: go Apple

        Generally, Big Tech has been running rings around governments for years. Our governments are slow, lumbering things, and by the time they've caught up to BT on naughty thing A, they've already rolled out B and C, and so on. It helps to have essentially infinite money to a) pay an army of lawyers to drag out appeals for as long as they can get away with and b) shrug off any punitive fines. They behave like they're above the law because they essentially are.

        1. DS999 Silver badge

          Re: go Apple

          The problem isn't the big tech asymmetry. That was as far back as how long it took to break up AT&T, and the mindnumbingly stupid way in which they did it, or the wrist slaps IBM got.

          The problem didn't really begin until the Supreme Court ruled that money is "speech" and laws trying to limit political advertising are a violation of the first amendment. Now they are effectively saying (through their inaction) that unlimited bribes of Supreme Court justices are perfectly legal. I anticipate Thomas and Alito will have a cushy retirement "arranged" for them by Trump allies so he can name a couple completely unqualified 30 year old toadies to the court to reign for 50 years and stand in the way of any attempt to curtail the gravy train - unless democrats decide to go all in on cozying up to rich people and they can get a better deal sucking up to a future democrat president (unless Trump successfully turns the US into a dictatorship / one party state like Russia / Hungary)

          So don't expect any democrat presidential candidate in the future to ever again mention "making billionaires pay their fair share" because that's been proven to be a way to get 90% of the billionaire dark money spent against you. We're just going to whistle into the graveyard of ever larger deficits until the whole thing blows up. Maybe everyone who doesn't have taxes automatically withheld from their checks should all together refuse to pay taxes until billionaires are paying at least an equal overall rate to what they are. That's tens of millions of taxpayers, many with high (but not billionaire high) incomes that the government would lose out on - far too many for them to go after.

          1. mistersaxon

            Re: go Apple

            They would go after the employers - they already do in fact. If you think PAYE is not about preventing tax withholding as a form of protest then you are naive at best.

          2. doublelayer Silver badge

            Re: go Apple

            "Maybe everyone who doesn't have taxes automatically withheld from their checks should all together refuse to pay taxes [...] That's tens of millions of taxpayers, many with high (but not billionaire high) incomes"

            Leaving aside the other problems that I think you already know about, I think you're drastically overestimating the number of people who could even try to refuse to pay taxes. In order to not have preemptive withholding, in almost every country, you have to not be an employee. Contractors and business owners may have some chances to do that, briefly anyway, but you're not going to get to tens of millions that way. Tens of millions could refuse to pay when the government didn't withhold enough, but that's a much smaller hit to the budget, one that will be quickly filled, in fact overfilled, by people getting fined for tax evasion.

  7. Geoff Campbell Silver badge
    Pirate

    This is not either/or

    I see lots of people commenting that they will take Apple over Meta, or vice versa. You know what? You can refuse both.

    I look at Apple's products, and see some decent hardware and good cross-product integration, combined with software that is *way* more flawed and clunky than the evangelists will ever admit. And I look at Meta's products and see a company that is absolutely superb at manipulating users and whipping up frenzies over nothing.

    So I use neither. There're plenty of good alternatives out there.

    But if you want to use either Apple, or Meta, products, or both, that's fine, too. Just don't try and convert me to your world-view, because I react really badly to that.

    GJC

    1. Geoff Campbell Silver badge
      Facepalm

      Re: This is not either/or

      I leave it as an exercise for the reader to re-arrange the commas in that final paragraph until it makes sense :-)

      GJC

    2. mistersaxon

      Re: This is not either/or

      Any recommendations Geoff? Nice to see you around BTW - I never get onto Cix/bikers these days :)

    3. doublelayer Silver badge

      Re: This is not either/or

      The reason you see that isn't because we have to choose. We're not going to get to choose anyway, the EU is going to pick a winner in each of these disputes. We're commenting because we are debating who we think the winner should be. I don't really like either of them. In previous rounds of Apple vs the EU, I have sided against Apple. I think the EU was right to require Apple to allow other app stores and browser engines. I was not convinced when Apple suggested nebulous security and privacy problems and the ones I could envision were small enough that I didn't care about them and Apple didn't talk about them because others wouldn't either. Now, I'm more likely to be siding with Apple. The privacy problems they're talking about are looking a lot more real this time and the benefits of the policy are much smaller.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    interoperability ?

    Is that like when you could use a third party client on ALL your instant messaging platforms ?

    Those were the days.

  9. benderama

    Only one of these companies had to change their name to disassociate from the heinous activities they performed over the years. And that’s just the stuff we know about.

    1. Geoff Campbell Silver badge
      Joke

      Company renaming

      I didn't think Apple Computer Inc. were that bad, were they?

      GJC

      1. Blue Shirt Guy
        Joke

        Re: Company renaming

        Maybe they didn't want to be confused with Apple Records. :-)

  10. Vulture@C64

    If Meta or any other company, can scan my phone and apps content, then that would be the end of a smartphone for me.

    Where will it end ? After Meta, how many other companies will suddenly spring up and demand the same access, simply to sell the previously unavailable Apple content, to anybody with a cheque book ?

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