Proton bashes Apple and joins antitrust suit that seeks to throw the App Store wide open Secure comms biz Proton has joined a lawsuit that alleges Apple’s anticompetitive ways are harming developers, consumers, and privacy. Proton is a Switzerland-based (for now) provider of encrypted communications services and on Monday filed a legal complaint [PDF] against Apple, claiming the iGiant is abusing its control of …
"We don’t question Apple’s right to act on behalf of authoritarians for the sake of profit..."
We know that companies tend to consider their rights sacred, and that laws and contracts are there to protect them, but never should bind them. For hoi polloi the laws are to bind them, never protect them.
And in the US, this believe is justified as this state of legal affairs seems to be true unconditionally. Outside the US, this is not universally true, as companies sometimes discover to their chagrin.
Probably not unless that malware harms Apple in some direct way, E.G. if it thrashes Apple's update servers or something. Those with the malware on their phones can sue the stores though. If Apple wants to take down one of them, they can probably provide some assistance to that legal action. It wouldn't do much to the normal ones that aren't full of malware.
This will take me a bit of time to do, but I am going to cancel my subscription to proton. I am baffled by company whose soul existence is based on privacy is suing Apple, who also is using the App Store for privacy and security no matter what anyone else says. I can only surmise that proton is simply wanting to get a larger revenue grab from their apps. It has nothing to do with privacy, so disappointed from proton.
I am completely satisfied by Proton's service and pricing for individual subscriptions. They offer email, VPN, a calendar, and 500 Gb encrypted file storage for individual subscribers, plus sundry additional privacy related functionalities.
I await with interest Proton's response to authoritarian Swiss attempts (mirroring obsessions elsewhere) to bypass privacy.
This note has reached here via a route starting at my ISP, engaging with a server in Switzerland, and issuing from a UK ISP address differing from my own.
I have absolutely no links with Proton other than being a customer.
It has everything to do with control and money at the users expense. Apple want that control. Your stuff may be private & secure for the moment on Apple. But Apple decide when it's not and Apple aren't securing it for you, it's because right now it's to their benefit. The more distributed the privacy is (sounds wrong I know) the more secure from abuse because no one has it all. "If" in an increasingly dystopian world an American government comes along and says to Apple bosses; give us everything or we kill you, what do you think they will do? I suspect just saying we'll take your money or expose your sexual pecadillos would be enough. It's not like they've ever done anything like that before ...
They're joining the suit on the basis of "Apple has to do these things in the EU, we think they should be forced to abide by EU law worldwide because it makes life easier for developers"?!
Good luck getting a US court to agree with that, or Trump not to start throwing toys out the pram if he hears about it.
It's not that simple. They're arguing that it violates US law, and they cite that the EU has already concluded that it violates EU law which has many similarities in spirit and letter to US law. A court would often take that into account, although they would need to prove that the US law doesn't have an important difference. I say "would" because the US courts have already considered a lot of this in the Epic Games lawsuits and they mostly decided that it didn't violate US law. This means that, for Proton to succeed, they'll have to convince a US court that the last US court got things wrong, and an EU decision won't help much with that. Still, a lot of legal stuff involves throwing any argument at the court in the hope they find one of them convincing.
30% is too much to pay for someone else to manage
- app hosting
- distribution and download
- billing and payment processing
- VAT collection
- multi country access
- additional in-app purchases should you require them
- in-app advertising (not that I am a fan)
Other industry sectors would kill to pay only 30% …. Try working in retail
And before you say it’s all about choice, if the cost were zero you wouldn’t have a problem.
Let's think about that:
"- app hosting, - distribution and download"
You do know those are the same thing, right? Apple isn't hosting Proton's services, just a copy of their mobile binary. Proton has tons of servers. I think they really could handle having users download the files from them.
"billing and payment processing, VAT collection, multi country access"
Proton already has implementations for all of those things. Credit card processors do not charge anything close to that. So in fact, that is way higher than the price anyone else would charge for that part.
"additional in-app purchases should you require them"
What does that mean? They allow you to sell in-app things and collect 30% on each of them, nothing else. Was this written to pad the list?
"in-app advertising (not that I am a fan)"
Proton doesn't use it. Also, that is not included in app payments. That's an additional thing which Apple and others provide and there's a separate financial arrangement with it. So it's irrelevant for two separate reasons.
"Try working in retail"
I hope you recognize the difference between shipping physical things, keeping inventories, having salespeople, handling customer complaints, and all the things that retail does versus sending a file when requested. Yes, it's more expensive. That's because it does useful things, rather than Apple who get that by selling access to IOS users only. If a store near me was making its money because I was only allowed to shop there, that would indeed be a problem.
Dumb question from a non-Apple user: Is the Apple store the only way to install? Can't users download an alternate store package and then be underway?
Really the way is to stop using the over priced & restrictive product. It's a fashion and familiarity thing. People don't like change until some celebs tell them they're using something else.
On Mac OS, you can sideload applications. Apple does make it tricky if they're not signed through intentionally misleading error messages, but even that works if you're willing to talk people through it. On IOS, you can only install apps using a few methods:
1. The App Store with an Apple account.
2. A corporate profile giving the creator of the profile, who pays Apple in order to create it, various abilities to mess with your device and requires manual installation.
3. Manually uploading a package specifically built for your device by hidden serial number from a Mac which can time out and require re-uploading after not very long.
Or in other words, in practice Apple's store is the only method.
Businesses are either Authoritarian (question the bosses and don't let the door hit your arse on the way out), or Communist (rigorous debate until a decision is made, then everyone toes and spouts the party line, or don't let the ice pick hit your ....).
So good luck expecting them to have any sympathy for anyone else's freedoms.
Perhaps Apple would be more accommodating if Proton didn't route most (all) of the e-mail proton-mail handles through Chinese mail servers. Huh? Yep. (e.g., mail.protonmail.ch[185.205.70.128], [185.70.42.128], [176.119.200.128], and so on)
I've had no end of issues with US (Texas) based local-government's use of proton-mail being blocked at the firewall and having to specifically whitelist IPs to have city and county engineer's e-mail delivered. There may just be some valid concerns Apple has with this "Swiss" company's practices. (it's also begs the question -- what are these local governments thinking... all they hear is "proton" and "secure" without ever understanding more)
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