Maybe I’m misunderstanding something about the anti-steering rule. Can someone give me an example of what this sort of thing looks like in a brick and mortar store?
You don’t need metaphors. It’s pretty simple.
The Spotify app should have a button that takes you to their website, where you can sign up for a premium subscription.
It doesn’t have one because Apple would kick Spotify out of the App Store.
Also - all other links to the Spotify website (support, terms of service, privacy policy, etc) take you to pages where the main navigation of the website has been removed so that you can’t find the signup page. Because again, Apple bans that. For the longest time apps have not allowed to have any way for users to find a signup form on a website.
That policy is now illegal in the EU (and a growing list of other countries) and Apple’s attempt at compliance is a new API - only available in Europe - that informs the user that they might be a victim of theft, fraud, etc before they get taken to a website that is deliberately sandboxed… supposedly to prevent theft/fraud/etc but more likely because it makes it really difficult for Spotify to link that signup with an existing free account.
Oh and if Spotify opts to expose users to see that horror show… they’d have to pay tens of millions of dollars per year to Apple. They have so far refused to do so, meaning the new regulations have failed (well, they were failing, until the EU declared Apple’s compliance efforts insufficient).
Let’s say you want to buy a printer from a retailer. The retailer also sells replacement ink cartridges, and so does the printer manufacturer. The manufacturer prefers that you buy the ink cartridges directly from them, because their margins are higher when they don’t have to pay the retailer a cut.
To encourage customers to buy the cartridges directly from them, the manufacturer provides a link or QR code to their online ink cartridge store on the product box, printer manual, and another paper insert inside the box. The manufacturer might offer more competitive pricing than the retailer or some other enticement, like a coupon.
However, the retailer implements an anti-steering rule, preventing the printer manufacturer from providing a link or QR code to their online ink cartridge store on the product packaging, printer manual, or anything inside the box, as a requirement for the printer to appear on the retailer’s shelves. (As a result of corporate consolidation, there is only one other retailer in the entire country.) This is the equivalent of what Apple is doing to apps in their App Store: preventing developers from disclosing that users can purchase subscriptions or other app-related digital goods on the developer’s website.
You know, this explanation isn’t wrong, but having a printer manufacturer in your analogy show up as a victim just feels wrong.
That’s just the first thing that came to mind. Any product with consumable refills (razor blades, electric toothbrush heads, air/water filter replacements, etc.) would also work as an example.
I have a bad feeling that there will be a significant reduction in the EU making pro-consumer moves like this. EU parties are experiencing a major swing to far right populism right now.
I hope there’s still an appetite for holding tax-dodging, anti-competitive multinationals to account.
God, how do right-wingers suck so fucking bad? Jesus, they basically have the backwards view on almost everything…
It is crazy when you think about it. Everybody learns about right-wing takeovers of government in history and generally agrees the outcome is pretty horrible, and yet it just happens all over again. I guess fear is a hell of a drug.
I wonder, too. Pro-EU centre-right parties and social democrat parties still hold a majority, so on these things I’m not sure we’ll see a major shift, but I genuinely haven’t checked the voting record to see if the far right parties generally take a different stance on the more pedestrian consumer protection regulations or not. I probably should do that.
God I wish the USA had the regulatory oversight that Europe has.
