Apple and Microsoft Say Flagship Services Not Popular Enough To Be 'Gatekeepers' (ft.com) 123
Apple and Microsoft, the most valuable companies in the US, have argued some of their flagship services are insufficiently popular to be designated "gatekeepers" under landmark new EU legislation designed to curb the power of Big Tech. FT: Brussels' battle with Apple over its iMessage chat app and Microsoft's search engine Bing comes ahead of Wednesday's publication of the first list of services that will be regulated by the Digital Markets Act. The legislation imposes new responsibilities on the tech companies, including sharing data, linking to competitors and making their services interoperable with rival apps.
Companies try to evade regulation, news at 11 (Score:5, Insightful)
Hopefully no one caves in on this. There could be a meaningful impact.
Re: Companies try to evade regulation, news at 11 (Score:5, Insightful)
Letting the largest monopoly of all: government determine how a private company manages its own assets. Communism much?
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
There's zero similarity between a system designed to abolish private property and regulations limiting monopolistic behavior to encourage competition between privately-held companies.
Imagine a law telling Comcast/AT&T they aren't allowed to buy a small independent ISP if the region it services has fewer than two other providers. That's what this EU law is like. Imagine a different law that said consumers can only get Internet service from the state-provided service, period. That's what communism is like.
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Letting the largest monopoly of all: government determine how a private company manages its own assets. Communism much?
Actually having a government determine how a private companies manages its own assets is a necessary component of capitalism. Capitalism in its raw form results in a single stable condition: a singular monopoly with price and conditions set by provider's will alone. No country on this planet under any form economic political system practices pure capitalism. They are all what you insanely describe as communism.
Re: Companies try to evade regulation, news at 11 (Score:4, Insightful)
Capitalism has zero inclination to competition when left to its own devices. What do you think mergers and takeovers are? Improving competition by... [checks notes]
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I'm sorry? Are you new to planet Earth?
.... reducing competition.
Capitalism has zero inclination to competition when left to its own devices. What do you think mergers and takeovers are? Improving competition by... [checks notes]
Indeed, capitalism, in it's pure form has an extreme tendency towards monopolies (and monopsonies, for the pedantic). This is why no functioning economy has ever become a pure capitalist state. We all run some form of social/municipal service that is paid for out of the public purse because in some cases, that is literally the only way to run them. The world runs on a mixed economy, a combination of private and public.
I can imagine a pure capitalist state to be just as bleak and hopeless as a pure social
Re: Companies try to evade regulation, news at 11 (Score:2)
In a true capitalist state, monopolies donâ(TM)t develop quite as effective because large companies have a problem with bureaucracy. Imagine Boeing or Bank of America without crony state support, eventually it collapses into itself.
Pure capitalism is the natural state in any no or low government state (see early United States, Somaliland for the relatively small number of pure capitalist examples).
But if a state is allowed to parasitize an economy in parallel, it devolves into communism or fascism, bot
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Not very often. There's always that little thing called competition that gets in the way.
Competition is literally capitalism in an unstable form with multiple parties fighting for control. The thing is power is not equal in a competitive marketplace. EVER. Capitalism will always eventually devolve into a monopoly thanks to imperfect competition.
Regulations are required to level the playing field.
Competition fails more often than not when the government interferes to back one winner.
To control capitalism governments don't back winners, they back losers.
Now you have Fascism
Communism ... Fascism ... you people just throw those words around randomly but you seem to have no idea what they mean.
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you people just throw those words around randomly but you seem to have no idea what they mean.
You've just described GOP political strategy for the last 50 years!
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Capitalism in its raw form results in a single stable condition: a singular monopoly with price and conditions set by provider's will alone.
You might not like capitalism, but you don't have to lie so stupidly about it. That is not a stable equilibrium for some of [wikipedia.org] the same reasons that government owning and running everything fails: diseconomies of scale [investopedia.com].
Whether a given industry naturally collapses to a monopoly or not depends heavily on the nature of the industry. Industries with low barriers to entry do not, because when a company gets too large to adapt to changes in the market, somebody new comes in and disrupts them. Industries with high barriers to entry, however, tend to become natural monopolies, where the entrenched monopolist has the ability to lower prices to undercut any newcomers and drive them out of business, then go back to business as usu
Re: Companies try to evade regulation, news at 11 (Score:4, Insightful)
You might not like capitalism, but you don't have to lie so stupidly about it.
There's no lying or stupidity. This is basic economics which you can read in every entry level textbook. Diseconomies of scale is a very imperfect theoretical model with a lot of assumptions, one of those assumptions is regulations in place to prevent abuse of market power. In order to create a new stable equilibrium it requires that diseconomies have a stronger impact than the market power. See it doesn't matter if I costs me more to produce a widget than you if I have the wealth and resources to undercut you, absorbing my costs to put you out of business, or to buy you out directly, or to steal your employees, etc. etc.
At best without market economies diseconomies of scale results in duopolies but it does not in any way prevent highly destructive consolidation of market power. If it did, monopolies wouldn't exist. But they do. You won't read that in entry level textbooks, for that you need to stay at uni a few more years.
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Slashdot ate my first link: https://fee.org/articles/how-t... [fee.org]
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Notice how you have no citations, only hand-waving?
Literally every economics textbook. EVERY SINGLE ONE. This is economics 101 stuff. Incidentally I didn't do any handwaving, I posed a valid and reasoned comment.
Diseconomies of scale are not just theoretical or a model.
And you don't seem to know what a theoretical model is, hint: It doesn't mean that it isn't based in reality, and I never said diseconomies of scale isn't real. Gravity is also a theoretical model. If you don't believe it just float the fuck away. Your argument is pointless as you don't attempt to refute the points I made, nor understand them. Pleas
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No, dude, you handwaved. Because you pretended that the theoretical conditions for a monopoly to develop are "everywhere". Even the terribly simplistic Econ 101 theories don't say that. If you actually checked the books you pretend to cite, you would know that. But you didn't, you just lied about that just like you lied about so much else.
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Actually, that's Fascism, not Communism.
Not at all. If it were you would have to say every capitalistic society on the planet is fascist. If you want to say that I'd argue you have used the word in a way that strips it of all meaning.
That's not at all capitalism. Free market capitalism fosters competition through lowered bar of entry to the market.
No that's not free market capitalism. You are describing a "perfect market" not a "free market". In a perfect market competition is equal, power is equal and prices are lowered with entry to a market instantly providing the same level of power. In free market capitalism power is not equal because in reality it *never
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> Not at all. If it were you would have to say every capitalistic society on the planet is fascist.
No, that would be dumb antifa type rethoric.
Fascism is specifically state controlled market capital. Mussolini and all. The Government telling companies how to run.
The current west is more social democratic. Safety nets and high tax rates to provide "services" (ha!) to citizens, with some key regulations.
> No that's not free market capitalism. You are describing a "perfect market" not a "free market".
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It's not only not communism, it's not even socialism.
Every corporation, every business, in fact every person has to deal with the government determining how they may manage their assets. We have these ideas called laws, you may have heard of them.
You don't like corporations being told they have to serve the public interest, but they are legal fictions which have no reason to exist in a government of, for, and by the people if they cannot manage that. We cannot afford to allow corporations which only serve w
Re:Companies try to evade regulation, news at 11 (Score:4, Interesting)
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Bing has a monopoly on Windows Search. You can't change to a different search provider.
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> Bing has a monopoly on Windows Search. You can't change to a different search provider.
That's like saying the Google search bar forces you to use Google.
Like, I don't even know what to say, use the search bar you want to use, Windows 11 doesn't force any on you.
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What "Google Search Bar"?
The one in Chrome can use any search engine you like.
The one in Android that comes with the default Google launcher can be replaced by replacing the launcher itself. There are free open source ones.
Re: Companies try to evade regulation, news at 11 (Score:2)
So you have options. Itâ(TM)s stupid to say a monopoly exists only if you define it as the products allowed within a corporation. A monopoly applies market wide, the only monopolies exists only through government fiat (interference in the free market) aka fascism or once you go further left and eliminate market competition in government, communism.
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So, the truth will win out? The USG has been backing these companies since the start.
I was just reading something about the Kellogg-Briand pact and how it was enshrined in the UN Charter. This outlawed war as a tool of national policy, and as a corollary invalidated forcible peace treaties as a result of aggressive war. And yet we see what happened in Afghanistan and Iraq. In both cases, the existing government was squashed and we forced a new government on the people of same.
Lying to ourselves about re
apple does not let you use your own app store MS d (Score:3, Insightful)
apple does not let you use your own app store MS does on the pc
Re:apple does not let you use your own app store M (Score:5, Informative)
apple does not let you use your own app store MS does on the pc
I'm using a Mac right now and I'm able to buy software from other stores such as Steam, Itch, Humble, etc. There's even an open source Mac package manager [brew.sh]. iPhone, sure, that's a walled garden.
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Due to Gatekeeper, they are gatekeepers. There is no way for users to say to gatekeeper "just pass all apps cosigned by this certificate or certificates derived from it". Requiring users to accept developer certificates or disable gatekeeper is not a realistic option.
Apple is the defacto gatekeeper for Apple apps.
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Apple is the defacto gatekeeper for Apple apps.
That is like saying Ford makes Ford cars. True but completely misses the point. The point raised is that Apple is not the gatekeeper for Mac apps which the OP somehow forgets that Macs exist when comparing them to PCs.
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The problem is the gatekeeper service, it does not allow users to accept an additional root of trust. An alternative appstore needs to be compatible with gatekeeper, without Apple being gatekeeper of what gets signed. Allowing developer signed packages is not a proper mechanism to allow alternitive appstores.
For internal appstores for large companies they have a proper mechanism, but they are the gatekeeper to allow that mechanism to be used. It should be the user.
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The problem is the gatekeeper service, it does not allow users to accept an additional root of trust.
Again you are complaining that Ford does not allow Honda to certify that their cars are Ford. On a Mac you can use any store you want to use including random websites on the Internet for which there is no trust. Also do you know that MacOS is based on BSD which means open source software can be used.
An alternative appstore needs to be compatible with gatekeeper, without Apple being gatekeeper of what gets signed. Allowing developer signed packages is not a proper mechanism to allow alternitive appstores.
Again, what? How does Steam work on a Mac again?
For internal appstores for large companies they have a proper mechanism, but they are the gatekeeper to allow that mechanism to be used. It should be the user.
Are you complaining there is no MDM from Apple for Macs? I am pretty sure that you can get MDMs for Macs.
Re: apple does not let you use your own app store (Score:2)
What they seem to be complaining about is that no other app store can do on a Mac what the Mac app store does. They all offer an inferior experience with more user interaction required for the same tasks. This is how it used to be on Android until version 12, where third party app stores became first class citizens. Now they can do one click installs and automated updates just like the real Android app store.
In this regard, Mac OS is literally locked down tighter than Android, and there is no justification
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What they seem to be complaining about is that no other app store can do on a Mac what the Mac app store does. They all offer an inferior experience with more user interaction required for the same tasks. This is how it used to be on Android until version 12, where third party app stores became first class citizens. Now they can do one click installs and automated updates just like the real Android app store.
And how is Apple responsible that 3rd party stores on a Mac are inferior? The problem is that the complaint about Android devices is that it should not apply to Macs. That is like complaining that 3rd party stores on a PC are inferior and MS should do something about that.
In this regard, Mac OS is literally locked down tighter than Android, and there is no justification for it.
WTF are you smoking? How is a Mac locked down tighter than Android? On a Mac you can get software from a random website or another store like Steam. The only thing that Mac does is to ask you the first time if you want to run random binary
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And how is Apple responsible that 3rd party stores on a Mac are inferior?
That was explained above. Go read the thread until you understand what we're talking about. No sense wasting time talking to you until you do that.
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And how is Apple responsible that 3rd party stores on a Mac are inferior?
This was explained upthread. Read, or learn to read.
The problem is that the complaint about Android devices is that it should not apply to Macs.
You botched that sentence, son. I guess it's "learn to read".
WTF are you smoking? How is a Mac locked down tighter than Android?
I just explained that. Learn to read.
On a Mac you can get software from a random website or another store like Steam.
Yes, on an Android device you can do the same. But you can also install another app store on your Android device and it can do everything the official app store can do, while another app store on your Macintosh cannot do everything the official app store can do. I'm done explaining this very, very simple concept to you, because at this point either you underst
Re: apple does not let you use your own app store (Score:2)
Purely technical speaking, you can disable the protections, they are not ultimate and can be overridden by importing your own signing certificate or root.
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That is correct... And completely offtopic and not at all relevant to the EU DMA being discussed.
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I agree with Microsoft here. (Score:3)
> Microsoft's search engine Bing
Yes. Who the heck uses Bing and who the heck is locked into it ? The EU being its usual ridiculous self.
Apple iMessage is also somewhat of a moot issue. I've never had any issues with people on Android texting me.
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Apple iMessage is also somewhat of a moot issue. I've never had any issues with people on Android texting me.
Even ignoring the green vs blue bubble, there are technical limitations that exist when messaging with someone outside of the Apple ecosystem. It's possible that the ability alone to send messages may be enough, or it might not.
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> It's possible that the ability alone to send messages may be enough, or it might not.
What value does iMessage even provide ? What does it lock you into ?
This is just government overreach on topics it doesn't understand.
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Re:I agree with Microsoft here. (Score:4, Insightful)
> the rather widely known concerns
If you can't even name one, seems they're not that widely known nor real concerns.
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> If you can't be arsed to educate yourself on a topic
Typical "I have no argument so I'll gaslight you" response.
I am educated on the topic. iMessage is basically SMS that work over WiFi as long as both devices are Apple devices. If I'm stuck on a WiFi only network and want to message a friend, I'll probably use one of 50 other messaging services that work over the Internet to reach them, even if they happen to own an Apple device and I have access to an Apple device.
There's no "gatekeeping" with iMess
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> it's a typical do your own legwork response.
I have and found no actual issue.
Feel free to point out any you perceive so that I might completely obliterate your arguments.
> First, the use of gatekeeper in regards to the DMA is different. As for there being "gatekeeping" with iMessage, that is a matter of perspective.
And you finally got it! If it's a matter of "perspective", it means it's entirely subjective and it means what I said initially : Bunch of old foggies trying to cling to relevance. You
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I have and found no actual issue. Feel free to point out any you perceive so that I might completely obliterate your arguments.
Then you haven't heard of Google. Clearly not worth my time.
And you finally got it! If it's a matter of "perspective", it means it's entirely subjective and it means what I said initially : Bunch of old foggies trying to cling to relevance. You have no facts, you have no objective basis for your argument. You have feelings my boy.
Oh, how wrong you are. I don't know if you get off on acting like this, or are just this dense. Either way, as I said, clearly not worth my time.
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None of that is relevant, or at least primarily relevant, to the purpose of the EU's DMA. It exists as a way to mitigate monopolistic behavior. Requiring interoperability is one way in which they intend to enforce it.
Okay please describe an alternate to iMessage that Apple could adopt. If you say RCS, you are aware than vanilla RCS does not have the features of iMessage? Google's version of RCS does; however, some of those features are optional for the carrier. And carriers implementing only some features of Google RCS defeats the interoperability you want.
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The point is that they require iMessage to open up to third party services, assuming the 45mil user thing holds up. It isn't just a matter of them having to adopt something, but to make iMessage open for others to interact with at a level acceptable by the EU.
No, you missed the point. iMessage has features that other messaging systems do not have. Google RCS has some of those features and some of those features are optional. iMessage can send messages with those feature to an Android phone but there is no guarantee that it will work.One option is that iMessage adopts RCS but AGAIN certain features are optional for the manufacturer and carrier. Another option is Apple released iMessage for Android.
For example, reactions to message for RCS was just released in 202
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I still think you appear to be misunderstanding part of it. It isn't about Apple adding support for a specific service.
Again what your remedy to the iMessage situation? You seem not to answer specific questions. The whole point of the DMA is to achieve interoperability with 3rd parties, you are aware there is no current means for interoperability for iMessage.
Apple would be required to open up some/most/all functions so others can make their systems compatible.
Again how can Apple make things compatible with other systems when those systems are not compatible with themselves? A main competitor to iMessage is Google Messaging using RCS. Because RCS has optional features, manufacturers nor carriers are required to implement it
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Again what your remedy to the iMessage situation? You seem not to answer specific questions.
The question isn't relevant, and I've explained why. That is why I said you are not understanding.
Again how can Apple make things compatible with other systems when those systems are not compatible with themselves?
Again, Apple doesn't have to make their system compatible. They have to open it up, so others can make their system compatible with it.
Re:I agree with Microsoft here. (Score:4, Insightful)
The only complaint I really have against iMessage is that it's a silo.
I can't replace it with another app, and I can't independently backup or index my iMessages (eg. as I used to do with messages sent to me on Android - it was nice to be able to have full-text search independent of my messages so I could find context I'd forgotten about).
And it'd be nice to use eg. something like Signal instead (not that that's possible anymore on Android, anyway).
It's a pretty moot point. I'd hardly consider iMessage any sort of 'gatekeeper' technology. There's nothing novel or special about it, in 2023.
Their trackpad and the ability to copy/paste between different Apple devices, however? Those absolutely are gatekeeper tech, and are completely indispensable.
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> It's a pretty moot point. I'd hardly consider iMessage any sort of 'gatekeeper' technology.
Except all the reasons you listed - you *have* to use it on an iPhone, and yet you can't have it on Android or Windows. You can indeed use SMS between vendors, but you can't use the actual underlying iMessage protocol between vendors - so the added extras the protocol gives you are locked into the Apple ecosystem. Thus, since the iPhone is the dominant phone in the market, Apple is a gatekeeper of iMessage.
As for
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You're right about Whatsapp - but you can get that anywhere, so no one's going after Meta for it. They might one day go after Meta to open up the protocol to third parties - but they haven't done it yet.
Android does outsell Apple phone-for-phone, but there are less restrictions on what you can do there - and whilst Android might be the underlying OS, the experience can be very different depending if you get the Google App store or the Amazon one, or someone elses (etc). I haven't checked, but I doubt Googl
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It's effectively a monopoly. I tried to avoid it for years (I'm in the UK) since I didn't want to use any then-Facebook-now-Meta stuff. Nope, eventually had to cave to reality and start using it - pure networking effect. It's that service that should be making the headlines here, as opposed to Bing or Apple.
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Not in EU. That's almost entirely the world of whatsapp. No one cares about iMessage or RCS, because everyone is on whatsapp anyway.
Notably, just like the rest of the world. US is pretty much the only nation in the world where native messaging software somehow manages to remain relevant, rather than get displaced by whatsapp, telegram, wechat and other certain language specific options.
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Spin control artistry in action.
The list of gatekeeping and proprietary, customer enslaving options for both these (and Google and more) are legendary.
As a US Citizen, I can tell you that the EU just doesn't put up with the bullshit that is business-as-usual in the US. These gatekeeping, customer corralling methods are used across the product lines, hardware on all their OS platforms, and software supply chains.
This is historical, continues, and won't abate until they feel financial pain, because they feel
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> The list of gatekeeping and proprietary, customer enslaving options for both these (and Google and more) are legendary.
Ok, but those weren't named. They named specifically iMessage and Bing.
Don't accuse a man who's never robbed anything of burglary if you mean to punish him for murder.
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A rose by any other name....
It takes a while, and legislation and legal prosecution will always be behind the state of the art. They pick their emblems, their standards, and run with them.
Did they pick some that weren't as juicy as say, proprietary fonts in M365? Maybe that's next; not my choice. I speculate that this is the beginning of a long line of EU enforcement actions that they believe by their values will result in the intent desired by them.
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> It takes a while, and legislation and legal prosecution will always be behind the state of the art
Behind ?
When was Bing dominant and when did Bing "enslave" their captive consummers ?
Oh right never. Ever.
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Bing was a default search engine in IE and in Edge. The EU initially championed choice during the search engine wars. For ages, Microsoft swore up and down that Windows would simply not work with IE, and wants very much to constantly push Edge as a default choice, even when defaults have been changed.
Using Cortana like Alexa was another head-desk. But you're quibbling without reading about what the history of the EU initiative is, only championing Bing like a MS sock puppet.
Apple has their own difficulties
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> Bing was a default search engine in IE and in Edge
And ? Google is the default for Chrome.
What's your point ?
> For ages, Microsoft swore up and down that Windows would simply not work with IE,
What does this have to do with Bing ?
> But you're quibbling without reading about what the history of the EU initiative is
If it classifies Bing as anything remotely like "Gatekeeping", it's just a bunch of old men who don't understand the tech landscape clawing at any shred of power they can have.
If you agr
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the heck is locked into it
Being locked into it has nothing to do with the regulations.
Apple iMessage is also somewhat of a moot issue. I've never had any issues with people on Android texting me.
And so because one feature works for you the company should be exempt from all regulations of the DMA?
The EU being its usual ridiculous self.
Slashdotters are being their usual ridiculous self, prattling on about something they evidently have no clue about, and in this case I'm not even sure you know what is being discussed, let alone how it works.
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> And so because one feature works for you the company should be exempt from all regulations of the DMA?
If they are single company regulations that basically handicap one company in the market ?
Yes. Absolute-fucking-ly. "We made this law for this product of X company" is absolute government fuckery of the highest order.
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"We made this law for this product of X company" is absolute government fuckery of the highest order.
Fortunately that's not how the law works. But nice try.
Re: I agree with Microsoft here. (Score:2)
The only issue I encountered was with images and video, but then we have things like Signal that work across most mobile and computer platforms. The market is working as intended.
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Yes. Who the heck uses Bing and who the heck is locked into it ? The EU being its usual ridiculous self.
Everyone who uses Windows search uses Bing by default. Like many other times in the past, MS tied features that benefits them. Now I would say that MS did not get as much of a benefit as they might have expected.
Personally I disabled all the web searching capabilities of Windows search as it made the feature worse not better. Searching for a file meant that Bing would scour the Internet for that subject first and then showed local results last. For example looking for a file named "Taxes 2019" would generat
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Re:I agree with Microsoft here. (Score:5, Insightful)
> You must not communicate with people who use emojis.
So iMessage uses a different format than UTF-8 ?
> Gotta love that Apple elitism.
I absolutely loathe Apple and if the issue is different emojis showing up in an SMS vs an iMessage, that's Apple not implementing UTF-8 properly.
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The issue is features that SMS doesn't support, like typing notifications and reactions. On iMessage you get a nice reaction icon on the post it is reacting to, but SMS users just get a message saying "user liked this" or something like that.
That's why people complain about Apple not supporting RCS, which does have those features. It means that everyone gets a worse experience when a non-iMessage user talks to an iMessage user. The speculation is that Apple likes it that way because it encourages people, es
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> The issue is features that SMS doesn't support, like typing notifications and reactions
Those aren't gatekeeping. You're not stuck on iMessage because you want "typing notifications".
> On iMessage you get a nice reaction icon on the post it is reacting to, but SMS users just get a message saying "user liked this" or something like that.
So you're even wrong about reactions not being supported over SMS.
> That's why people complain about Apple not supporting RCS
Then don't buy an Apple device ? If
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When people complain that Apple has not adopted RCS, they are really complaining that Apple has not adopted Google's version of RCS. Google implies that RCS is some sort of universal static standard when in reality it is their version that they control. Sometimes the problem with open standards is that anyone can make their own version. Additionally problematic to any adoption of RCS is that carriers are free to adopt only some features of Google's RCS depending if the feature is optional. One carrier might
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The only Google bit of the spec was adding E2E encryption based on Signal, so even that is fully open and relatively easy to implement. If a device doesn't support it, it can still communicate with Google Messenger, just unencrypted.
I really can't see any valid excuse for not adopting the fully open parts of the standard. It's always maintained backwards compatibility so there is very little risk of an app developed today becoming obsolete.
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> and interoperability
iMessage interops with everything else through SMS. So again, moot point.
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> Most Windows users user Bing,
That's a laughable inaccurate premise considering Bing's market share.
> Windows Search gets results from Bing by default. Edge defaults to Bing too.
Most Windows users use neither of those things though.
Seriously? (Score:1)
If Microsoft hadn't raised the issue I doubt anyone there would have remembered Bing even existed.
How about Windows? (Score:2, Troll)
Windows has an almost 100% market share, so that should be considered a gatekeeper.
Same goes for MS Office. Nobody uses the viable alternatives, because they all been reduced to irrelevance by MS.
Microsoft should get a massive fine over monopoly abuse for just these two systems.
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It is considered a gatekeeper thanks to the requirement to have a Microsoft account. TFA even says MS isn't disputing Windows.
The story here is that companies are trying to get some of their less popular products exempt, not that the rules don't apply to their large products.
Microsoft should get a massive fine over monopoly abuse for just these two systems.
Nothing here has been abused and no regulation has been broken (yet). If you want to talk about monopolies and antitrust go find an article about it and post it to Slashdot so we can have a relevant discussion. What you're talking about
If Only There Was an Antitrust Case (Score:2)
"Microsoft should get a massive fine over monopoly abuse for just these two systems."
If only there was a legal case, then a ruling by a federal judge over Microsoft to be broken into separate OS and Office companies.
One could dream right? RIGHT?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org].
Megadeth Should Make Crappier Albums (Score:2)
So mine will sell better. I think the government should make it so.
This is the stupidest thing ever.
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The difference is maybe that Megadeth doesn't own the music studios so they can push their records and pretty much drown out those that would actually be better than theirs.
Bing? Of all the things MS has a stranglehold on? (Score:3, Insightful)
Are you fucking serious? Not Office, not Teams, not their fucking operating system that has pretty much every business by the balls? Of all the things they could investigate for abuse of a monopoly in MS, and would offer a very good reason to do that, they choose exactly the one that they do not have a monopoly at?
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It does seem rather weird. I assume the EU tries to do the verbal gymnastics to make the rule apply to Office and/or Windows, but couldn't figure out how to do it - however they just HAD to get Microsoft somehow, so this silliness is what they're left with.
I'm also a little surprised they hit iMessage, which certainly doesn't have even majority usage in the EU or the world at large. Likely it's the same sort of shenanigans as mentioned above re: Microsoft.
But all that is just speculation, since the linked s
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Ah - archive.is has a copy of the story - https://archive.ph/m80vf#selec... [archive.ph]
Here is the way the rules determine "gatekeeper" status (honestly, why wasn't this in TFS?):
"Platforms need to have an annual turnover of more than €7.5bn, a market cap above €75bn and 45mn active monthly users in the EU to fall under the rules, though Brussels has some discretion over the designation beyond these raw metrics."
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None of these laws have to do with majority usage, monopolies, or even specific products. This is about service providers and their total usage numbers. Nowhere is it said that this doesn't apply to Office or Windows. In fact TFA even says that Microsoft isn't even attempting to claim that Windows isn't covered (since it obviously is thanks to their forcing of a Microsoft account into their product).
The only point being made here is that MS wants a heads up in the Search space over Google by claiming their
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Bing is not being investigated for abuse. What happens is the new rules are now in force, and Bing is considered gatekeeper as per a number of monthly user larger than 45 million (full criteria here: https://www.taylorwessing.com/... [taylorwessing.com] ) Apparently Microsoft challenges this number, but I can't tell exactly because TFA is paywalled.
The possible abuse in the case of Teams was solved last week was solved 5 days ago with Microsoft unbundling it to avoid further investigation https://slashdot.org/story/23/... [slashdot.org]
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This isn't about a monopoly or monopolist practices. No one is being investigated for anything. It's about the threshold for the gatekeeper provision for the DMA in the EU. This is just MS claiming they don't want to comply with the law because apparently they want to claim that Bing has virtually zero market share, and Apple with it's 1.3billion phones are claiming that less than 3% of users are using iMessage.
Calm your tits. MS is actively being investigated for monopolistic practices for both Office and
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> MS is actively being investigated for monopolistic practices for both Office and Teams.
> Being popular isn't illegal.
You seem to have contradicted yourself in 2 sentences. Let's face it, Office and Teams aren't exactly monopolies because MS forced the issue, they just sorta became such after the competition completely sucked at providing alternatives.
The closest alternative to Teams is Discord, a service for gamers and drama queens. Even Slack, that basically copy/pasted from Discord, managed to
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You seem to have contradicted yourself in 2 sentences.
No I didn't. Maybe you're struggling with the terms and definitions. Let me help you with this: There's nothing illegal about being popular, there's nothing illegal about being a monopoly. The key word you seem to have overlooked when quoting me is the word "practices". Antitrust law doesn't give a shit about what label you have. It takes into account what you *do*. MS is being investigated not for being a monopoly, but for what they are doing as a monopoly. Monopolistic practices != monopoly. Verb != noun.
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The bill in question regulates "sharing data, linking to competitors", which is a limited service on Windows and Office. Bing and (hopefully) Teams are the target of this bill. Microsoft through its software, obviously has the power to demand people use Edge (in fact, they're now doing precisely that) or Teams (ditto). Edge will, also obviously, depend on another MS product, Bing. It's a circuitous way of enforcing separation that achieves a free-market outcome.
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These rules only apply to internet services, not software. They have separate anti-trust rules for software, and have used them in the past. Microsoft has been fined more than once, and produces a special version of Windows (called Windows N) for the EU market that has Media Player and some other crap stripped out.
Regardless... (Score:2)
If they're not #1 (and in these areas they are not), they're close enough that waiting would be a mistake.
They don't want to comply because they want to be exactly what the rules are meant to prevent.
FaceTwat (Score:2)
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Need to get Google on board: YouTwatFace
Popular enough to be a Keymaster, at least? (Score:2)
Apple and MS are small in the EU for these (Score:2)
Apple has 33.83% of the mobile market
Microsoft Bing has 3.78% of the search market in the EU
Apple and Microsoft (Score:2)
Apple and Microsoft are large abusers of the market.
Apple should be forced to open it's platform to third parties and also make it's messaging platform available to third parties. The right to repair and repairable design should be a requirement.
Microsoft is current leveraging it's dominance of the corporate compute market to gain dominance in the cloud marketplace. The cloud should be unbundled and separated from their other software product. Based on the current growth rates Azure will end up dominating t