Category Archives: Economics

Pluralistic: Darth Android – Altering Terms After the Fact

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An Android robot standing atop a cracked mobile phone, wearing Darth Vader armor.

William Gibson famously said that “Cyberpunk was a warning, not a suggestion.” But for every tech leader fantasizing about lobotomizing their enemies with Black Ice, there are ten who wish they could be Darth Vader, force-choking you while grating out, “I’m altering the deal. Pray I don’t alter it any further.”

I call this business philosophy the “Darth Vader MBA.” The fact that tech products are permanently tethered to their manufacturers – by cloud connections backstopped by IP restrictions that stop you from disabling them – means that your devices can have features removed or altered on a corporate whim, and it’s literally a felony for you to restore the functionality you’ve had removed:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/26/hit-with-a-brick/#graceful-failure

That presents an irresistible temptation to tech bosses. It means that you can spy on your users, figure out which features they rely on most heavily, disable those features, and then charge money to restore them:

https://restofworld.org/2021/loans-that-hijack-your-phone-are-coming-to-india/

It means that you can decide to stop paying a supplier the license fee for a critical feature that your customers rely on, take that feature away, and stick your customers with a monthly charge, forever, to go on using the product they already paid for:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/28/fade-to-black/#trust-the-process

It means that you can push “security updates” to devices in the field that take away your customers’ ability to use third-party apps, so they’re forced to use your shitty, expensive apps:

https://www.404media.co/developer-unlocks-newly-enshittified-echelon-exercise-bikes-but-cant-legally-release-his-software/

Or you can take away third-party app support and force your customers to use your shitty app that’s crammed full of ads, so they have to look at an ad every time they want to open their garage-doors:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/09/lead-me-not-into-temptation/#chamberlain

Or you can break compatibility with generic consumables, like ink, and force your customers to buy the consumables you sell, at (literal) ten billion percent markups:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/11/ink-stained-wretches-battle-soul-digital-freedom-taking-place-inside-your-printer

Combine the “agreements” we must click through after we hand over our money, wherein we “consent” to having the terms altered at any time, in any way, forever, and surrender our right to sue:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/08/15/dogs-breakfast/#by-clicking-this-you-agree-on-behalf-of-your-employer-to-release-me-from-all-obligations-and-waivers-arising-from-any-and-all-NON-NEGOTIATED-agreements

With the fact that billions of digital tools can be neutered at a distance with a single mouse-click:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/19/twiddler/

With the fact that IP law makes it a literal felony to undo these changes or add legal features to your own property that the manufacturer doesn’t want you to have:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/24/record-scratch/#autoenshittification

And you’ve created the conditions for a perfect Darth Vader MBA dystopia.

Tech bosses are fundamentally at war with the idea that our digital devices contain “general purpose computers.” The general-purposeness of computers – the fact that they are all Turing-complete, universal von Neumann machines – has created tech bosses’ fortunes, but now that these fortunes have been attained, the tech sector would like to abolish that general-purposeness; specifically, they would like to make it impossible to run programs that erode their profits or frustrate their attempts at rent-seeking.

This has been a growing trend in computing since the mid-2000s, when tech bosses realized that the “digital rights management” that the entertainment industry had fallen in love with could provide even bigger dividends for tech companies themselves.

Since the Napster era, media companies have demanded that tech platforms figure out how to limit the use and copying of media files after they were delivered to our computers. They believed that there was some practical way to make a computer that would refuse to take orders from its owner, such that you could (for example) “stream” a movie to a user without that being a “download.” The truth, of course is that all streams are downloads, because the only way to cause my screen to display a video file that is on your server is for your server to send that file to my computer.

“Streaming” is a consensus hallucination, and when a company claims to be giving you a “stream” that’s not a “download,” they really mean that they believe that the program that’s rendering the file on your screen doesn’t have a “save as” button.

But of course, even if the program doesn’t have a “save as” button, someone could easily make a “save as” plugin that adds that functionality to your streaming program. So “streaming” isn’t just “a video playback program without a ‘save as’ button,” it’s also “a video playback program that no one can add a ‘save as’ button to.”

At the turn of the millennium, tech companies selling this stuff hoodwinked media companies by claiming that they used technical means to prevent someone from adding the “save as” button after the fact. But tech companies knew that there was no technical means to prevent this, because computers are general purpose, and can run every program, which means that every 10-foot fence you build around a program immediately summons up an 11-foot ladder.

When a tech company says “it’s impossible to change the programs and devices we ship to our users,” they mean, “it’s illegal to change the programs and devices we ship to our users.” That’s thanks to a cluster of laws we colloquially call “IP law”; a label we apply to any law that lets a firm exert control on the conduct of users, critics and competitors:

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

Law, not technology, is the true battlefield in the War on General Purpose Computing, a subject I’ve been raising the alarm about for decades now:

https://memex.craphound.com/2012/01/10/lockdown-the-coming-war-on-general-purpose-computing/

When I say that this is a legal fight and not a technical one, I mean that, but for the legal restrictions on reverse-engineering and “adversarial interoperability,” none of these extractive tactics would be viable. Every time a company enshittified its products, it would create an opportunity for a rival to swoop in, disenshittify the enshittification, and steal your customers out from under you.

The fact that there’s no technical way to enforce these restrictions means that the companies that benefit from them have to pitch their arguments to lawmakers, not customers. If you have something that works, you use it in your sales pitch, like Signal, whose actual, working security is a big part of its appeal to users.

If you have something that doesn’t work, you use it in your lobbying pitch, like Apple, who justify their 30% ripoff app tax – which they can only charge because it’s a felony to reverse-engineer your iPhone so you can use a different app store – by telling lawmakers that locking down their platform is essential to the security and privacy of iPhone owners:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/12/youre-holding-it-wrong/#if-dishwashers-were-iphones

Apple and Google have a duopoly over mobile computing. Both companies use legal tactics to lock users into getting their apps from the companies’ own app stores, where they take 30 cents out of every dollar you spend, and where it’s against the rules to include any payment methods other than Google/Apple’s own payment systems.

This is a massive racket. It lets the companies extract hundreds of billions of dollars in rents. This drives up costs for their users and drives down profits for their suppliers. It lets the duopoly structure the entire mobile economy, acting as de facto market regulators. For example, the fact that Apple/Google exempt Uber and Lyft from the 30% app tax means that they – and they alone – can provide competitive ride-hailing services.

But though both companies extract the 30% app tax, they use very different mechanisms to maintain their lock on their users and on app makers. Apple uses digital locks, which lets it invoke IP law to criminalize anyone who reverse-engineers its systems and provides an easy way to install a better app store.

Google, on the other hand, uses a wide variety of contractual tactics to maintain its control, arm-twisting Android device makers and carriers into bundling its app store with every device, often with a locked bootloader that prevents users from adding new app stores after they pay for their devices.

But despite this, Google has always claimed that Android is the “open” alternative to the Apple “ecosystem,” principally on the strength that you can “sideload” an app. “Sideload” is a weird euphemism that the mobile duopoly came up with; it means “installing software without our permission,” which we used to just call “installing software” (because you don’t need a manufacturer’s permission to install software on your computer).

Now, Google has pulled a Darth Vader, changing the deal after the fact. They’ve announced that henceforth, you will only be able to sideload apps that come from developers who pay to be validated by Google and certified as good eggs. This has got people really angry, and justifiably so.

Last week, the repair hero Louis Rossmann posted a scorching video excoriating Google for the change:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBEKlIV_70E

In the video, Rossmann – who is now running an anti-enshittification group called Fulu – reminds us that our mobile devices aren’t phones, they’re computers and urges us not to use the term “sideloading,” because that’s conceding that there’s something about the fact that this computer can fit in your pocket that means that you shouldn’t be able to, you know, just install software.

Rossmann thinks that this is a cash grab, and he’s right – partially. He thinks that this is a way for Google to make money from forcing developers to join its certification program.

But that’s just small potatoes. The real cash grab is the hundreds of billions of dollars that Google stands to lose if we switch to third-party app stores and choke off the app tax.

That is an issue that is very much on Google’s mind right now, because Google lost a brutal antitrust case brought by Epic Games, makers of Fortnite:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/12/im-feeling-lucky/#hugger-mugger

Epic’s suit contended that Google had violated antitrust law by creating exclusivity deals with carriers and device makers that locked Android users into Google’s app store, which meant that Epic had to surrender 30% of its mobile earnings to Google.

Google lost that case – badly. It turns out that judges don’t like it when you deliberately destroy evidence:

https://www.legaldive.com/news/deleted-messages-google-antitrust-case-epic-games-deliberate-spoliation-donato/702306/

They say that when you find yourself in a hole, you should stop digging, but Google can’t put down the shovel. After the court ordered Google to open up its app store, the company just ignored the order, which is a thing that judges hate even more than destroying evidence:

https://www.justice.gov/atr/case/epic-games-inc-v-google-llc

So it was that last month, Google found itself with just two weeks to comply with the open app store order, or else:

https://www.theverge.com/news/717440/google-epic-open-play-store-emergency-stay

Google was ordered to make it possible to install new app stores as apps, so you could go into Google Play, search for a different app store, and, with a single click, install it on your phone, and switch to getting your apps from that store, rather than Google’s.

That’s what’s behind Google’s new ban on “sideloading”: this is a form of malicious compliance with the court orders stemming from its losses to Epic Games. In fact, it’s not even malicious compliance – it’s malicious noncompliance, a move that so obviously fails to satisfy the court order that I think it’s only a matter of time until Google gets hit with fines so large that they’ll actually affect Google’s operations.

In the meantime, Google’s story that this move is motivated by security it obviously bullshit. First of all, the argument that preventing users from installing software of their choosing is the only way to safeguard their privacy and security is bullshit when Apple uses it, and it’s bullshit when Google trots it out:

https://www.eff.org/document/letter-bruce-schneier-senate-judiciary-regarding-app-store-security

But even if you stipulate that Google is doing this to keep you safe, the story falls apart. After all, Google isn’t certifying apps, they’re certifying developers. This implies that the company can somehow predict whether a developer will do something malicious in the future.

This is obviously wrong. Indeed, Google itself is proof that this doesn’t work: the fact that a company has a “don’t be evil” motto at its outset is no guarantee that it won’t turn evil in the future.

There’s a long track record of merchants behaving in innocuous and beneficial ways to amass reputation capital, before blitzing the people who trust them with depraved criminality. This is a well-understood problem with reputation scores, dating back to the early days of eBay, when crooked sellers invented the tactic of listing and delivering a series of low-value items in order to amass a high reputation score, only to post a bunch of high-ticket scams, like dozens laptops at $1,000 each, which are never delivered, even as the seller walks away with tens of thousands of dollars.

More recently, we’ve seen this in supply chain attacks on open source software, where malicious actors spend a long time serving as helpful contributors, pushing out a string of minor, high-quality patches before one day pushing a backdoor or a ransomware package into widely used code:

https://arstechnica.com/security/2025/07/open-source-repositories-are-seeing-a-rash-of-supply-chain-attacks/

So the idea that Google can improve Android’s safety by certifying developers, rather than code, is obvious bullshit. No, this is just a pretext, a way to avoid complying with the court order in Epic and milking a few more billions of dollars in app taxes.

Google is no friend of the general purpose computer. They keep coming up with ways to invoke the law to punish people who install code that makes their Android devices serve their owners’ interests, at the expense of Google’s shareholders. It was just a couple years ago that we had to bully Google out of a plan to lock down browsers so they’d be as enshittified as apps, something Google sold as “feature parity”:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/02/self-incrimination/

Epic Games didn’t just sue Google, either. They also sued Apple – but Apple won, because it didn’t destroy evidence and make the judge angry at it. But Apple didn’t walk away unscathed – they were also ordered to loosen up control over their App Store, and they also failed to do so, with the effect that last spring, a federal judge threatened to imprison Apple executives:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/05/01/its-not-the-crime/#its-the-coverup

Neither Apple nor Google would exist without the modern miracle that is the general purpose computer. Both companies want to make sure no one else ever reaps the benefit of the Turing complete, universal von Neumann machine. Both companies are capable of coming up with endless narratives about how Turing completeness is incompatible with your privacy and security.

But it’s Google and Apple that stand in the way of our security and privacy. Though they may sometimes protects us against external threats, neither Google nor Apple will ever protect us from their own predatory instincts.

Source: Pluralistic: Darth Android (01 Sep 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

Apple pulls torrenting app from a third-party store (one that it should not be able to control!) in the EU

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As first reported by TorrentFreak, Apple is preventing downloads of the iTorrent app on iPhones in the EU. Developer Daniil “XITRIX” Vinogradov’s app was a popular BitTorrent client available from AltStore PAL, which is among the most popular third-party iOS app stores overseas. The company revoked the app developer’s ability to distribute apps on such third-party marketplaces. While Apple has historically banned torrent clients from iOS devices in the United States, the EU’s Digital Markets Act that went into effect last year requires Apple to allow apps from third-party stores to be installed by users.

According to TorrentFreak‘s reporting, the motivation behind the revocation of XITRIX’s alternative distribution rights is not yet certain. The publisher spoke directly with TorrentFreak and said that Apple never reached out to him about the matter. “I still have no idea if it was my fault or Apple’s, and their responses make no sense,” Vinogradov told TorrentFreak. Apple has responded to Vinogradov with a generic message about app store issues.

Shane Gill, the co-founder of AltStore PAL, told TorrentFreak that the company’s request for information from Apple has not resulted in it explaining its justification for the takedown. “I can confirm that we are in communication with Apple about this issue. We’ve told them what’s going wrong, and they said they’re looking into it, but we haven’t gotten any further information as of yet,” said Gill.

Source: Apple pulls torrenting app from a third-party store in the EU

The Threat Of Extreme Statutory Damages For Copyright Almost Certainly Made Anthropic Settle With Authors: Not the Use of Books for training, but the idiots used pirated books for training

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In what may be the least surprising news in the world of copyright and the internet, Anthropic just agreed to settle the copyright lawsuit that everyone’s been watching, but not for the reasons most people think. This isn’t about AI training being found to infringe copyright—in fact, Anthropic won on that issue. Instead, it’s about how copyright’s broken statutory damages system can turn a narrow legal loss into a company-ending threat, forcing settlements even when the core dispute goes your way.

Anthropic had done something remarkably stupid beyond just training: they downloaded unauthorized copies of works and stored them in an internal “pirate library” for future reference. Judge Alsup was crystal clear that while the training itself was fair use, building and maintaining this library of unauthorized copies was straightforward infringement. This wasn’t some edge case—it was basic copyright violation that Anthropic should have known better than to engage in.

And while there were some defenses to this, it would likely be tough to succeed at trial with the position Judge Alsup had put them in.

The question then was about liability. Because of copyright’s absolutely ridiculous statutory damages (up to $150k per work if the infringement was found to be “willful”), which need not bear any relationship to the actual damages, Anthropic could have been on the hook for trillions of dollars in damages just in this one case. That’s not something any company is going to roll the dice on, and I’m sure that the conversation was more or less: if you win and we get hit with statutory damages, the company will shut down and you will get nothing. Instead, let’s come to some sort of deal and get the lawyers (and the named author plaintiffs) paid.

While the amount of the settlement hasn’t been revealed yet, the amount authors get paid is going to come out eventually, and… I guarantee that it will not be much.

[…]

Instead what will happen—what always happens with these collective licensing deals—is that a few of the bigger names will get wealthy, but mainly the middleman will get wealthy. These kinds of schemes only tend to enrich the middlemen (often leading to corruption).

So this result is hardly surprising. Anthropic had to settle rather than face shutting down. But my guess is that authors are going to be incredibly disappointed by how much they end up getting from the settlement. Judge Alsup still has to approve the settlement, and some people may protest it, but it would be a much bigger surprise if he somehow rejects it.

Source: The Threat Of Extreme Statutory Damages For Copyright Almost Certainly Made Anthropic Settle With Authors | Techdirt

Better than greenwashing, sustainability reporting boosts financials

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As environmental responsibility and social ethics become increasingly important, a question might arise in the boardroom: does the company’s sustainability efforts materially affect the financial information on which investors rely?

Research in the International Journal of Business and Emerging Markets sets about answering that question. It does so by examining data from European firms over the course of a decade and providing that voluntary disclosure and strong performance in metrics improve the value relevance of .

The researchers focused on Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) criteria.

[…]

Ultimately, the research found, firms voluntarily reporting ESG information tended to present financial statements more aligned with market perceptions of their value.

Moreover, firms with higher ESG performance scores, indicating better sustainability practices, demonstrate even stronger correlations between their financial disclosures and market value. This suggests that sustainability efforts are not merely reputational or regulatory compliance exercises but contribute meaningfully to the transparency of financial reporting.

[…]

More information: Kyriakos Christofi et al, The impact of sustainability disclosure on financial statement value relevance: evidence from Europe, International Journal of Business and Emerging Markets (2025). DOI: 10.1504/IJBEM.2025.147883

Source: Better than greenwashing, sustainability reporting boosts financials

Gamblers Now Bet on AI Models Like Racehorses

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Now that AI developers are getting paid like pro athletes, it’s fitting that fans are placing big bets on how well they’re doing their jobs.

On Kalshi, Polymarket and other sites where people wager “predictions” on real-world events, gamblers lay down millions each month on their picks for AI’s top model.

The AI arms race is playing out in plain sight on social media, ranking sites and obscure corners of the internet where enthusiasts hunt for clues. The constant buzz makes the topic appealing for wagers, though not every scrap of information is meaningful.

[…]

Trading volume across AI prediction markets has surged to around $20 million this month. Kalshi, the only platform currently available in the U.S., is seeing 10 times the volume on AI trades compared with the start of the year, a spokesman says.

Each bet, or “contract,” is priced in cents to reflect the odds: McCoy bought thousands of Gemini contracts at around 40 cents, meaning it had a 40% chance of winning. If the bet had settled and Gemini won, McCoy’s 40 cents would become a dollar. If Gemini lost, McCoy would lose it all.

But much of the action happens before the final outcome. As more people piled into the Gemini bet, the contract price rose. McCoy sold when it had reached 87 cents. It’s like betting on a sports match, only with the option to cash out when the odds rise in favor of your bet.

[…]

Strategies vary. Some bet on the big industry players, others buy low on less-known or soon-to-be-updated models. Some compare odds on Kalshi and Polymarket to find arbitrage opportunities in the odds.

As volume for these AI trades continues to grow, the incentive for good information will only increase, and the squeeze on casual bettors will get tighter, says Robin Hanson, a professor of economics at George Mason University.

“When you have better information in these kinds of markets, you can make better decisions,” Hanson says. “If you know a little more, you make more money.”

[…]

Source: Gamblers Now Bet on AI Models Like Racehorses

How Age Verification Laws Targeting Online Porn Could Be (And Should Be) Viewed As A Labor Rights Issue

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[…]

While not a traditional “labor issue,” like union rights and equal pay, the government’s role in regulating and restricting forms of expression that can be produced, distributed, and monetized for entertainment media consumption is a dimension of the age-gating issue often overlooked and/or ignored.

Digital sex workers’ incomes and living conditions are dependent on platforms for content distribution. Sites like OnlyFans, Pornhub, xHamster, Chaturbate, and literally thousands more grant performers and content creators access to revenue generation opportunities that are remote, distributed, and confidential.

Due to these platforms forming the foundations of a trend-setting, technology-innovating, digitally native entertainment industry, age verification laws target digital sex workers’ means of distribution and, in a lot of cases, means of production. The overwhelming majority of adult content creators and adult performers are self-employed—classified as independent contractors and/or small business owners. Some performers have incorporated, with others adding trademarks and intellectual property protections on their branding.

Consider a few examples of adult content creators actively engaging in the activity of running a small business or self-employed enterprise. Platforms such as OnlyFans issue tax forms so that content creators can accurately report their income to the IRS and their state tax authorities. Or take the example of the performer-creator, going by the stage name Gigi Dior, duking it out with high-fashion house Christian Dior in front of the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Activities and actions like these aren’t seen by the vast majority of consumers—or, importantly, the critics of the entire online adult ecosystem.

We all hear the “think of the children” mantra from the Helen Lovejoys of the world daily. We are seeing it now with Collective Shout teaming up with Visa and Mastercard to clamp down on NSFW gaming. We are seeing it in the United Kingdom with calls from both the House of Commons and the House of Lords to ban certain types of pornography to comply with a broad interpretation of the Online Safety Act of 2023.

At least 40 percent of all United States residents live in jurisdictions with age verification laws. Millions of adult content creators are diverse and dynamic. Faced with all of these mounting regulatory pressures, adult entertainment performers and adult content creators—particularly those operating with marginalized identities—have developed a range of creative strategies to sustain their work, visibility, and autonomy in the national digital space. Inaccessibility is a legitimate issue that goes far beyond concerns of consumers.

While these laws are often framed as protecting children, the actual barrier they create is for adults — the lawful consumers who make up the legitimate market for adult entertainment. Under laws like Texas’s HB 1181, anyone wanting to access adult content must submit government-issued ID or sensitive personal data to a third-party vendor. Many adults are unwilling to do this, not because they wish to evade age restrictions, but because they don’t trust where that data will go, how it will be stored, or who might access it.

The result is that large numbers of adults — the only legal audience for these performers in the first place — stop visiting legitimate platforms altogether. That loss of audience directly translates into a loss of income for adult content creators. For an industry where the majority of workers are self-employed, often operating as small businesses, the shrinkage of the paying customer base is an existential threat.

This is why age verification mandates should also be seen as a labor rights issue. They are not simply regulating content; they are regulating the ability of consenting adults to transact with one another in a lawful marketplace.

[…]

Source: How Age Verification Laws Targeting Online Porn Could Be (And Should Be) Viewed As A Labor Rights Issue  | Techdirt

$81M ‘Trade Secrets’ Verdict Against Boeing Was Overturned – and Then Reinstated

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14 months ago a jury ruled against Boeing, awarding $81 million in damages to failed electric airplane startup Zunum. “Zunum alleged that Boeing, while ostensibly investing seed money to get the startup off the ground, stole Zunum’s technology and actively undermined its attempts to build a business,” the Seattle Times reported at the time.

But two months later that verdict was overturned, Reuters reports, with U.S. District Judge James Robart deciding that Zunum “did not adequately identify its secrets or show that they derived their value from being kept secret.”

And then three days ago a U.S. appeals court reinstated the original $81 million award, reversing that district judge’s decision and “rejecting his finding that the information Boeing allegedly stole was not entitled to trade-secret protection.” [T]he district court erred in concluding that “Zunum failed to identify any of its alleged trade secrets with sufficient particularity”… Here, the court rejected Zunum’s repeated attempts to introduce comprehensive trade secret definitions into evidence and instead provided the jury with a court-created exhibit enumerating Zunum’s alleged trade secrets with a short description of each. Zunum’s witnesses identified the trade secrets by number, provided a basic explanation of each, and used exhibits and demonstratives to exemplify information comprising specific trade secrets.
“internal Boeing communications introduced at trial suggesting that Boeing intended to modify its own in-house designs, methods, and strategies to incorporate information from certain Zunum trade secrets…” according to the new ruling. “Under the parties’ agreement, Boeing was not permitted to use Zunum’s confidential information for any reason other than to manage its investment in Zunum.”

Reuters adds that “A spokesperson for Boeing declined to comment on the appeals court’s decision”

One final note: The appeals court also ordered the case to be assigned to a new judge after Robart revealed that his wife had acquired Boeing stock through a retirement savings account during the litigation.
Judge Robart had called that an “error”. (And judicial ethics experts interviewed by Business Insider in 2024 “characterized Robart’s trades and delayed disclosure to the parties as a minor issue,” they reported Thursday.)

But Thursday’s ruling notes that the delayed disclosure “taken together with the district court’s consistent rulings in Boeing’s favor during and after trial, could give an objective observer reason to question the district judge’s impartiality in further proceedings.”

Source: $81M ‘Trade Secrets’ Verdict Against Boeing Was Overturned – and Then Reinstated

Epic Games has another win over Apple and Google, in Oz

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Australia’s Federal Court has given Epic Games another win in its global fight against the way Apple and Google run their app stores.

The Court yesterday delivered its oral decision in a long-running case that, like similar cases elsewhere, considered whether the tech giants abuse market power by preventing developers from pursuing distribution channels that cost less than using their app stores or alternative payment systems.

The Australian case also represented the first major test of a revised definition of abuse of market power under local law.

As explained by law firm Gilbert + Tobin, the court found that both Apple and Google abused market power. Justice Beach found Apple’s App Store and requirement to use only its payment systems for apps sold there “had the purpose, effect or likely effect of substantially lessening competition” and therefore breached Australian competition law.

The Court found Google also misused power it wields in the market for app stores and payment services on Android.

Epic Games hailed the result as a win for developers and consumers. The games developer interpreted the judgement as meaning Apple will be forced to allow it to sell its wares in the App Store, something Cupertino has declined to do after Epic started using external payment systems.

However Epic also noted that the written decision runs to over 2,000 pages, and its expectation it may therefore contain other matters it needs to consider. At the time of writing the Court had not published the judgment and it may be some time before it emerges, because Gilbert + Tobin says the full terms outlined in the decision “are currently embargoed pending resolution of confidentiality claims.”

The matter is therefore far from over, for several reasons. One is that Apple and Google can appeal and appear likely to do so as both already expressed their concerns with some aspects of the judgement. Another is that a class action seeking compensation for overcharging flowing from Apple and Google’s abuse of market power has scarcely begun.

Gilbert + Tobin does, however, note that Australia joins South Korea, India, and Japan in having found or decided that app store operators need to allow more competition, and that the UK is investigating the same issues. Epic, Apple, and Google have also fought over the same issues in the US, where the games developer scored important wins. ®

Source: Epic Games has another win over Apple and Google, in Oz • The Register

Should Lyft and Uber Charge More if Your Battery Is Low? California May Soon Ban That

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It’s late at night, and you badly need a ride. Your cellphone’s battery is dangerously low.

Should a ridehailing company such as Uber or Lyft be able to charge you more because its artificial intelligence programming thinks you’re desperate since it knows your phone is about to die?

Not if Hayward Democratic Sen. Aisha Wahab has her way.

Her Senate Bill 259 would prevent retailers from using artificial intelligence to jack up prices using the information stored on customers’ phones. That could include the phone’s battery life, whether it’s an older model, what apps are installed, what time of day it is, where its user is located and where they live.

“Our devices are being weaponized against us in order for large corporations to increase profits, and it has to stop,” Wahab told the Assembly Judiciary Committee last month.

[…]

Source: Should Lyft and Uber Charge More if Your Battery Is Low? California May Soon Ban That

Google had just two weeks to begin cracking open Android Play Store, it admits in emergency filing, manages to stay to three weeks

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Yesterday, when Epic won its Google antitrust lawsuit for a second time, it wasn’t quite clear how soon Google would need to start dismantling its affirmed illegal monopoly.

Today, Google admitted the answer was: 14 days. Google had just 14 days to enact major changes to its Google Play app store, and the way it does business with phonemakers, cellular carriers, and app developers, unless it won an emergency stay (pause) from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals as it continues to appeal. It must stop forcing apps to use Google Play Billing, allow app developers to freely steer their users to other platforms, and limit the perks it can offer in exchange for preinstalled apps, among other changes.

Those changes would not yet include Epic’s biggest wins. They don’t yet force Google to carry rival app stores within the Google Play Store, or to share its full app catalog with those rival stores, so don’t expect the Epic Games Store or the Microsoft Xbox Store to appear inside Google Play quite yet.

And as of Friday afternoon, all of this may take even longer. Hours after we published our story, Google won its emergency stay, and now has at least three weeks before it has to change Android app store policy.

When he issued the permanent injunction to begin cracking open Android, Judge James Donato gave Google eight months to come up with a “narrowly tailored” system of safety and security procedures before it would be forced to carry rival app stores, so Google has seven and a half months left once the stays have been lifted. Rival app stores won’t appear inside Google Play until 2026 at the earliest.

[…]

Source: Google has just two weeks to begin cracking open Android, it admits in emergency filing | The Verge

Futurehome Breaks IoT Devices Unless A New Subscription Is Paid For

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[…]It’s bad enough when a company goes fully kablooey, has to shut down all their backend servers and gear, and renders their products useless. That sucks, there are ways around it, and it shouldn’t be allowed, but it’s quite different than perfectly healthy companies selling a product that has features and capabilities out of the box, only to claw back those capabilities and either shut them down or stick them behind some subscription paywall.

And that latter of those examples is what is happening again, this time from Futurehome, which makes a series of smarthome IoT products.

Launched in 2016, Futurehome’s Smarthub is marketed as a central hub for controlling Internet-connected devices in smart homes. For years, the Norwegian company sold its products, which also include smart thermostats, smart lighting, and smart fire and carbon monoxide alarms, for a one-time fee that included access to its companion app and cloud platform for control and automation. As of June 26, though, those core features require a 1,188 NOK (about $116.56) annual subscription fee, turning the smart home devices into dumb ones if users don’t pay up.

“You lose access to controlling devices, configuring; automations, modes, shortcuts, and energy services,” a company FAQ page says.

You also can’t get support from Futurehome without a subscription. “Most” paid features are inaccessible without a subscription, too, the FAQ from Futurehome, which claims to be in 38,000 households, says.

That would be potentially nearly a decade of a bought product working one way, only to have its core functionality tucked behind a subscription paywall on the whim of the company. This is one of those situations that, and I don’t care what country you live in, should elicit the common sense reaction of: this shouldn’t be fucking legal. But, due to the apathy of government and the steady erosion of anything remotely representing true consumer protection, this sort of thing is happening more and more frequently.

And it’s not as though all of this functionality requires support from backend company assets, either. Some do, sure, but some of the features that suddenly don’t work appear to have nothing to do with centralized corporate servers or services.

[…]

As you’d expect, some people are attempting to figure out how to make Futurehome products work without the subscription. Perhaps as a result of that, Futurehome shut down its own user forum in June. In addition, the CEO is complaining about how the company now has to invest time and resources to fight its own customers’ attempts to make the products they bought work like they did at the time of purchase.

Futurehome has fought efforts to crack its firmware, with CEO Øyvind Fries telling Norwegian consumer tech website Tek.no, per a Google translation, “It is regrettable that we now have to spend time and resources strengthening the security of a popular service rather than further developing functionality for the benefit of our customers.”

But is it as regrettable as your own customers suddenly finding out the thing they bought won’t work anymore because your company didn’t business well enough?

Source: Smart Home Device Maker Renders Devices Dumb Unless A New Subscription Is Paid For | Techdirt

Google lost its antitrust appeal with Epic

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Google’s attempt to appeal the decision in Epic v. Google has failed. In a newly released opinion, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has decided to uphold the original Epic v. Google lawsuit that found that Google’s Play Store and payment systems are monopolies.

The decision means that Google will have to abide by the remedies of the original lawsuit, which limits the company’s ability to pay phone makers to preinstall the Play Store, prevents it from requiring developers to use its payment systems and forces it to open up Android to third-party app stores. Not only will Google have to allow third-party app stores to be downloaded from the Play Store, but it also has to give those app stores “catalog access” to all the apps currently in the Play Store so they can have a competitive offering.

In October 2024, Google won an administrative stay that put a pause on some of those restrictions pending the results of this Ninth Circuit case. “The stay motion on appeal is denied as moot in light of our decision,” Judge M. Margaret McKeown, who oversaw the case, writes.

[…]

The origin of the Epic v. Google lawsuit was Epic’s decision to circumvent Google’s payment system via a software update to Fortnite. When Google caught wind, it removed Fortnite from the Play Store and Epic sued. Epic pulled a similar gambit with Apple and the App Store, though was far less successful in winning concessions in that case — its major judicial success there has been preventing Apple from collecting fees from developers on purchases made using third-party payment systems.

Source: Google lost its antitrust case with Epic again

Apple throws usual tissy fit at law and now sells iPad Repair Parts for Astronomical Prices

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In late May, Apple announced what seemed on its face to be a big, positive development for iPad owners: It was going to begin selling repair parts for iPads to the general public, which is a requirement of a series of new right-to-repair laws. “With today’s announcement, we’re excited to expand our repair services to more customers, enabling them to further extend the life of their products—all without compromising safety, security, or privacy,” Brian Naumann, Apple’s vice president of AppleCare, said in a press release announcing the move.

The announcement was generally covered positively by the press: “Save Money, Make Your iPad Last Longer,” a Forbes headline read, for example. But independent repair professionals who have used the program told 404 Media that the prices Apple is charging for some repair parts are absurdly high, and that this functionally means that the iPad is as unrepairable as it has always been.

“As is typical for Apple, they’ve been pushing and testing the limits as time has gone on, and now they pushed too far. There are plenty of other examples of absurdly priced parts from Self Service, but these iPad parts are by far the worst,” Brian Clark, the owner of the iGuys Tech Shop, told 404 Media.

“For years, Apple effectively considered the iPad non-repairable. They did not offer any repairs on iPads, and Apple authorized service providers were not allowed to do iPad repairs of any kind, so this was a huge shift in their view of iPads. I was excited until the day they actually put the parts up and seeing the ridiculous prices of things, it was really, really disappointing,” Clark added. “It kind of sends the message that they don’t really want iPads to be repaired.

Clark points out that a new charge port for an iPad Pro 11, a part that goes bad all the time, costs $250 from Apple. Aftermarket charge ports, meanwhile, can be found for less than $20. “It’s a very basic part, and I just can’t see any reasonable explanation that part should be $250 from Apple,” he said. “That’s a component that probably costs them a few dollars to make.”

Clark said a digitizer for an iPad A16 is $200. That part can be bought from third-party suppliers for $50, and the iPad A16 sells brand new from Apple for $349, Clark said. The replacement screen assembly for an iPad Pro 13 costs $749 from Apple.

[…]

Source: Apple Is Selling iPad Repair Parts for Astronomical Prices

They have been doing this with people forcing them to open up the app store too – these headlines are from the last year alone, showing them crying and stamping their feet and basically doing everything in their power to childishly stop doing anything that benefits the customers.

Apple Hit with Class-Action Lawsuit for App Store Injunction Violation after Judge rules apple execs lied and willfully ignored injunction – join here

Judge: Apple Lied In Fortnite Case, chose to not comply with court order, must immediately allow external payments without a cut

Apple tries again to make EU officials happy with new fees for in-app purchases

Apple stamps feet but now to let EU developers distribute apps from the web

Apple reverses hissy fit decision to remove Home Screen web apps in EU

Shameless Insult, Malicious Compliance, Junk Fees, Extortion Regime: Industry Reacts To Apple’s Proposed Changes Over Digital Markets Act

Mozilla says Apple’s new browser rules are ‘as painful as possible’ for Firefox

I can have app store? Apple: yes but NO! Give €1,000,000 + lock in to Apple ecosystem. This is how to “comply” with EU anti competition law

Palo Alto Networks inks $25b deal to buy human and machine identity manager CyberArk

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Palo Alto Networks will buy Israeli security biz CyberArk in a $25 billion cash-and-stock deal confirmed today.

It’s Palo Alto Networks’ largest purchase to date, and one of the most expensive acquisitions this year coming in behind Google paying $32 billion for cloud security upstart Wiz in March.

CyberArk provides identity security and privileged access management tools, which have become increasingly important to enterprises who need to not only verify and secure human identities, but also machines and AIs.

“Today, the rise of AI and the explosion of machine identities have made it clear that the future of security must be built on the vision that every identity requires the right level of privilege controls,” Palo Alto Networks CEO Nikesh Arora said in a statement announcing the purchase.

Machine identities outnumber those of humans by 40 to one, according to CyberArk, and this number is expected to skyrocket as more companies use AI agents.

[…]

Under the terms of the deal, CyberArk investors will receive $45 in cash and 2.2005 shares of Palo Alto Networks common stock for each CyberArk share they own. The transaction is expected to close in the second half of Palo Alto Networks’ fiscal 2026.

Source: Palo Alto Networks inks $25b deal to buy CyberArk • The Register

Proton joins anti-Apple lawsuit to force App Store changes in the US

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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 iOS and the App Store in ways that reduce competition.

Apple has been fighting legal battles on this front for some time. Most notably, Epic Games sued in 2020 to try and allow itself and other app makers to sell its wares for use on Apple devices through channels other than Apple’s own App Store and payment systems. While Apple mostly won that case, the court said it had to allow third-party developers to inform customers of payment systems other than Apple’s own. (A judge recently questioned whether Apple has complied and pondered whether the company is in contempt of court.)

In Europe, regulators have taken a harder line, forcing the mega-biz to allow sales of iOS apps on third-party app stores.

Proton would like to see that happen in the US and has therefore asked the US District court for Northern California to require Apple to get out of the way and give app developers direct access to customers. The company’s filing suggests making that happen by requiring Apple to allow alternative app stores, expose those stores through its own Apple App Store, plus allowing developers to disable Apple’s in-app payment system and to gain fill access to Apple APIs.

[…]

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 iOS and the App Store in ways that reduce competition.

Apple has been fighting legal battles on this front for some time. Most notably, Epic Games sued in 2020 to try and allow itself and other app makers to sell its wares for use on Apple devices through channels other than Apple’s own App Store and payment systems. While Apple mostly won that case, the court said it had to allow third-party developers to inform customers of payment systems other than Apple’s own. (A judge recently questioned whether Apple has complied and pondered whether the company is in contempt of court.)

In Europe, regulators have taken a harder line, forcing the mega-biz to allow sales of iOS apps on third-party app stores.

Proton would like to see that happen in the US and has therefore asked the US District court for Northern California to require Apple to get out of the way and give app developers direct access to customers. The company’s filing suggests making that happen by requiring Apple to allow alternative app stores, expose those stores through its own Apple App Store, plus allowing developers to disable Apple’s in-app payment system and to gain fill access to Apple APIs.

Rather than suing anew, Proton is joining a group of Korean developers that took Apple to a US court in May [PDF] on similar grounds.

“We believe that Apple’s conduct constitutes further violations of US antitrust law,” Proton said in a blog post.

“Without this case, Apple could get away with behavior in the US that is already outlawed in the European Union. If this were to happen, American consumers, and developers focused on the American market, would have to pay higher prices for fewer choices, and be left at a disadvantage.”

Proton’s complaint covers many of the same issues raised by Epic and other app makers, and adds a novel argument that Apple’s system also harms user privacy. The Swiss company argues that developers of free apps usually harvest user data and sell that to cover their bills. Companies like Proton that don’t collect or sell user data have no choice but to charge subscriptions for revenue. Apple’s pricing model particularly penalizes these companies by taking a cut of annual subscriptions sold on its App Store.

The post also revisits Proton’s 2020 run-in with Apple that saw the iBiz reject an update to Proton’s VPN after the Swiss company pointed out it could be used to “unblock censored web sites.” Apple eventually relented but the episode shows how Apple puts profit before privacy, Proton argued.

“We don’t question Apple’s right to act on behalf of authoritarians for the sake of profit, but Apple’s monopoly over iOS app distribution means it can enforce this perverse policy on all app developers, forcing them to also be complicit,” it wrote.

[…]

Source: Proton joins anti-Apple lawsuit to force App Store changes • The Register

Security pro counts the cost of Microsoft dependency

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A sharply argued blog post warns that heavy reliance on Microsoft poses serious strategic risks for organizations – a viewpoint unlikely to win favor with Redmond or its millions of corporate customers.

Czech developer and pen-tester Miloslav Homer has an interesting take on reducing an organization’s exposure to security risks. In an article headlined “Microsoft dependency has risks,” he extends the now familiar arguments in favor of improving digital sovereignty, and reducing dependence on American cloud services.

The argument is quite long but closely reasoned. We recommend resisting the knee-jerk reaction of “don’t be ridiculous” and closing the tab, but reading his article and giving it serious consideration. He backs up his argument with plentiful links and references, and it’s gratifying to see several stories from The Register among them, including one from the FOSS desk.

He discusses incidents such as Microsoft allegedly blocking the email account of International Criminal Court Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan, one of several incidents that caused widespread concern. The Windows maker has denied it was responsible for Khan’s blocked account. Homer also considers the chances of US President Donald Trump getting a third term, as Franklin Roosevelt did, the lucrative US government contracts with software and services vendors, and such companies’ apparent nervousness about upsetting the volatile leader.

We like the way Homer presents his arguments, because it avoids some of the rather tired approaches of FOSS advocates. He assigns financial value to the risks, using the established measurement of Return on Security Investment [PDF]. He uses the Crowdstrike outage from last July as a comparison. For instance, what if a US administration instructed Microsoft to refuse service to everyone in certain countries or even regions?

He tries to put some numbers on this, and they are worryingly large. He looks at estimated corporate Microsoft 365 usage worldwide, and how relatively few vendors offer pre-installed Linux systems. He considers the vast market share of Android on mobile devices compared to everything else, with the interesting comparison that there are more mobile phone owners than toothbrush owners. However, every Android account is all but tied to at least one Google account – another almost unavoidable US dependency.

There is a genuine need for people to ask questions like this. And, importantly, many of the decisions are made by people who are totally tech-illiterate – as many movers and shakers are these days – so it’s also important to express the arguments in terms of numbers, and specifically, in terms of costs. Few IT directors or CEOs know what an OS is or how it matters, but they’re all either former beancounters or guided by beancounters.

Another issue we rarely see addressed is the extreme reach of Microsoft in business computing. The problem is not just bigwigs who mostly don’t know a hypervisor from an email server; the techies who advise them are also a problem. We have personally talked to senior decision-makers and company leaders who know nothing but Windows, who regard Macs as acceptable toys (because they can run MS Office and Outlook and Teams), but who have never used a Linux machine.

There’s a common position that a commodity is only worth what you pay for it, and if you don’t have to pay for it, then it’s worthless. Many people apply this to software, too. If it’s free, it must be worthless.

It’s hard to get through to someone who is totally indifferent to software on technical grounds. When choices of vendors and suppliers are based on erroneous assumptions, challenging those false beliefs is hard.

(We’ve had a few abusive comments and emails from anti-vaxxers following our coverage of Xlibre. They’re wrong, but it’s tricky to challenge the mindset of someone who doesn’t believe in the basic concepts of truth, falsehood, or evidence.)

One way to define “information” is that it is data plus context. We all need contrast and context and comparisons to understand. Any technologist who only knows one company’s technologies and offerings lacks necessary context. In fact, the more context the better. Looking around the IT world today, it would be easy to falsely conclude that Windows NT and various forms of Unix comprise everything there is to know about operating systems. That is deeply and profoundly wrong. Nothing in computing is universal, not even binary; there have been working trinary or ternary computers, and you can go and see a working decimal computer at Bletchley Park.

Lots of important decision-makers believe that Microsoft is simply a given. It is not, but telling them that is not enough. It’s like telling an anti-vaxxer that the Earth is an oblate spheroid and there are no such things as chemtrails. After all, some US legislators want to ban chemtrails, so they must be real, right?

But if you can put a price on false beliefs, and then show that changing those beliefs could reduce risk in a quantifiable way, you can maybe change the minds of IT decision-makers, without needing to tell them that they’re science deniers and the Earth isn’t flat. ®

Source: Security pro counts the cost of Microsoft dependency • The Register

Apple thinks it can argue its’ way out of EU DMA with a single comma. No it can’t and this fight will cost it billions in Europe

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It’s just a comma in a 66-page document. But a comma that will cost Apple billions of euros in Europe. Starting June 23, the Cupertino-based company will no longer be able to collect commissions on external transactions made from an iPhone or iPad. In other words, all app developers will be able to redirect their users to a website to make a purchase or subscribe to a service without paying Apple a single cent.

This bombshell, which comes just after an unfavorable ruling in the US, is the result of a months-long syntactic battle with the European Commission over the exact meaning of an article in the Digital Markets Act (DMA), designed to strengthen competition in the digital space. In late April, Apple had already been fined €500 million.

Enacted last year, the DMA bans the so-called anti-steering practice, which Apple has enforced since the launch of the App Store. This required developers to use its payment platform and pay it 15% or 30%. Officially, Apple has abandoned this, though Brussels still accuses it of maintaining “technical and commercial restrictions.”

However, Apple has not given up on collecting commissions. It initially set them at 12% or 27% for purchases made within seven days after redirection. It has since introduced a more complex system, with fees of up to 25% on transactions during the twelve months following installation or update of an app. According to the EU, these commissions not only go “beyond what is strictly necessary”—as noted a year ago—but they also violate the DMA.

A comma that changes everything?

The disagreement between Apple and Brussels centers on Article 5.4. In its English version, the article states that the gatekeeper—the term used by the Commission for the seven major tech companies subject to the DMA—“shall allow business users, free of charge, to communicate and promote offers, including under different conditions […], and to conclude contracts with those end users.”

This lengthy sentence creates ambiguity: what exactly does “free of charge” apply to? Apple claims it only applies to “communicate” and “promote,” meaning the right to insert redirect links in an app. But not to “conclude contracts,” meaning making purchases. Based on that, Apple argues it can still charge commissions on those external transactions.

The European Commission interprets it differently: contract conclusion must also be free of charge. It relies on the comma before the phrase “and to conclude contracts,” turning the sentence into an “enumeration.” “That ‘free of charge’ applies to all that is being enumerated after”, it explains in its detailed decision sent to Apple as part of the €500 million fine, which was made public last week.

“In other words, the price for app developers to pay [for external purchases] is zero,” writes the Commission. However, its case could be weakened by inconsistencies in the French and German translations of the text, which it acknowledges are “ambiguous.” Still, “other linguistic versions leave no room for interpretation,” notes Brussels.

Daily penalties of up to €47 million

To complicate matters further, the regulator acknowledges that Apple can be compensated for the initial acquisition of a customer by a developer. But this commission—whose rate must be determined by the company—can only apply within a “limited initial time window” after the first installation of an app.

Crucially, it only concerns the very first transaction, even if the user deletes and later reinstalls the app. “An end user can only be acquired once,” says the Commission. Apple contests this, arguing that “the value of the initial purchase is a poor measure of value delivered by App Store” since it only represents a “small fraction of acquisition value to developer”.

[…]

For a year now, it has adopted a very combative stance toward the DMA, aiming to concede as little as possible. But it faces daily penalties of up to €47 million. In April, European officials said they would not hesitate to apply them if necessary.

[…]

Source: A simple comma is going to cost Apple billions in Europe

Apple has been putting spanners in the works of the EU DMA since inception and has been pissing off developers, the EU and customers since then. The EU is toughening it’s stance – the spirit of the law is more important than a single comma in a huge document in Europe.

EU to force Apple to open up IOS for developers

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Apple has filed an appeal with the European Union’s General Court in Luxembourg challenging the bloc’s order requiring greater iOS interoperability with rival companies’ products under the Digital Markets Act. The EU executive in March directed Apple to make its mobile operating system more compatible with competitors’ apps, headphones, and virtual reality headsets by granting developers and device makers access to system components typically reserved for Apple’s own products.

Apple contends the requirements threaten its seamless user experience while creating security risks, noting that companies have already requested access to sensitive user data including notification content and complete WiFi network histories. The company faces potential fines of up to 10% of its worldwide annual revenue if found in violation of the DMA’s interoperability rules designed to curb Big Tech market power.

Europe warns giant e-tailer SHEIN to stop cheating consumers

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The European Commission has warned Chinese e-tailer SHEIN to clean up its act, after finding several practices on its website breach local consumer law.

The Commission and Europe’s Consumer Protection Cooperation (CPC), a network of national consumer authorities, on Monday warned the e-tailer that an investigation found the following breaches of EU law on SHEN’s website:

  • Fake discounts: pretending to offer better deals by showing price reductions that are not based on the actual ‘prior prices’.
  • Pressure selling: putting consumers under pressure to complete purchases using tactics like false purchase deadlines.
  • Missing, incorrect and misleading information: displaying incomplete and incorrect information about consumers’ legal rights to return goods and receive refunds and failing to process returns and refunds in accordance with consumers’ relevant rights.
  • Deceptive product labels: using product labels that suggest that the product offers something special when in fact the relevant feature is required by law.
  • Misleading sustainability claims: Providing false or deceptive information about the sustainability benefits of its products.
  • Hidden contact details: Consumers cannot easily contact SHEIN for questions or complaints.

The regulator also asked SHEIN to provide info on how it complies with other legal obligations, including how it ensures that product rankings, reviews, and ratings are not presented in a misleading manner. Another item of concern is whether SHEIN properly informs shoppers about contracts with third-party sellers on the Chinese company’s platform.

The CPC gave SHEIN a month to respond to its findings and explain how it proposes to respond to the regulator’s findings. If the Chinese company fails to do so, it faces fines and punishment by regulators in different EU member nations.

The EU’s concerns are another worry for SHEIN, which is already impacted by the USA’s decision to impose significant tariffs on imports from China and to end the de minimis rule that saw packages valued at under $800 exempted from import duties. SHEIN specializes in cheap and cheerful items, usually sold for much less than $800.

[…]

Source: Europe warns giant e-tailer to stop cheating consumers • The Register

M&S warns of £300M dent in profits from cyberattack

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Marks & Spencer says the disruption related to its ongoing cyberattack is likely to knock around £300 million ($402 million) off its operating profits for the next financial year (2025/26).

The beleaguered high street retailer made the admission in its fiscal 2025 profit and loss accounts for the year ended March 29, published on Wednesday, following reports that it could be gearing up to make a maximum claim on its cyber insurance policy to the tune of £100 million ($134 million).

The £300 million figure will be reduced through cost mitigations, insurance, and trading actions, M&S said, and it’s expected that the total costs related to the attack itself and technical recovery will be communicated at a later date as an adjustment item.

[…]

Various divisions suffered an overall decline in operating profits. M&S said that early on into the attack, which has been ongoing for about a month now, that some franchise stores, such as those inside train stations, were experiencing shortages of certain foods, such as “meal deal” sandwiches.

This reduced availability has affected food sales, and M&S also incurred additional waste and logistics costs owing to the shift toward manual processes.

After briefly managing to keep online and app sales running post-breach, these were eventually taken offline along with other systems, and the company said online sales and trading profit was “heavily impacted” as a result.

Online sales in its fashion, home, and beauty divisions remain unavailable and are not expected to return until July, M&S revealed today.

[…]

After posting its results this morning, M&S’s share price was down 3 percent at the time of writing, and about 12 percent down since the start of the attack, representing a more than £1 billion ($1.3 billion) loss to its market valuation.

However, there are green shoots for the retailer, whose pre-tax and pre-adjusted profits were up 22.2 percent on the previous year at £875.5 million ($1.17 billion), which is the company’s best performance in more than 15 years.

Overall, sales also grew 6.1 percent to £13.9 billion ($18.6 billion), and M&S reaffirmed its commitment to reduce its costs by £500 million ($670 million) in time for the 2027/28 financial year.

[…]

M&S disclosed the attack on April 22, and responsibility was soon ascribed to the English-speaking group known as Scattered Spider, who reportedly used DragonForce ransomware to infect the retailer’s systems.

Nothing is officially confirmed on this front, although DragonForce took credit for the attack when speaking to the BBC.

DragonForce said it was also involved in the attacks on Co-op and Harrods, but none of the companies have yet appeared on its leak site, which is unexpected for intrusions that took place nearly a month ago.

M&S confirmed last week that those responsible stole customer data including names, dates of birth, telephone numbers, home addresses, household information, email addresses, and online order histories.

It told the London Stock Exchange that the data did not include full payment card numbers or account credentials

Source: M&S warns of £300M dent in profits from cyberattack • The Register

VMware price hikes 800-1,500%, claim Euro customers

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Broadcom has upped VMware licensing costs by between eight to 15 times since it took over the organization, and a lack of alternatives in the tech industry means trade and end customers have no choice but to play ball.

This is the according to the European Cloud Competition Observatory (ECCO), an independent body formed by customer organizations, and CISPE – a trade association of 37 cloud providers in the region – to monitor the behavior of software vendors accused of abusing their monopoly position.

The latest report issued today by ECCO on Broadcom-owned VMware says most CISPE members were forced to renew licensing agreements.

“However, these agreements were often signed under significant pressure, influenced by a lack alternatives, abrupt contract terminations, and financial incentives such as rebates for longer-term commitments,” it claims.

Despite putting pen to paper, “these customers continue to face substantial financial burdens and operational disadvantages due to the imposed terms” of the Broadcom’s revamped licensing framework for VMware.

The chips ‘n’ software giant killed the perpetual licenses and monthly “pay-as-you-go” pricing models on VMware products, and rationalized the portfolio into a few large bundles that are only available on subscription with a three-year minimum commitment.

ECCO likens this to an electricity provider deciding to charge you based on the assumption you run your heating full-blast 24×7 rather than on actual usage, and insisting you pay up front a year or more in advance.

Broadcom, ECCO says, “unilaterally and without sufficient notice” terminated existing licensing agreements, some of which had been in place for over 10 years, in order to compel customers holding them to accept the new terms.

As The Register reported last year, it also ditched VMware’s channel program for Cloud Services Providers (CSPs) and only invited the largest such operators to join its own Broadcom partner program.

This latest report highlights that recent actions by Broadcom have, in ECCO’s words, “worsened the situation for European cloud infrastructure providers, their customers, both private and public sector, which depend on VMware virtualization software.”

[…]

 

Source: VMware price hikes? 800-1,500%, claim Euro customers • The Register

Apple Hit with Class-Action Lawsuit for App Store Injunction Violation after Judge rules apple execs lied and willfully ignored injunction – join here

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[…]The new lawsuit was filed May 2, 2025, following news that a federal judge found the tech giant in contempt of court for violating a 2021 antitrust injunction which required Apple to permit its app developers to sell subscriptions and other in-app products directly to their customers using links within their apps. Without the injunction in place Apple charges app developers uniform transaction fees (defaulting at 30%, and 15% under some programs). The court found that Apple implemented a scheme to violate the injunction and prevent developers from directing customers to their own websites and payment platforms.

“It appears as though Apple has been caught red-handed blatantly seeking to undercut the law,” said Steve Berman, Hagens Berman managing partner and co-founder. “We believe app developers deserve a fair market to promote and sell their products, and the world’s largest corporation doesn’t get to bully them out of this billion-dollar revenue stream.”

If you sold an in-app digital product (including subscriptions) through Apple’s App Store after Jan. 16, 2024, find out your rights as an iOS app developer.

[…]

The court ultimately held that Apple willfully violated the injunction to protect its revenues, and then “reverse engineered justification[s] to proffer to the Court” often with “lies on the witness stand,”

[…]

The lawsuit’s named plaintiff is Pure Sweat Basketball Inc., a corporation offering an app used by players across the country to train and improve their basketball skills. Had Apple complied with the injunction, as required, Pure Sweat would have been able to sell subscriptions to its app directly to its customers, using “link-out” buttons directing customers to Pure Sweat’s own website.

As a result of Apple’s misconduct, attorneys estimate that potentially more than 100,000 similarly situated app developers were prevented from selling in-app products (including subscriptions) directly to their customers, and were forced to pay Apple commissions on in-app sales that Apple was not entitled to receive.

Find out more about the class-action lawsuit against Apple on behalf of iOS app developers.

[…]

Source: Apple Hit with Class-Action Lawsuit for App Store Injunction Violation by Same Law Firm That Secured $100M iOS Developer Win | Hagens Berman

Judge: Apple Lied In Fortnite Case, chose to not comply with court order, must immediately allow external payments without a cut

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Epic Games v. Apple judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers has ruled that, effective immediately, Apple can no longer take a cut from purchases made outside apps and has blocked the tech giant from restricting how developers can point people to third-party payment options. The judge was also not happy that Apple has seemingly not complied with a previous court order and has referred the case to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for possible contempt charges. Apple is already planning to appeal the ruling.

This is the latest development in the Epic v Apple court case that started back in 2020 after Epic added its own payment option to Fortnite on iOS and Apple pulled the game as a result. The Fortnite maker’s case against Apple was focused primarily on the large fees the tech giant took from all in-app purchases and its strict restrictions against allowing other app stores and third-party options on iOS devices.

In 2021 the judge sided with Apple on most points, but declared the company needed to allow app makers to use third-party payment systems that could avoid Apple’s cut. In 2023, after a series of appeals, Apple declared a “resounding victory” over Epic, though it was still forced by the court to allow third-party payment options and to not take a cut of outside app purchases. Epic alleges that Apple never complied with that order. Now Apple finds itself in a lot of trouble with judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers.

“That [Apple] thought this Court would tolerate such insubordination was a gross miscalculation,” wrote the judge in a ruling filed on April 30 in California. “Apple willfully chose not to comply with this Court’s Injunction. It did so with the express intent to create new anticompetitive barriers which would, by design and in effect, maintain a valued revenue stream; a revenue stream previously found to be anticompetitive.”

Elsewhere in the filing, the judge says that an Apple executive lied under oath when talking about forcing devs to pay a 27 percent fee for outside app purchases and wrote that Apple CEO Tim Cook “chose poorly” when listening to execs at the company who convinced him to ignore the injunction.

“Vice-President of Finance, Alex Roman, outright lied under oath. Internally, Phillip Schiller had advocated that Apple comply with the Injunction, but Tim Cook ignored Schiller and instead allowed Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri and his finance team to convince him otherwise. Cook chose poorly,” wrote the judge. In the filing the judge also suggested that Apple’s actions might constitute contempt charges and has referred the case to the U.S. Attorney’s office.

As explained in the filing, Apple must now “immediately” comply with the court’s orders to allow developers to include third-party payment options, to not take a cut of those purchases, and to not block or hinder devs from including these outside payment methods through various means and UI messages.

[…]

Source: Judge: Apple Lied In Fortnite Case And Just Blew App Store Open

EC fines Meta, Apple €700M for DMA compliance failures

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Meta and Apple have earned the dubious honor of being the first companies fined for non-compliance with the EU’s Digital Markets Act, which experts say could inflame tensions between US President Donald Trump and the European bloc.

Apple was penalised to the tune of €500 million ($570 million) for violating anti-steering rules and Meta by €200 million ($228 million) for its “consent or pay” ad model, the EU said in a press release.

The fines are a pittance for both firms, whose most recent quarterly earnings statements from January saw Apple report $36.33 billion in net income, and Meta $20.83 billion.

Apple’s penalty related to anti-steering violations – for which it’s already paid a €1.8 billion penalty to the EU – saw it found guilty of not allowing app developers to direct users outside Apple’s own in-app payment system for cheaper alternatives. The European Commission also ordered Apple to “remove the technical and commercial restrictions on steering” while simultaneously closing an investigation into Apple’s user choice obligations, finding that “early and proactive” moves by Cupertino to address compliance shortcomings resolved the issue.

Meta, on the other hand, was fined for the pay-or-consent model whereby it offered a paid, ad-free version of its services as the only alternative to allowing the company to harvest user data. The strategy earned it considerable ire in Europe for exactly the reason the EU began investigating it last year: That it still ingested data even if users paid and that it wasn’t clear about how personal data was being collected or used.

“The Commission found that this model is not compliant with the DMA,” the EC said, because it gave users no choice to opt into a service that used less of their data, nor did it allow users to freely consent to having their data combined.

That fine only applies to the period between March and November 2024 when the consent-or-pay model was active, however. The EU said that a new advertising model introduced in November of last year resolved many of its concerns, which European Privacy advocate Max Schrems says will likely still be an issue.

“Meta has moved to a system with a ‘pay,’ a ‘consent’ and a ‘less ads’ option,” Schrems explained in a statement emailed to The Register. Schrems said the “less ads” option is nothing but a distraction.

“It has massive usability limitations – nothing any user seriously wants,” Schrems said. “Meta has simply created a ‘fake choice’, pretending that it would overcome the illegal ‘pay or okay’ approach.”

Alongside the fines, the EU also said that it was removing Facebook Marketplace’s designation as a DMA gatekeeper, as it had too few commercial users to qualify as “an important gateway for business users to reach end users.”

[… followed by stuff about how Americans don’t like the fines in usual snowflakey Trump style crying tantrums]

Source: EC fines Meta, Apple €700M for DMA compliance failures • The Register

Google Found Guilty of Illegal Ad Tech Monopoly in US Federal Court Ruling

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A federal judge has ruled that Google maintained illegal monopolies in the digital advertising technology market.

In a landmark case, the Department of Justice and 17 states found Google liable for antitrust violations.

Federal Court Finds Google Violated Sherman Act

U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema ruled that Google illegally monopolized two key markets in digital advertising:

  • The publisher ad server market
  • The ad exchange market

The 115-page ruling (PDF link) states Google violated Section 2 of the Sherman Antitrust Act by “willfully acquiring and maintaining monopoly power.”

It also found that Google unlawfully tied its publisher ad server (DFP) and ad exchange (AdX) together.

Judge Brinkema wrote in the ruling:

“Plaintiffs have proven that Google possesses monopoly power in the publisher ad server for open-web display advertising market. Google’s publisher ad server DFP has a durable and ‘predominant share of the market’ that is protected by high barriers both to entry and expansion.”

Google’s Dominant Market Position

The court found that Google controlled approximately 91% of the worldwide publisher ad server market for open-web display advertising from 2018 to 2022.

In the ad exchange market, Google’s AdX handled between 54% and 65% of total transactions, roughly nine times larger than its closest competitor.

The judge cited Google’s pricing power as evidence of its monopoly. Google maintained a 20% take rate for its ad exchange services for over a decade, despite competitors charging only 10%.

The ruling states:

“Google’s ability to maintain AdX’s 20% take rate under these market conditions is further direct evidence of the firm’s sustained and substantial power.”

Illegal Tying of Services Found

A key part of the ruling focused on Google’s practice of tying its publisher ad server (DFP) to its ad exchange (AdX).

The court determined that Google effectively forced publishers to use DFP if they wanted access to real-time bidding with AdWords advertisers, a crucial feature of AdX.

Judge Brinkema wrote, quoting internal Google communications:

“By tying DFP to AdX, Google took advantage of its ‘owning the platform, the exchange, and a huge network’ of advertising demand.”

This was compared to “Goldman or Citibank own[ing] the NYSE [i.e., the New York Stock Exchange].”

[…]

What’s Next?

Judge Brinkema has yet to decide on penalties for Google’s violations. Soon, the court will “set a briefing schedule and hearing date to determine the appropriate remedies.”

Possible penalties include forcing Google to sell parts of its ad tech business. This would dramatically change the digital advertising landscape.

This ruling signals that changes may be coming for marketers relying on Google’s integrated advertising system.

Google intends to appeal the decision, extending the legal battle for years.

[…]

Source: Google Found Guilty of Illegal Ad Tech Monopoly in Court Ruling