EU Planning to Force Apple to Give Developers Access to All Hardware and Software Features

[Catweazle]

The European Union is pressing ahead with legislation to heavily regulate companies like Apple, setting plans to force "gatekeepers" to open up access to hardware and software, and even set up an internal department to meet new rules, according to an endorsed agreement from the European Parliament's Internal Market Committee.

The provisional agreement on the Digital Markets Act (DMA) was reached earlier this week by EU governments, with 43 votes in favor, one against, and one abstention, showing a broad consensus from European lawmakers to aggressively regulate big tech companies. Apple is almost certain to be classified as a "gatekeeper" and be affected by the regulation due to the size of its annual turnover in the EU, its ownership and operation of platforms with a large number of active users, and its "entrenched and durable position" due to how long it has met these criteria, and will therefore be subject to the rules set out in the DMA.

The DMA could force Apple to make major changes to the App Store, Messages, FaceTime, third-party browsers, and Siri in Europe. For example, it could be forced to allow users to install third-party app stores and sideload apps, give developers the ability to closely interoperate with Apple's own services and promote their offers outside the App Store and use third-party payment systems, and access data gathered by Apple.

Full article https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/eu-planning-to-force-apple-to-give-developers-access-to-all-hardware-and-software-features.2345288/

[ingolftopf]

@Catweazle Very good.
Thank you