sued Apple Thursday over monopolistic practices<\/a>. The complaint accuses Apple of moulding its privacy and security practices in ways that benefits the company financially.<\/p>\nOne quote particularly jumps out where the DOJ calls Apple\u2019s privacy and security justification an \u201celastic shield\u201d:<\/p>\n
\u201cApple deploys privacy and security justifications as an elastic shield that can stretch or contract to serve Apple\u2019s financial and business interests,\u201d it says.<\/p>\n
\u201cApple wraps itself in a cloak of privacy, security, and consumer preferences to justify its anticompetitive conduct. Indeed, it spends billions on marketing and branding to promote the self-serving premise that only Apple can safeguard consumers\u2019 privacy and security interests.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s not all \u2014 there are several other instances where the DOJ thinks Apple is bending privacy to degrade customer experience:<\/p>\n
App Store and app distribution<\/h2>\n
It also pointed out that Apple doesn\u2019t allow the creation and usage of alternative app stores. However, it allows governments and enterprise customers to install secure app stores, the complaint noted. It also said that at the moment developers can\u2019t offer a separate app store for children. Notably, some of this has changed partially with EU enforcing its Digital Markets Act (DMA). (Some of the changes are applicable only in the EU region.)<\/p>\n
The DOJ pointed out that Apple lets users easily sideload apps on the Mac. Developers can additionally distribute apps with fewer restrictions on the platform, DOJ argues. The DOJ also made an argument about Apple restricting \u201csuper apps,\u201d which could be a better alternative for the App Store to access services.<\/p>\n
Messaging<\/h2>\n
The DOJ also accused Apple of restricting third-party apps from receiving carrier-based messages (SMS). It said that Apple marks SMS as \u201cprivate\u201d in its API documentation, so other developers can\u2019t access them. Apple lets users text anyone by typing their number in the \u201cto:\u201d field of its Messages app, but with other messaging apps it is not possible, the complaint reads.<\/p>\n
The plaintiff also argued that Apple makes iPhones less secure by not implementing encryption protection when iPhone users are sending messages to Android users.<\/p>\n
Data sharing practices<\/h2>\n
The complaint also accuses Apple of using \u201cvast amounts of personal and sensitive data\u201d to distribute the app on its own App Store. It also pointed fingers at the Cupertino-based company for utilizing user data for advertising.<\/p>\n
Additionally, the lawsuit said that Apple has entered into deals with Google to make the latter\u2019s service the default search engine for Safari, despite Apple knowing that there are better privacy-focused alternatives out there.<\/p>\n
The DOJ also made an argument about users having to share information with Apple to use a digital wallet rather than just sharing those details with a bank or a medical provider.<\/p>\n
Essentially, the DOJ argues that Apple\u2019s privacy and security practices are pretextual in nature and the company chooses \u201calternative courses\u201d to protect its monopoly.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
\n
Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The U.S. Department of Justice sued Apple Thursday over monopolistic practices. The complaint accuses Apple of moulding its privacy and security practices in ways that benefits the company financially. One quote particularly jumps out where the DOJ calls Apple\u2019s privacy and security justification an \u201celastic shield\u201d: \u201cApple deploys privacy and security justifications as an elastic […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":84492,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-84491","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tech"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84491\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}