According to Europe, confidentiality is not a brake on competition

In an interview withReutersdated July 2, Margrethe Vestager assures that she shares Tim Cook's concerns regarding the protection of privacy. The former Danish minister has now been reappointed as European Commissioner for Competition, so her determination to ensure a fairer ecosystem for developers regularly makes the headlines.

According to her, Internet users “will not give up security or privacy if they use another app store” or if they use sideloading. Under this name is simply the practice of downloading content from a source external to the system, which is prohibited by iOS. Officially, according to Apple, this is to further protect the iPhone against threats, which makes sense.

Solutions exist

For publishers, however, it is a double-edged sword. Because this policy forces them to submit to the rules of the App Store without flinching, including those which put them at a disadvantage against the Cupertino giant. A concrete example of these disadvantages concerns the thirty percent commission almost obligatorily taken by Apple on each in-app purchase, which could be avoided by offering a personalized payment page.

Some market players have also already announced that they will not follow the same path. This is particularly the case for Microsoft. Indeed, not long ago, Satya Nadella's firm lifted the veil on the very latest edition of its OS for computers, namely Windows 11. There we find a relatively extensive catalog of applications, where the developers have not onlythe chance to be able to publish Android clients there but also that of not being subject to the famous tax.

A future injunction?

We do not yet know how the European Commission intends to bend Apple in this direction. Nevertheless, the United States would like to issue a real order in order toforce the company's hand in a similar matter. More precisely, this concerns the ambitions of representative David Cicilline concerning the apps pre-installed on each iPhone, effectively limiting the market share available to the competition.