EU to Apple: “Let Users Choose Their Software”; Apple: “Nah”

This year, a far-reaching, complex new piece of legislation comes into effect in EU: the Digital Markets Act (DMA), which represents some of the most ambitious tech policy in European history. We don’t love everything in the DMA, but some of its provisions are great, because they center the rights of users of technology, and they do that by taking away some of the control platforms exercise over users, and handing that control back to the public who rely on those platforms.

Our favorite parts of the DMA are the interoperability provisions. IP laws in the EU (and the US) have all but killed the longstanding and honorable tradition of adversarial interoperability: that’s when you can alter a service, program or device you use, without permission from the company that made it. Whether that’s getting your car fixed by a third-party mechanic, using third-party ink in your printer, or choosing which apps run on your phone, you should have the final word. If a company wants you to use its official services, it should make the best services, at the best price – not use the law to force you to respect its business-model.

It seems the EU agrees with us, at least on this issue. The DMA includes several provisions that force the giant tech companies that control so much of our online lives (AKA “gatekeeper platforms”) to provide official channels for interoperators. This is a great idea, though, frankly, lawmakers should also restore the right of tinkerers and hackers to reverse-engineer your stuff and let you make it work the way you want.

One of these interop provisions is aimed at app stores for mobile devices. Right now, the only (legal) way to install software on your iPhone is through Apple’s App Store. That’s fine, so long as you trust Apple and you think they’re doing a great job, but pobody’s nerfect, and even if you love Apple, they won’t always get it right – like when they tell you you’re not allowed to have an app that records civilian deaths from US drone strikes, or a game that simulates life in a sweatshop, or a dictionary (because it has swear words!). The final word on which apps you use on your device should be yours.

Which is why the EU ordered Apple to open up iOS devices to rival app stores, something Apple categorically refuses to do. Apple’s “plan” for complying with the DMA is, shall we say, sorely lacking (this is part of a grand tradition of American tech giants wiping their butts with EU laws that protect Europeans from predatory activity, like the years Facebook spent ignoring European privacy laws, manufacturing stupid legal theories to defend the indefensible).

Apple’s plan for opening the App Store is effectively impossible for any competitor to use, but this goes double for anyone hoping to offer free and open source software to iOS users. Without free software – operating systems like GNU/Linux, website tools like WordPress, programming languages like Rust and Python, and so on – the internet would grind to a halt.

Our dear friends at Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) have filed an important brief with the European Commission, formally objecting to Apple’s ridiculous plan on the grounds that it effectively bars iOS users from choosing free software for their devices.

FSFE’s brief makes a series of legal arguments, rebutting Apple’s self-serving theories about what the DMA really means. FSFE shoots down Apple’s tired argument that copyrights and patents override any interoperability requirements. U.S. courts have been inconsistent on this issue, but we’re hopeful that the Court of Justice of the E.U. will reject the “intellectual property trump card.” Even more importantly, FSFE makes moral and technical arguments about the importance of safeguarding the technological self-determination of users by letting them choose free software, and about why this is as safe – or safer – than giving Apple a veto over its customers’ software choices.

Apple claims that because you might choose bad software, you shouldn’t be able to choose software, period. They say that if competing app stores are allowed to exist, users won’t be safe or private. We disagree – and so do some of the most respected security experts in the world.

It’s true that Apple can use its power wisely to ensure that you only choose good software. But it’s also used that power to attack its users, like in China, where Apple blocked all working privacy tools from iPhones and then neutered a tool used to organize pro-democracy protests.

It’s not just in China, either. Apple has blanketed the world with billboards celebrating its commitment to its users’ privacy, and they made good on that promise, blocking third-party surveillance (to the $10 billion dollar chagrin of Facebook). But right in the middle of all that, Apple also started secretly spying on iOS users to fuel its own surveillance advertising network, and then lied about it.

Pobody’s nerfect. If you trust Apple with your privacy and security, that’s great. But for people who don’t trust Apple to have the final word – for people who value software freedom, or privacy (from Apple), or democracy (in China), users should have the final say.

We’re so pleased to see the EU making tech policy we can get behind – and we’re grateful to our friends at FSFE for holding Apple’s feet to the fire when they flout that law.