[supernova87a]

Genuine question for debate: iPhone app store is a private club to which businesses can choose to belong, if they want to sell their product to certain customers. Membership in the club comes with the condition that you not talk about alternative ways to buy the same product, while selling via the club. Membership in the club is not a monopoly; there are many other channels through which to sell a company's products.

Why is is against the law?

[zamadatix]

The EU's regulatory stance on antitrust does not require a monopoly, it requires a dominant position in a market meeting use of certain criteria marked as abuse. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL... From there when they tell a company they are breaching criteria for abuse and the company doesn't change the EU issues according fines.

As for "why" this is against the law, I assume that more to mean "why did the EU make this against the law" (since the other answer is simply "because the EU law was written as so". The arguments are largely the same as for why monopolies should not be allowed to operate: to ensure free market competition by preventing a few dominating companies from unduly pressuring the market. There are, of course, some who feel the freest market is one with no governmental regulations at all but they are not the majority (at least in the EU).

[simondotau]

But Apple doesn't have a dominant position in the EU.

[zamadatix]

They do, in several areas, at least according to the definitions of EU law. This may not meet your individual definition of dominant position of course (e.g., one might hold you need 50% market share in certain markets to be dominant, but the EU definition does not hold this requirement).

They also meet the definitions of a gatekeeper (as defined by the DMA) in several areas, which is the related law this fine actually came from.

[madeofpalk]

Because EU law says they have let others into their club.

[simondotau]

Apple has always allowed anyone into their club. You have to pay dues and follow some strict (but non-discriminatory) rules, but the result was a place which people liked going to.

Analogies aside, the REAL question is whether Apple is entitled to charge money for access to their developer APIs. Or whether Apple is entitled to place software license terms upon use of their intellectual property, e.g. when you link against Apple libraries which are then compiled into your binary.

We get up in arms about GPL violations, but also want Apple to suck shit. I don't think it's right to want it both ways.

[madeofpalk]

I think the preliminary findings make this pretty clear. Read it straight from the Commission, rather than blog spam https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_25_...

The people of EU decided it will be law that Apple must allow for alternate app distribution means - you must be able to side load and/or install alternate app marketplaces. That is the law, like how other countries have different laws for parental leave, for example.

The EU regulators have found that Apple has not complied with this law because it makes using alternate app marketplaces purposefully unattractive and burdonsome for both developers and users. EU is clamping down on Apple's 'malicious compliance'.

[simondotau]

It's not malicious compliance. If you want to distribute binaries which contain Apple intellectual property, you need a license, and the EU is not in a position to force Apple to abandon their intellectual property rights.

I am a hard-core fan of the GPL and I recognise that the GPL license requires intellectual property rights in order to work. You want copyleft worth a damn? You need copyright. And that means you get copyright. Apple has intellectual property rights over their software and that doesn't give anyone else the right to "do whatever they want" with it.

If you want to cancel all intellectual property rights with respect to software, that's an interesting argument to make. But cancelling it under a few rare circumstances when some software irritates you seems like the height of absurdity.

[zamadatix]

Ignoring at first whether limiting distribution license terms actually relates to abandoning IP rights outright, the local government is the one who defines what rights businesses operating in their jurisdiction have. This, however, does not actually give the EU the ability to force Apple to do anything, as you insist. Apple is able pull out of the market if they feel the market's regulations are too heavy handed, at which point they no longer need to comply with local law. What the foreign company would like to enforce only layers on under the restrictions of local law, not above it.

As for IP license rights over all other law, I think most people are in alignment with a circumstance basis (or, more succinctly, "local law has priority" basis). E.g. most are indeed happy to declare a software license claiming women are not allowed to distribute the software is invalid in the jurisdiction - a company's "IP rights" be damned over a person's human rights, as an example.

[bitpush]

What if the exclusive club had one rule for owner operator and another for rest of the folks?

Would you say that's pretty discriminatory?

[simondotau]

If the club owner wants to have a fancy seat at the nicest table in the restaurant, that's not discrimination. It's their club. They built it. Everyone knows they built it, and they can think whatever they like about that fancy seat. If they want a similarly fancy seat, they can build their own club.

(Analogies aside, while I understand their rationale, it was wrong for Apple to lump the likes of Spotify and Netflix within their in-app purchase umbrella. And I also find it hilarious how people think 30% is highway robbery when 10+ years ago it was widely regarded as a fantastic deal for developers.)