Same (perceived) reason my bank and brokerages (and I think even my kid's school website does this) pop up a warning every time I click on a link that will take them outside their website.
I think there's a valid reason to think "if it's OK and common for banks and brokers to do it, it's OK for me to do it" and also to think "this will help protect users from being scammed by other apps who might pop open random links without any notices".
There is probably nothing whatsoever the judge could have done about this action by itself. The issue is the conversations around it, which established intent. The chat logs provide hard evidence that it was done in bad faith and with criminal intent.
Now that I think about it, I wonder how much of the current backlash against remote work is to avoid this exact situation. Face to face conversations don't end up in evidence. Written conversations do, and video chats are increasingly being summarized and recorded by AI.
From a positive point of view: so that app makers can't open up malicious payment screens. Of course, I don't think there's anything stopping them now.
From a more negative point of view, so Apple knows how much it happens and gets to have some influence over it.
I have my parents use iOS because they couldn’t help themselves from downloading malware on Android. It wasn’t from Google, but it didn’t matter, because the whole Android system’s reputation was reduced because of it.
I think there's a valid reason to think "if it's OK and common for banks and brokers to do it, it's OK for me to do it" and also to think "this will help protect users from being scammed by other apps who might pop open random links without any notices".