[sokoloff]

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".

[Wobbles42]

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.

[int_19h]

But in this case, it's not taking the user out of Apple's website. It's taking them out of Epic's app into Epic's website.

[sokoloff]

You and I both know the underlying reason Apple wants to do this.

The fig leaf reason is “it’s an app we approved and we need to protect our customers.”