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from the taking-a-bite-out-of-the-Apple dept.
EU launches two antitrust investigations into Apple practices:
European Union authorities Tuesday launched two antitrust investigations into Apple's mobile app store and payment platform over concerns that the company's practices distort competition, opening a new front in the EU's battle against the dominance of big tech companies.
The EU's executive arm, the European Commission, said it began a formal investigation of Apple Pay over allegations that the company refuses access to the payment system in some cases and limits access to the "tap and go" function on iPhones.
The commission opened a second investigation into the mobile App Store over concerns that Apple restricts developers from letting iPhone and iPad users know about ways to make purchases outside of apps. The investigation follows complaints from music-streaming service Spotify and an e-book distributor on the impact of the App Store's rules on the competition.
EU Executive Vice President Margrethe Vestager said, "It appears that Apple obtained a gatekeeper role when it comes to the distribution of apps and content to users of Apple's popular devices."
(Score: 2) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Wednesday June 17 2020, @12:03PM (5 children)
I remember the first time I realized that all applications would have to be installed for both major computer phones through app stores, for me that was the dawn of the dark age.
The amount of control these centralized app stores have is fantastic, megalithic. They can install really whatever they want, whichever version of the app they want, any backdoor, and know they know every app that every has and where that person is in real time.
Totally unsecurable. That the EU is picking nits with these payment process things, but that no other entity has for years, been able to offer a handheld computing device that does not rely on centralized authoritarian repositories, black box transmitting chips, processors made in treacherous ethnostates, is indicative of how truly awful the situation for personal computing freedom is on planet earth.
That all of these vulnerabilities to your person, your conversations, your data, you communications, is accepted as "run with the lemmings" level assumption by people trained to be system administrators and operate edge security at large institutions, boggles my mind.
You build on solid rock, not sand, you are holding a mystery box in your hand that for all we know can interpret your password from the difference in the audible sound of you typing a y and a z or a &, and the phrase "inherit the whirlwind" comes to mind.
I threw my smart phones in the lake and so should you, nokia still makes some nice models and laptop computers still work quite nicely. But as far as having a smart phone, if the only argument you have for their safety is "everyone else is doing it", good luck when they reveal the bluetooth brain interface that has already been operational without your knowledge for 3 years, or worse.
One side of drakes/fermi paradox equation is the rate at which big weapons are built and stupid people get too close to the buttons, but now I imagine there is a whole other borg scenario where before any idiot has evolutionary time to get near The Button, computers and electromagnetic signals simply wipe out individual consciousness while even the brightest system administrators and kernel programmers call anyone who asks even the most simple security questions(prior to the mania of blind tech acceptance) paranoid for harshing their power and convenience buzz.
Which is to say the rate at which we surrender or consciousness to a hive mind is turning out/looking to be faster than the rate at which we accidentally blow ourselves up, judging by recent history.
This is in my books, I know you do not care, but there is a direct correlation between the powerfulness/potency of a technological device, your ability to understand/control that technological device and how dangerous it is to you, and your species is at this rate headed towards a giant iceberg at the intersection of these variables.
What you consider your self, is an electromagnetic construct very much in connection with the rest of the electromagnetic universe, and yet you wax so naive when 5th generation warfare specialists and 5th generation electromagnetic communication get together for a secret meeting in a bunker. Then a few bureaucrats complain that some companies rich enough to afford bribes are losing business because the world is so unfair.
How did I get stuck on this planet with so many gullible people...
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 17 2020, @12:26PM (3 children)
Stop worrying about 5G and start worrying about 25mg, twice a day like your doctor ordered.
(Score: 2) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Wednesday June 17 2020, @01:23PM (2 children)
This "take your meds schizo" or "magnesium deficiency" is standard JDIF against all intelligent white people nowadays, you should expect it any time you doubt their now obvious attacks to undermine western civilization.
That anyone would only have this to say about my post here is the sign of a diseased mind whether or not they are being paid to say it.
"Thou shalt not bear false witness" - God or Moses, take your pick, and shilling is bearing false witness as a way of life, so it is odd to me that so many jewish people are into it.
But as time goes on it is less and less odd and more and more just the way some religions are.
(Score: 5, Funny) by DannyB on Wednesday June 17 2020, @02:14PM
Shilling might also come under the "Thou shalt not steel" commendment.
Four farthings in a penny. 12 pence made a shilling. 20 shillings made a pound.
The practices of some religions, such as the Apple religion, are why the EU opens investigations into those religions.
Imagine a huge line of True Believerstm, densely packed, camping out for days, without face masks or social distancing, wrapped around the outside of an Apple store, waiting to buy Apple Face Shields. [apple.com]
If you eat an entire cake without cutting it, you technically only had one piece.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 17 2020, @10:10PM
TL:DR - phones are spy devices
Your ending is rambling, arrogant, and a little unhinged with your 5g stuff. Most everyone around here knows, powerful people scheme and plot, do bad things. How S M A R T of you, what I N S I G H T no one around here has ever thought of!
"against all intelligent white people nowadays"
Fuck off with your personal persecution complex, at this point it sounds like you are just another source of alt-right propaganda. One of those JTRIG/JDIF assholes you like to blame everything on. I think you're a real person, but it would also make for a good persona for spewing propaganda while appearing on the fringe.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 17 2020, @08:28PM
The problem is that when such a vast majority of the population has smart phones, many societal systems start to be built around them. Interacting with the rest of society without using a smart phone, or at least a cell phone, becomes increasingly difficult.
My doctor's office confirms appointments by text message now. My apartment complex sends information out via texting, too. The pizza delivery lets you know when it's on the way via text. When I pick up the groceries I ordered online, I have to let them know I'm there by calling them from my car... or they just released in the new version of the grocery store's app, it uses location finding to recognize you're at the store, the app prompts you for which delivery slot you're in, and they bring the groceries out. (yeah, just go in and shop directly; sorry I'm handicapped and I can't walk through the huge stores anymore)
Sure, you can be the strange person who bucks the trend and refuses to get the privacy invader that is the modern smart phone... and that will accomplish what, exactly? Other than making day to day life harder for you personally, without changing anything for anyone else? Something might change if enough people balked at using them, but the more people do use them the higher the price to not use them becomes.