Apple warns UK: Overzealous mobile regulation is bad for all

Poor Apple customers in the UK will suffer what they must as politically driven regulators make the same existential threats against Apple and Google as those made by the EU. 

Apple has warned that the rules proposed by the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) will cause numerous harms to the user experience its customers enjoy. 

Bad for one and bad for all

“We’re concerned these EU-style rules the UK is advancing are bad for users and bad for developers,” an Apple spokesperson said in a statement provided to Computerworld.

“This approach undermines the privacy and security protections our users have come to expect, hampers our ability to innovate, and forces us to give away our technology for free to foreign competitors. We will continue to engage with the regulator to make sure they fully understand these risks.”

The regulator argues that because Apple and Google between them hold almost 100% of the UK mobile OS market, they should face additional oversight. The CMA earlier this year laid out a host of different ways it thought it might be able to “improve” mobile platforms in the UK. 

That means regulators from the CMA will be able to make similar demands of Apple as those made in Europe, including support for third-party app stores, steering to third-party stores and payment services, and a free-for-all to use and exploit certain system features. (It is interesting to note that the last item is precisely what Meta wants for its own business.)

There is no evidence these measures will work

Apple points out that the proposals being put forward by the CMA lack supporting evidence and would effectively force it to give away its innovations for free.

“The Roadmap — absent any evidence — also prioritises interoperability interventions. While the exact nature of the Roadmap’s proposal is unclear, the CMA is clearly considering whether to impose DMA-like obligations on Apple that require it to hand over its innovations and intellectual property — free of charge — to businesses that have in some cases made it their sole mission to copy Apple.  

“The European experiment of using regulation to gut the intellectual property rights of an American company is not one the CMA should mimic.  Such an approach would not constitute proportionate or evidence-led regulation in action,” Apple said in a statement of opposition to the CMA’s plans.

The company also argues that a regulatory “taking of Apple’s innovations and intellectual property (including the exclusionary rights they confer) without compensation would represent a significant infringement of Apple’s fundamental property rights.” 

12 disciples of doom

What’s annoying the company is not just the fact that it would effectively be forced to open up tech it has invented to others for no charge. Apple also sees significant threats to privacy and security as less salubrious firms abuse that access, warning that the proposals will inevitably nurture the evolution of fraud across its platforms. It also complains that the demands undermine Apple’s integrated approach — and is most furious that the actions the CMA has set out have been proposed with no evidence and no proportionality. 

In part, this is because the interventions were developed during a closed-door session with input from just 12 developers and one trade group.

Given the tens of thousands of developers that exist, the decisions made in that closed meeting cannot be seen by any stretch of imagination as representative of anything more than the opinions of those who were invited to that room.

Apple also argues that the way evidence has been assessed has led to perverse preliminary conclusions and proposed interventions. Many findings are derived from a CMA-commissioned survey with a response rate of only 7.6% that contains findings that directly contradict the conclusions it reaches.  

“Other findings are based on views expressed by a minority of third parties, with no evidence of widespread harm or dissatisfaction,” Apple said. “This is not consistent with evidence-led regulation.”

On an island

But perhaps when it comes to a lost island nation facing terminal decline, struggling to stay relevant by emulating its larger neighbors with damaging directives aimed at the leading tech firms of its closest ally, evidence doesn’t matter.

Some might say the UK is engaged in magical thinking, assuming for itself an importance it no longer has on the world stage, imagining as it does that the US will not respond forcefully against any punitive measures it takes against the iPhone company.

In doing so it is clearly making a mistake, given the explicit warnings against such actions that have emerged from the Trump administration. Those statements should have been understood to mean there will be reprisals if regulation is seen to have gone too far — and Apple says the regulation is most definitely going too far. Based entirely on visible results, it is doubtful that flailing UK leader Keir Starmer has any of the proven diplomatic skills possessed by Apple leader Tim Cook.

In response, Apple warns that it may need to slow down the rate at which it introduces new features in the UK. It may also slow introduction of platform security patches in response to other half-baked UK regulation, even as it potentially continues to fight for the data privacy of its US and international customers in the surveillance-happy state.

None of this is good, most of this is political, and there will be very little benefit, if any, for any Apple (or Google) customer, including the many businesses that make use of their devices. 

The UK regulator of course denies that people will be left vulnerable. “Driving greater competition on mobile platforms need not undermine privacy, security or intellectual property, and as we carefully consider UK-specific steps, we will ensure it does not,” it said. 

The road to nowhere

What it doesn’t say is how that can be achieved. 

It’s almost as if the regulators, while claiming to be attempting to form a level playing field for tech, are in fact designing an environment in which to hobble some businesses in favor of nothing at all. That’s despite the chief regulator in the case, Sarah Cardell, herself warning that regulation must not “create protracted uncertainty that could chill investment and innovation.” Which is precisely what the UK regulations threaten to do.

But while this reckless misuse of power takes place, one thing is for sure. It will be Apple’s UK customers who suffer what they must in exchange for wisp-like fantasies of potential market benefits, none of which truly reflect their needs or desires.

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