"Apple willfully chose not to comply with this Court’s Injunction. It did so with the express intent to create new anti-competitive barriers which would, by design and in effect, maintain a valued revenue stream; a revenue stream previously found to be anti-competitive. That it thought this Court would tolerate such insubordination was a gross miscalculation. As always, the cover-up made it worse. For this Court, there is no second bite at the apple."
I'd recommend skimming through the whole thing because Judge Rogers just eviscerates Apple over and over.
It's so good... but also it has taken so, so long to get here. The US should've done something about the app store tax a long time ago. People thought Apple won their case, but it... really just took time to get here. You get to try malicious compliance with judges exactly once, and then you're over.
Shoot me down with examples here, but my impression is that the US (historically, not just in the last three months) will never hurry to curtail the ability of a US company to make profit. With the possible exception of when a US company egregiously flouts laws that already exist.
The US has no problem with regulating its industries. It just doesn't do it pre-emptively out of fear the way the EU does. It actually lets business develop before assessing any damages.
So you're arguing that it's s still to early to assess Google, Meta, Amazon and other big tech? Somehow I don't think that's right and EU realized the need of regulation much earlier.
Not arguing that it's still too soon. The anti-trust litagations are obviously underway. But the EU themselves only started cracking down within the last decade, which is still relatively recent.
The problem is the damage was obvious in 2014, and it took until 2025 for us to do anything about it. In the tech cycle, that reaction time is way, way too slow. Honestly, the biggest part of the problem is not when they started investigating, it's how long they allowed these companies to abuse the process.
This case started in 2020. What companies like Apple and Google have done in most of these cases has been to abuse the court's willingness to provide extensions to create an incredible amount of delay. One of the tactics they use both here and in the EU is to say they need more time, and more time, and more time, and then on the very last day of the last extension just say "nah, we don't think we're doing anything wrong". They didn't need the extensions, they were just wasting time. Because the amount of money they make on the status quo is worth drawing out as long as possible.
If anything, I think the biggest reform would be to say that large companies do not get to ask for extensions on court deadlines. They have literally billions of dollars, hundreds of lawyers, there is no reason they cannot manage to get what they need to do done on schedule. Asking for more time should be viewed as bad faith.
> and then you're over
What does this mean in practice?
Apple is still doing business, has three years of profits from the malicious compliance, and appears to have attracted not much more than a sternly worded letter from a judge, and possible criminal contempt charges for a couple of individuals.
What real world consequences does Apple face for this behavior?
Can someone explain this to me? As far as I understand apple is being ordered to do the thing it was supposed to do already. Are there extra consequences I've not understood related to them disregarding the court ruling?
They are being ordered to pay the court and Epic’s costs and being referred to the Department of Justice for potential criminal prosecution for contempt.
There will be a fine. Nobody will go to jail. Apple will appeal. They will likely prevail on this "steering" complaint on a freedom of speech basis. It is their platform afterall.
My concern is more about having private companies control platforms upon which we depend. I do often wish that I had a crystal ball to peer a decade or several into the future to see what the future holds for humanity in this regard. Our legal system seems ill-equipped to manage this risk.
A federal court has ordered Philip Moris USA & R.J. Reynolds Tobacco to state: Smoking cigarettes causes numerous diseases and on average 1,200 American deaths every day.
Freedom of speech does not prevent courts from ordering defendants to say or not say specific things to make up for their past illegal behavior. In this case, the court initially allowed Apple a little flexibility around steering, which Apple misused to make web purchases sound "scary". The penalty for that is the loss of that flexibility.
Developers can do that now. But don't because it's more work and they can't steer customers down that path. So the "steering" ruling is critical to changing that.
I'd recommend skimming through the whole thing because Judge Rogers just eviscerates Apple over and over.