The News
Apple will let iPhone users in the European Union delete Safari and other native apps through software updates later this year, in the latest effort by Big Tech to assuage antitrust criticism.
The announcement comes two months after the EU accused Apple of violating the bloc’s landmark Digital Markets Act (DMA), threatening to impose a fine of up to 10% of the company’s worldwide revenue.
SIGNALS
The DMA is no silver bullet to Big Tech dominance
The DMA decided against regulating some so-called “challenger” services, even when those are provided by Big Tech — meaning Apple giving way to browser choices other than Safari could simply benefit Google Chrome, which already enjoys the continent’s largest market share, an EU competition policy expert wrote for the Centre for European Reform. Europe has largely failed to breed big digital firms, a situation the DMA seeks to redress but risks exacerbating if would-be entrepreneurs instead opt to “avoid the hassle” of its strictures, The Economist argued.
Big Tech faces rising scrutiny in US and Europe
The EU’s antitrust rules are part of a broader crackdown on Big Tech on both sides of the Atlantic: A US judge recently ruled that Google held an illegal monopoly on online search in the “first big win” for federal authorities taking on market dominance. Google’s lawyers argued the company was winning because it offered the best product, but internal projections said it would lose between 60-80% of search queries on Apple IOS devices without default agreements,The New York Times’ Hard Fork podcast noted. Consolidation by the tech industry — which is largely dominated by seven firms — may be leading to economic stagnation as once-innovative firms become content with rent-seeking from existing companies, a Bloomberg columnist argued: “The problem is the decline of the entrepreneurial ethic,” he wrote.