Japan's parliament has approved a law that will force third party App Stores on Apple & Go...

AppleInsiderAppleInsider
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in iPhone

In a move very similar to the European Union, Japan's parliament has finished the process to enact a law that prohibits big tech from blocking third-party app stores.

An Apple Store in Japan
An Apple Store in Japan



The bill passed Japan's House of Representatives in may, and now the House of Councillors on Wednesday. Given existing procedure, it does not need to be signed into law by the Emperor.

The intention of the bill is that it will facilitate competition and reduce app prices. Japan's government reportedly believes that Apple and Google are a duopoly, and that they charge developers high fees that are then passed on to users.

Big tech companies with App Stores will also prohibit companies from prioritizing their own services. Google is likely to be hit hardest by this.

Violators will initially be fined up to 20% of the domestic revenue of the specific service that broke the law. The fee can increase to 30%, if the behavior continues.

The Japanese government's Fair Trade Commission (FTC) will choose which firms to apply it to. Companies that will be regulated will be required to submit compliance reports annually.

While it hasn't been explicitly said that Apple and Google must comply, It seems certain that the announcement that they'll be held to the provisions is imminent. The Japan FTC isn't expected to add any Japanese firms to the list.

The law likely won't take effect until the end of 2025.

The bill originated from a Competition Assessment of the Mobile Ecosystem done by the Digital Market Competition Council of Japan's Diet (the joint name for both chambers of Parliament). It was originally proposed in 2023

Apple has not commented on the law when it entered parliament. It did previously defend itself against antitrust accusations in the assessment period.



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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 17
    VictorMortimerVictorMortimer Posts: 175member
    Congratulations to Japan!

    What we really need is Apple to be mandated to allow normal software installation on iDevices worldwide, but especially here in the US.  I doubt the feds are going to get around to it soon, so hopefully a few states will pass something.  There's no way Apple will do a state-by-state separate version of iDevice OSs, so the whole country (and hopefully the whole world) will finally get normal software installation.

  • Reply 2 of 17
    apple4thewinapple4thewin Posts: 99member
    I am interested on the vision Pro getting thrid party stores especially if we can get Steam VR working natively on it. At this point Apple has to start creating a new label like “Steam Verified by Apple” and work a deal with valve that allows Apple to earn commission from verifying their App Store and give Steam Developers an easy way to create games (idk much about the 2nd generation of the game porting tool). Also maybe work with Playstation, since Apple loves to always name drop Sony, to get their games released along side the pc ports.  
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 3 of 17
    beowulfschmidtbeowulfschmidt Posts: 2,224member
    Apple is just bringing this on themselves.  If they would just supply all their infrastructure, software, and knowledge to all these gree...er, I mean, enterprising software developers for free, the world would be a much better place.  /s
    edited June 12 hammeroftruthdavwatto_cobra
  • Reply 4 of 17
    darbus69darbus69 Posts: 37member
    Why would anyone risk the integrity of their Apple devices and possibly entire personal/financial security, for a bunch of data stealing dumb ass 4th world apps is beyond me When your world gets rocked by that nonsense don’t you dare whine for one second because you will know where the fault is…
    danoxdavwatto_cobra
  • Reply 5 of 17
    mikethemartianmikethemartian Posts: 1,417member
    Being a software developer sounds like being a sharecropper.
    docno42davwatto_cobra
  • Reply 6 of 17
    sflocalsflocal Posts: 6,106member
    I still remember news headlines years ago about some app stealing user data.  The article was all about the iPhone’s abysmal security.  Turned out the app was installed on a jailbroken phone.

    Get ready for a wave of this to happen.
    davwatto_cobra
  • Reply 7 of 17
    foregoneconclusionforegoneconclusion Posts: 2,731member
    30% commission was already being used on video game consoles (closed systems) and on PC stores like Steam (open systems). It was an accepted practice in 2008 and Apple adopted it at a time when the iPhone and App Store had very limited market power. They never raised the commission when they gained significant market power later on either. Plus, prices on mobile stores like the App Store and Play Store have always generally been lower than on consoles or PCs. So they're saying 30% is too high for the market with lower prices AND that they're not concerned with 30% being passed on to console/PC consumers that pay higher prices.
    edited June 12 watto_cobra
  • Reply 8 of 17
    danoxdanox Posts: 3,069member
    So Sony and Nintendo are opening up their ecosystems in Japan? :smile: 
    davwatto_cobra
  • Reply 9 of 17
    looplessloopless Posts: 338member
    VictorMortimer said:
    Congratulations to Japan!

    What we really need is Apple to be mandated to allow normal software installation on iDevices worldwide, but especially here in the US.  I doubt the feds are going to get around to it soon, so hopefully a few states will pass something.  There's no way Apple will do a state-by-state separate version of iDevice OSs, so the whole country (and hopefully the whole world) will finally get normal software installation.

    That is such as ass-backwards step in the user experience.  Let's go back to Windows 95.
    Expecting Apple to do everything for free as a "service" to developers? Non-developers have no idea how much infrastructure Apple provides to app developers that adds  huge value. They should be able to charge 30% for that.  I felt the value of what they provided was easily worth that.

    Simply dealing with world-wide banking  and non-US app stores so that magically $ appear in the developers bank account  is one other thing that comes to mind.. I could go on and on.
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 10 of 17
    nubusnubus Posts: 462member
    foregoneconclusion said:
    30% commission was already being used on video game consoles (closed systems) and on PC stores like Steam (open systems). It was an accepted practice in 2008
    So if all shops decide not to compete then 30% is fine? Guess you would be happy with 45% if just Sony did it first.

    I'm happy to see competition in this area. Why should we be against competition? The Mac is happy to let users install and after 40 years of doing so the Mac is still fine. Surely Apple can design for it.
  • Reply 11 of 17
    nubusnubus Posts: 462member

    loopless said:

    Simply dealing with world-wide banking  and non-US app stores so that magically $ appear in the developers bank account  is one other thing that comes to mind.. I could go on and on.
    Well... if Airbnb, Expedia/Hotels.com, and Booking.com can manage most of the world and pay local owners then this probably isn't mission impossible. Well - Google, MS, or Amazon could do it as well. And why not? Create a great app and let the app stores fight about it. Works for sports teams and tv shows.
  • Reply 12 of 17
    avon b7avon b7 Posts: 7,842member
    sflocal said:
    I still remember news headlines years ago about some app stealing user data.  The article was all about the iPhone’s abysmal security.  Turned out the app was installed on a jailbroken phone.

    Get ready for a wave of this to happen.
    Why was jailbreaking even a thing back then? And why imply that jailbreaking was synonymous with user data theft? And why imply official third party apps would in some way have relevance to jailbroken phones? 

    There is the possibility that third party stores could be better than the App Store, which is far from not having it own issues with rogue apps. 

    The reality is that there is no way to achieve zero risk. 
  • Reply 13 of 17
    danoxdanox Posts: 3,069member
    loopless said:
    Congratulations to Japan!

    What we really need is Apple to be mandated to allow normal software installation on iDevices worldwide, but especially here in the US.  I doubt the feds are going to get around to it soon, so hopefully a few states will pass something.  There's no way Apple will do a state-by-state separate version of iDevice OSs, so the whole country (and hopefully the whole world) will finally get normal software installation.

    That is such as ass-backwards step in the user experience.  Let's go back to Windows 95.
    Expecting Apple to do everything for free as a "service" to developers? Non-developers have no idea how much infrastructure Apple provides to app developers that adds  huge value. They should be able to charge 30% for that.  I felt the value of what they provided was easily worth that.

    Simply dealing with world-wide banking  and non-US app stores so that magically $ appear in the developers bank account  is one other thing that comes to mind.. I could go on and on.


    That's why Apple spent a lot of time talking about API's during their WWDC Apple Intelligence presentation. 

    https://apple.slashdot.org/story/24/06/11/1817210/four-more-states-join-us-monopoly-lawsuit-against-apple Slashdot site most of people are tech people and most think it's free having building/maintaining/creating a ecosystem is just free, and Hacker News is the same what chance do you have with the Government/Lawyers/Judge/Jury in court?....

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/API  API's  and App stores are Magic Free no cost? On Slashdot/Hacker News
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 14 of 17
    hammeroftruthhammeroftruth Posts: 1,326member
    So when does this happen on the PlayStation store?
    davwatto_cobra
  • Reply 15 of 17
    beowulfschmidtbeowulfschmidt Posts: 2,224member
    hammeroftruth said:
    So when does this happen on the PlayStation store?

    danox said:
    So Sony and Nintendo are opening up their ecosystems in Japan? :smile: 


    Whaaaaat?  Those are totally different things! /s
    davwatto_cobra
  • Reply 16 of 17
    foregoneconclusionforegoneconclusion Posts: 2,731member
    nubus said: I'm happy to see competition in this area. Why should we be against competition? The Mac is happy to let users install and after 40 years of doing so the Mac is still fine. Surely Apple can design for it.
    You're forgetting that 30% was also the standard for Steam on an open desktop system. 30% for the App Store didn't come from iOS being closed. That's the point. It was already accepted for digital stores on both open/closed systems in 2008 when the iPhone was only about a year old. 
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 17 of 17
    danoxdanox Posts: 3,069member
    nubus said:
    30% commission was already being used on video game consoles (closed systems) and on PC stores like Steam (open systems). It was an accepted practice in 2008
    So if all shops decide not to compete then 30% is fine? Guess you would be happy with 45% if just Sony did it first.

    I'm happy to see competition in this area. Why should we be against competition? The Mac is happy to let users install and after 40 years of doing so the Mac is still fine. Surely Apple can design for it.

    Competition is fine but will Apple be responsible down the road for Microsoft, Googles and OpenAI blunders recently? In the so-called AI battles Apple appears to have come out of the week stronger than their competition on all AI fronts. While Microsoft is currently doing a Recall on a brain dead feature while Microsoft, Google and OpenAI have been reduced by Apple into just a small possible add on to the features included in the Apple Intelligence ecosystem.

    Apple fired on all cylinders at WWDC 2024 with a coherent well played vision for the future however will some governmental agencies make Apple show mercy to the other one percenters who seem to be their own worst enemy at every turn?

    https://www.theverge.com/2024/6/13/24178144/microsoft-windows-ai-recall-feature-delay
    edited June 14 watto_cobra
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