Epic vs. Apple App Store changes will wait until after the appeal
Apple has succeeded in its bid to temporarily stay a court order forcing it to make changes to App Store payment guidelines following the landmark Epic vs. Apple ruling.
The U.S. District Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit said that Apple could have the time it asked for to make its argument in its appeal. Had it failed in its bid, Apple would have needed to make the changes by December 9.
"Apple has demonstrated, at minimum, that its appeal raises serious questions on the merits of the district court's determination that Epic Games, Inc. failed to show Apple's conduct violated any antitrust laws but did show that the same conduct violated California's Unfair Competition Law," the judge ruled.
However, the changes required by the ruling allowing developers to contact users through information "obtained voluntarily" is unaffected by Wednesday's stay.
The stay remains in place until the appeal arguments are heard, and the ruling is made.
The ruling on Wednesday stems from the aftermath of the Epic vs Apple lawsuit, which largely went Apple's way. While it wasn't declared by court to be a monopoly, Apple was still required to make changes to its App Store developer guidelines to effectively remove Apple's anti-steering rules.
The changes basically allowed developers to inform users of other ways to make purchases within the app, instead of being forced to use the existing in-app purchases mechanism. Developers were also to be allowed to communicate with users about the changes.
After the trial, Apple filed an appeal on October 8, along with a motion to stay the enforcement of the changes, originally scheduled to go into effect on December 9. Apple argued the changes were a dangerous proposition to users, including making it harder to combat fraud, and potentially enabling user data to be collected by malicious websites.
There was also the matter of implementing changes to its platform, which Apple believed could take "months" to complete.
Apple's appeal to stay enforcement was denied on November 10 by U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who also presided over the original trial. Apple's motion was deemed to be "based on a selective reading of the Court's findings and ignores all of the findings which supported the injunction."
On December 2, Apple petitioned the Court of Appeals on the matter, asking for an "administrative stay" of 30 days in a second attempt. Without a stay, Apple claimed "the App Store will have to be reconfigured - to the detriment of consumers, developers, and Apple itself."
Read on AppleInsider
The U.S. District Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit said that Apple could have the time it asked for to make its argument in its appeal. Had it failed in its bid, Apple would have needed to make the changes by December 9.
"Apple has demonstrated, at minimum, that its appeal raises serious questions on the merits of the district court's determination that Epic Games, Inc. failed to show Apple's conduct violated any antitrust laws but did show that the same conduct violated California's Unfair Competition Law," the judge ruled.
However, the changes required by the ruling allowing developers to contact users through information "obtained voluntarily" is unaffected by Wednesday's stay.
The stay remains in place until the appeal arguments are heard, and the ruling is made.
The ruling on Wednesday stems from the aftermath of the Epic vs Apple lawsuit, which largely went Apple's way. While it wasn't declared by court to be a monopoly, Apple was still required to make changes to its App Store developer guidelines to effectively remove Apple's anti-steering rules.
The changes basically allowed developers to inform users of other ways to make purchases within the app, instead of being forced to use the existing in-app purchases mechanism. Developers were also to be allowed to communicate with users about the changes.
After the trial, Apple filed an appeal on October 8, along with a motion to stay the enforcement of the changes, originally scheduled to go into effect on December 9. Apple argued the changes were a dangerous proposition to users, including making it harder to combat fraud, and potentially enabling user data to be collected by malicious websites.
There was also the matter of implementing changes to its platform, which Apple believed could take "months" to complete.
Apple's appeal to stay enforcement was denied on November 10 by U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who also presided over the original trial. Apple's motion was deemed to be "based on a selective reading of the Court's findings and ignores all of the findings which supported the injunction."
On December 2, Apple petitioned the Court of Appeals on the matter, asking for an "administrative stay" of 30 days in a second attempt. Without a stay, Apple claimed "the App Store will have to be reconfigured - to the detriment of consumers, developers, and Apple itself."
Read on AppleInsider
Comments
Well, unless they refuse to comply...
So this will stay put for several months.
It seems that one of the main reason why the 9th Circuit Court granted Apple a stay on the lower court ruling is that they have serious concern about how the lower courts ruled that Apple violated CA unfair competition law and yet did not find Apple in violation any Federal anti-trust laws.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/1-u-appeals-court-pauses-195619286.html
>Joel Mitnick, a partner at Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft and a former U.S. Federal Trade Commission trial lawyer, said the 9th Circuit's ruling gave few "tea leaves to decipher" about how the appeal will ultimately play out, but said the court is "signaling a serious concern" that the lower court found Apple violated California unfair competition laws but not federal antitrust laws.
He said the 9th circuit cited a previous case that held that conduct that does not violate antitrust laws cannot be the basis for a finding of unfairness under competition laws.<
So it might be closer to a year or even more, before any ruling on whether Apple has to make any changes to their Apple App Store payment system. It will most likely hinge on whether Epic can win at least a portion of their appeal. And by then, Apple would have already found a way to track payment that uses a link in an app, so they can still collect their commission.
1. Apple is being unfairly targeted by politicians all over the world for its success, particularly on the App store front (Sounds familiar???)
2. Greedy politicians in power from various countries (US, UK, various EU countries, Russia, China etc) are in the process of changing the laws to make App store an unviable business
3. It is inevitable that one of the countries WILL pass laws that would make App store an unviable business in that country
4. He expects Apple to respond very strongly to the politicians of that country by taking down the App store in that country (preferably one of the western countries US/UK/any country within EU)
5. Once the app store is shut down in that country, people of that country protests vehemently against the politicians in support of the victim, i.e. Apple, and bring down that government and teach a lesson to the politicians who enacted the laws against Apple
6. Seeing the response from people in one country in support of Apple app store policies, politicians from other countries (particularly in China, Russia) quack in their boots and drop all the plans towards law changes related to Apple App store.
7. And politicians from all over the world do not poke Apple the bear ever in their lifetime after seeing the support from people towards Apple in one of the countries, fearing a similar response from people in their own country
8. Apple and users of Apple iPhones live happily ever after
PS. Points 1 to 4 are pretty close to what @22july2013 has made in various posts. Points 5 though 8 are my own words based on the understanding of @22July2013's posts. He did not make those exact statements, i just filled in the blanks
Edit: In case you are wondering if he is joking or serious, he is very serious (absolutely 100%, not even 99.99%) about it. And he found few supporters in this forum who also expressed similar views in different threads.
If Apple loses any of the appeals, it will be given time to implement the changes. They won't have to be ready the day of the ruling. That's not how this works.
Businesses relying on the app store (not just the ones selling apps, but also organizations using the regular App Store to seed enterprise software) will quickly sue Apple. Apple’s action to shut down the store will only even more so prove they are abusing their power. If the store is down, it will reveal the worst monopolistic behavior possible. The government will also sue Apple, let alone feed antitrust investigations (like the EU is working on) with prove that this situation is unacceptable.
Except Apple is lying. It could almost certainly be implemented in less than a day. All Apple has to do is remove the illegal language from the developer agreement and turn off any automated filters that look for links to external payment options in an app. And if you think those filters can't be turned off with a simple change to a config file, I've got a few bridges available for sale.