Apple CEO Cook opposed the EU’s expansive rules by saying that they would allow users to sideload apps on the iPhone.
Apple CEO Tim Cook said the Digital Markets Act, a new set of rules for digital platforms proposed by the European Commission, would “not be in the best interest of users.” Cook opposed the EU’s expansive rules by saying that they would allow users to sideload apps on the iPhone, which will destroy security and privacy on the device.
“The current DMA language that is being discussed would force sideloading on the iPhone,” Cook said Wednesday at the VivaTech conference in France. “That would destroy the security of the iPhone and a lot of privacy initiatives that we’ve built onto the App Store where we have privacy nutrition labels and app tracking transparency to get permission to track across apps.”
Last December, the European Commission proposed an ambitious new set of rules, the Digital Markets Act (DMA) and the Digital Services Act (DSA), which could be adopted by the European legislature by the middle of 2022. These new rules are aimed at regulating Big tech firms such as Apple, Amazon and Facebook, which have amassed enormous market power.
“Android has 47 times more malware than ios does,” Cook claimed. “It’s because we’ve designed iOS in such a way that there’s one app store and all of the apps are reviewed prior to going on the store. And so that keeps a lot of this malware stuff out of our ecosystem, and customers have told us very continuously how much they value that, and so we’re going to be standing up for the user in the discussions.”
Right now, Apple’s App Store is the only way users can download apps on the iPhone. Regulators around the world have accused Apple of being a gatekeeper. Apple, in its defense, said its full control over the App Store is a way to provide high-quality apps to users.
“There are good parts of the regulation like the parts of the DSA. But we also have a responsibility to say when it’s not in the best interest of the user,” Cook said. He further said Apple would be open to taking part in the debate and find a way forward.
