This report is somewhat bipolar. On one hand it's arguing that Google and Apple exert too much control over smartphone app marketplaces.
On the other hand its proposed remedy asks that Google and Apple exert even more control over these app marketplaces by stamping down on anti-consumer practices like subscription traps and scams.
On the other other hand it proposes that Apple and Google should allow third party payment options, making it harder for Google and Apple to thwart subscription traps and scams.
Yes it is a shame - while the ACCC often is well motivated, it lacks any sense of philosophical purity in its solutions.
So you often see things that are highly anti-freedom, anti-democratic and ultimately anti-consumer come out as a result of its actions. The recent forced negotiation of Google/Facebook with news publishers is an example of this where they have no problem compromising completely fundamental aspects of the internet (the freedom to link to somebody else's intellectual property without fear) to achieve some dot point in their bureaucratic consumer-focused mandate (ensure consumers have access to a diversity of news).
Agreed. It's "the stores are extracting too much money for the services they provide and the way they run" without any concrete asks. Likely because we're in unexplored territory, I expect ACCC is using this release as a form to push other agencies to move first to see what happens.
Australia NEVER moves first on these things. They want EU or US to make a move first to see what works.
I think it is uncommon for Australia to move first, but we do move first sometimes. I thought the recent news revenue-sharing laws[0] are an example of that.
> They want EU or US to make a move first to see what works
It's always nice to know how a policy will work beforehand, but I don't think it's remarkable how rarely Australia moves first. Putting aside cultural differences, we're a medium power in a world with many medium powers, even in the West, why would we expect to be first, ahead of European countries, or North American ones, or developed nations in Asia?
The revenue-sharing laws were a scam, basically the Government forcing Google and Facebook to pay arbitrary bribes to a few big media companies.
If the laws weren't a scam, that money would have gone to pay for journalism, not prop up the bottom line of companies which are consistently cutting back the number of journalists under their employ.
My advice to any future Federal Government would be to gut the ACCC and rebuild it from the ground up. And then if the rebuilt entity demonstrates competence, significantly increasing its funding.
We were one of the first on having overseas companies signup and remit GST directly for low value personal imports.
NZ/UK have copied this model and the EU is following mid this year.
The scheme has a special definition for marketplaces so that they can rope in eBay and Amazon to collect for them rather than having to go after every little Chinese eBay seller.
I think the general argument is that the stores are not competitive and providing a low value service (having scams and subscription traps) while collecting a large amount of proceeds from developers.
But the stores clearly do make it more difficult for developers to engage in scams and subscription traps. I strongly support increased pressure on Google and Apple to do a lot more in this regard (especially with certain kinds of pay-to-avoid-grinding games) but it's wrong to speak about this as though it was a binary state.
The release does not say these things, and it is misleading to intentionally paraphrase as to invent logical conflicts that aren't present. In particular, it is wrong to equate the existence of controls with the abuse of market power.
Examples:
Kicking a scammer off your app store is a use of power that benefits the consumer.
Obliging service providers to mislead the consumer about their subscription options is an abuse of power and a barrier to consumer choice.
The desired outcomes are not "bipolar"; they are consistent with advancing consumer choice and consumer protection. They would only appears as conflicting demands to a rent-seeking organisation that prioritises its market share over consumer outcomes, which is of course why regulatory agencies like the ACCC exist.
I'm sorry, but it does. Just because they chose not to phrase it exactly as I did doesn't mean they didn't invoke these logical conflicts. But please, there's no need to take my word for it—I invite anyone to read the press release and form their own conclusion.
> it is wrong to equate the existence of controls with the abuse of market power.
I agree that it's "wrong" to equate them, but equating them is a common theme among complaints about Google and Apple's dominance of their platforms' app ecosystems.
You make it sound like the ACCC is inherently on the consumer's side in any matter. One look at the borderline-corrupt Media Bargaining Code would quickly disabuse any objective observer of that notion. It could be argued that the ACCC was somehow incapable of comprehending what an internet link is or how news article snippets come to appear on Google and Facebook. That's certainly a more charitable hypothesis than the ACCC being corrupt unduly influenced by the political interests of the current elected Government. Whether it's incompetence or malice (see Hanlon's razor) it doesn't look good for them.
Quite so. Let's emphasise that: they chose not to phrase it exactly as you did. And by my reading, significantly so.
> I invite anyone to read the press release
How about going one better: read the report that the media release accompanies.
> equating them is a common theme among complaints about Google and Apple's dominance of their platforms' app ecosystems
That's by the by, because this report does not make the same category error, and is a nuanced, lengthy, and considered analysis of the myriad different modes in which their controlling power is underused in some ways that leave the consumer unprotected, and overused/abused in other ways that harm consumer choice, create barriers to market entry, and enable rent-seeking behaviour, and suggests how changes in specific behaviours might correct those pathologies.
> You make it sound like the ACCC is inherently on the consumer's side in any matter
Well, yes, this is their job, their remit, their raison d'être. Deviation from that premise is the exception, not the norm, and frankly they are known globally as one of the most effective consumer regulators, and the ACL as gold-standard legislation that sibling institutions in other nations can only dream of administering. Trying to discredit the organisation because they got pulled into the federal Murdoch toadying over the MBC looks like misdirection.
Which makes me reach for my high school Latin: what is the equivalent of ad hominem when the target entity is an institution, not a person?
And we all know that people always do what their job title says they should do.
> what is the equivalent of ad hominem
Sigh. It seems 2021 is the year of calling things ad hominem which aren't. It's not ad hominem to accuse the ACCC of being untrustworthy because of prior bad actions in a recent, comparable matter. It would have been ad hominem if I said that the ACCC is untrustworthy because everyone who works there is very ugly.
Okay, so what is the phrase for a shallow and transparent attempt to undermine the findings of a report by slinging mud about its origin, after being called out for misrepresenting the actual content?
Rule: you can't say "sledging", only the other Australians will understand.
I've skimmed the full report, and OP's assessment feels somewhat fair.
It feels like the ACCC is telling Google and Apple "lower false positives and also lower false negatives".
They do have actionable proposals, eg "coordinated app ‘sweeps’ by consumer protection authorities", and establishing and independent app moderation authority, but overall the message kind of boils down to "do better simultaneously on every single front, even when they contradict each other".
> Kicking a scammer off your app store is a use of power that benefits the consumer.
But in a world that was taking consumer choice seriously would be primarily a job for law enforcement. We don't delegate traffic enforcement to the people who build and maintain roads.
Actually I think this'd be a recipe for scams to proliferate. Law enforcement processes mostly occur after the fact, often long after, and in any case, a great many nations already do take consumer choice seriously.
The transportation metaphor is somewhat problematic, because roads are commissioned and paid for by the same class of agency that employs traffic enforcement officers: domestic government. Nevertheless, delegating the enforcement of regulations to an accountable private entity is a common practice, and you'll see it in everything from medicine to logistics.
I think you're looking for an inconsistency where there is none. Requiring Apple and Google to stamp down on subscription traps and scams is not handing more control to them.
I did not say it was "handing" more control to them. I said it was asking them to exert more control.
The ACCC are calling on Google and Apple to clamp down harder on what developers can get away with inside their walled gardens. If Apple and Google comply, this clamping down will be seen as anti-competitive in other contexts and used as evidence against them in other venues.
It is okay to propose multiple directions if they benefit consumers and competition. This isn't what they did. They proposed one direction that benefits consumers at the expense of competition[1], and another direction which benefits competition at the expense of the consumer[2].
[1] Calling on Google and Apple to further clamp down on subscription traps and scams;
[2] Calling on Google and Apple to give up control over the mechanisms which have allowed them to clamp down on malicious financial activity including some (but not all) subscription traps and scams.
In what part of the report do they call on Google and Apple to "give up control over the mechanisms which have allowed them to clamp down on malicious financial activity including some (but not all) subscription traps and scams." ?
The "mechanisms which have allowed them to clamp down on malicious financial activity" are their payment gateways, the rules surrounding their use use, the ability to perform oversight over app payment activity, and the threat (whether actual or perceived) of total banishment if they are caught—particularly in Apple's case where there's no alternative path to customers.
In the same breath, Google and Apple are also being told that these very same mechanisms are a concern to the ACCC.
Hey sorry i don't see how stating these mechanisms are a concern = calling on them to give up control (or "threatening banishment") per your comments. Your comments seem presumptive given the actual content of the preliminary report.
On the other hand its proposed remedy asks that Google and Apple exert even more control over these app marketplaces by stamping down on anti-consumer practices like subscription traps and scams.
On the other other hand it proposes that Apple and Google should allow third party payment options, making it harder for Google and Apple to thwart subscription traps and scams.