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EU antitrust regulators award Apple specific proceedings over ecosystem operation

Posted on by darion

European Union antitrust regulators launched legal proceedings on Thursday to ensure Apple complies with historic rules that require the company to allow competitors access to its exclusive ecosystem or face fines.

Conclusions:

  • EU antitrust regulators have launched an operation to ensure Apple complies with historic rules that require the company to reveal its exclusive ecosystem to competitors or face fines.
  • The European competition authority said the first investigation concerns iOS connectivity features and the functionality of smartwatches, headphones, virtual reality headsets and other internet-connected devices.
  • The Commission aims to conclude both proceedings within six months.
  • Walt Disney plans to ditch Slack as its company-wide workplace collaboration tool after a group of hackers released more than a terabyte of company data online.

Apple will comply with the Digital Markets Act

As part of the specifications process, the European Commission will determine what Apple must do to comply with the Digital Markets Act (DMA), which came into force last year.

“Today, for the first time, we are using the DMA’s specification procedures to guide Apple towards effectively fulfilling its interoperability commitments through constructive dialogue,” Margrethe Vestager, head of the EU’s antitrust commission, said in a statement.

The EU competition watchdog said the first investigation concerns iOS connectivity features and functionality. smartwatchesheadphones, virtual reality headsets and other internet-connected devices.

This document will outline how Apple will ensure effective interoperability for features such as notifications, device pairing, and connectivity.

The second investigation concerns Apple’s handling of interoperability requests from developers and third parties for iOS and iPadOS. The company is committed to ensuring a transparent, timely, and fair process.

The Commission aims to conclude both proceedings within six months.

Apple said it would continue to cooperate constructively with the Commission, but also warned of the risks.

“Weakening the security we have built over the years would put European consumers at risk by giving bad actors more ways to access their devices and data,” the statement said.

If Apple fails to comply with the DMA requirements, it faces fines of up to 10% of its annual worldwide turnover.

Disney plans to stop using Salesforce’s Slack after hack exposes company data

Walt Disney plans to discontinue using Slack as a workplace collaboration platform after a group of hackers exposed nearly a terabyte of corporate data online, according to an article in Status Media.

Disney Chief Financial Officer Hugh Johnston said most media and entertainment companies will discontinue the service later this year.

According to the report, many teams have already begun the transition to streamlined collaboration tools across the enterprise.

As the Wall Street Journal reported in July, hacker group NullBulge published data from thousands of the entertainment giant’s Slack channels, including computer code and details about unpublished projects.

As reported earlier this month by WSJ, the data includes more than 44 million messages from Disney’s workplace communication tool Slack.

The company said in August it was investigating the unauthorized disclosure of more than a terabyte of data from one of its communications systems.

SentinelOne’s threat and malware intelligence team says NullBulge breaches software supply chains by leveraging code available on collaborative coding platforms GitHub and Hugging Face, tricking users into downloading malicious files.