EU antitrust authorities on Thursday opened legal processes to make sure Apple abides by historic regulations compelling it to allow competitors access to its exclusive ecosystem or face the prospect of a sizable fine.
TakeAway Points:
- EU antitrust authorities began taking action to make sure Apple abides by historic regulations compelling it to divulge its exclusive ecosystem to competitors or face the prospect of a large fine.
- The EU competition enforcer said the first proceeding targets iOS connectivity features and functionalities for smartwatches, headphones, virtual reality headsets, and other internet-connected devices.
- The Commission aims to wrap up both proceedings within six months.
- Walt Disney intends to move away from using Slack as a workplace collaboration tool for the entire firm after a hacker group posted more than a terabyte of company data online.
Apple to abide by the Digital Markets Act
Under the specification proceedings, the European Commission will spell out what Apple has to do to abide by the Digital Markets Act (DMA), which came into effect last year.
“Today is the first time we use specification proceedings under the DMA to guide Apple towards effective compliance with its interoperability obligations through constructive dialogue,” EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager said in a statement.
The EU competition enforcer said the first proceeding targets iOS connectivity features and functionalities for smartwatches, headphones, virtual reality headsets, and other internet-connected devices.
It will specify how Apple will provide effective interoperability with functionalities such as notifications, device pairing, and connectivity.
The second proceeding concerns how Apple addresses interoperability requests submitted by developers and third parties for iOS and iPadOS, with the company told to ensure a transparent, timely, and fair process.
The Commission aims to wrap up both proceedings within six months.
Apple said it will continue to work constructively with the Commission but also warned of the risks.
“Undermining the protections we’ve built over time would put European consumers at risk, giving bad actors more ways to access their devices and data,” a statement said.
Apple risks fines of as much as 10% of its annual global turnover if it fails to comply with the DMA.
Disney plans to stop using Salesforce-owned Slack after hack exposed company data
Walt Disney intends to discontinue using Slack as its corporate workplace collaboration platform following the internet exposure of almost a terabyte of corporate data by a hacker group, as per an article in the Status Media newsletter.
Disney’s CFO Hugh Johnston said most of the media and entertainment company’s businesses would stop using the service later this year, the report said.
Many teams have already started transitioning to streamlined enterprise-wide collaboration tools, according to the report.
Hacking group NullBulge had published data from thousands of Slack channels at the entertainment giant, including computer code and details about unreleased projects, the Wall Street Journal reported in July.
The data spans more than 44 million messages from Disney’s Slack workplace communications tool, WSJ reported earlier this month.
The company had said in August it was investigating an unauthorized release of over a terabyte of data from one of its communication systems.
NullBulge compromises software supply chains by exploiting code on GitHub and Hugging Face, collaborative coding platforms, and tricks users into downloading malicious files, as per SentinelOne’s threat intelligence and malware analysis team.
