U.S. Senators Urge Apple to Reconsider Decision Not to Testify in Upcoming App Store Hearing

[jonnysods]

I don't feel like this hearing is about going to bat for the people, its just grandstanding.

Politicians bug me so much - they don't know how to create or make things, just set up rules, regulations or tear things down. Apple make a device, they make an app store for that device, both things which revolutionized technology today, and they want to harass Apple about iMessage?

It seems like there is a 'big tech hearing' every week, but nothing happens!

 

[Solomani]

Apple should not have to defend itself TWICE... for the same (App Store) accusations. That could legally lead to double-jeopardy. It should only have to face trial once. And the Apple-EPIC trial is already set into motion. What the moronic US politicians should do is to request a courtroom observer seat (online or actual) during the Apple-EPIC trials, and take notes.

 

[UrbanJoe1]

I know they’re busy but still an interesting “Art of War” type of move.

 

[macduke]

Everything in the world right now and this is what our democratically elected leaders choose to focus on. Anyone else notice they only seem to really get riled up when something hit the news cycle? I guess it's a lot easier for them to tackle this than universal healthcare during a pandemic, the mass shooting epidemic, making laws to keep companies from moving their businesses overseas, simplifying the tax code and creating software to process our taxes automatically, boost funding and tax credits for green sector jobs as we fall behind other countries, and dozens of other pressing issues like beefing up our ability to respond to another pandemic because from what I've read covid is only the tip of the iceberg and there are several things out there now that could blow up way worse and the ability for more people in remote regions to travel the world only increases the chances of it spreading as we move into the future. Need more pre-emptive vaccine research to try to shut down the most common pathways to the next pandemic. And a dozen other things. Sorry for the run on sentence, it's just that if I had 100 things to rank on a list this would be in the bottom 10 easy, and I think it should apply to all of the "app" stores equally like Xbox, Playstation, Nintendo, etc and they should all be locked down by default with the option to go in as a root user and really fork up their shizz, lol.

 

[huanbrother]

Apple: I am the SENATE.
Which is not a BAD thing.

 

[Solomani]

It's Apple's fault for not paying bribes to US Senators. ?

Samsung learned how to buy out entire South Korean legislatures and Presidents decades ago.

As Scandal Roils South Korea, Fingers Point to Mixing of Politics and Business (Published 2017)

Outrage over President Park Geun-hye’s actions has turned to broader concerns over the power of the presidency and its relationship with conglomerates.

www.nytimes.com

 

[buddhistMonkey]

To hell with Amy Klobuchar. She wrote a new antitrust bill that targets Apple and other “big tech” companies without understanding the differences between them — they’re all just “big tech” to her. Here’s a quote from Klobuchar during a keynote speech at the State of the Net Conference: "While we've seen this enormous change in our economy, we really are not as sophisticated as the companies that we should be regulating.” I hope Apple continues to avoid anything to do with her or her committee, and lobbies against her destructive legislation.

 

[AdonisSMU]

Any is not looking to learn anything. Amy and others are looking to film commercials for their re-election campaigns.

I’m concerned about her writing legislation when she doesnt fully grasp the paradigm and the issues that need to be balanced.

 

[buddhistMonkey]

Yeah it’s really infuriating on this site. I hate fanboyism.

And I hate people who use the term “fanboy,” so I guess nobody’s happy.

 

[desslr]

Support Apple in this decision. He them in the contempt they deserve.

 

[I7guy]

Yeah it’s really infuriating on this site. I hate fanboyism.

I “hate” detractorism. Which is also infuriating and why there is such passionate commentary. Put the detractors against fanboys and it’s like universes colliding especially with topics such as:
- app store fees
-side loading
-etc

 

[jlc1978]

Apple should not have to defend itself TWICE... for the same (App Store) accusations. That could legally lead to double-jeopardy. It should only have to face trial once. And the Apple-EPIC trial is already set into motion. What the moronic US politicians should do is to request a courtroom observer seat (online or actual) during the Apple-EPIC trials, and take notes.

Double jeopardy only applies to criminal cases; even then separate jurisdictions, such as state and federal, can prosecute someone for the same act if it violates both jurisdiction's laws.

In Apple's case, the Senate is not trying them, and given Epic's lawsuit I can see why Apple would not want to appear before the Senate and risk undermining its position in the Epic lawsuit.

 

[litmag01]

Well Neutrality was neutered until a few weeks ago

Fingers crossed! But I think that was just one specific state law and a suggestion to boot. Its just that now the Fed law arm probably will not block it BY STATE, which is almost like turning a single federal FCC strand into a damn Gordian knot.

Ajit Pai: Mission Accomplished.

 

[Black Belt]

US Senators are major self-entitled blowhards

 

[SuperMatt]

Only the U.S. seems to want to cripple its own companies that are successful. Make no mistake, crippling U.S. companies with new laws will not favor new US companies, they will merely favor existing foreign giants.

U.S companies does not have a cost advantage. The only thing that U.S government provides its companies is the U.S standard of living and H1B visas, which attracts talent from around the world. Every other advantage U.S companies have, the individual companies had to work hard to achieve. And now they want to cripple those few advantages these companies developed legally, by changing the law and making those illegal? It's sad that foreign companies are using US laws to break US companies. No other country would allow such a thing.

This argument is based on a faulty premise. If America’s companies are so “crippled” then why are they the most successful in the world? There are many huge advantages to having a business in America. The supposed “advantages” of crony capitalist societies like Russia don’t actually improve the country’s competitive standing in the world. They simply line the pockets of the oligarchs.

If you want to see what happens when companies are given carte blanche to do whatever they want with no rules, please study the history of Trusts in America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

 

[Mike_Trivisonno]

Tim Apple should just tell the Senate to call 1-800-275-2273 for technical support. lol.

 

[I7guy]

There is NO benefit to Apple participating.

And, there is NO real need for a Hearing.

ALL of the facts are known !

Congress just needs to move forward with the proposed New Laws !

BTW, "Public" Hearings with Congress participating are a known Waste of Time !

ALL most member of Congress want out of such Public Hearings is Ammo for their RE-election campaign TV commercials !

ONLY "Private" Hearings have ANY real chance of being productive !

Facts are known, new laws not needed. Unless new laws give app stores ability to operate legally.

 

[1258186]

If Apple refuse to defend themselves the committee should proceed and draw their own conclusions.

 

[Premium1]

HUH? Senators dont know the power and monopoly Google has over android phones?
they need an expensive and useless trial?
Even my cat knows one needs google play to install a garage door opener app
that spikes an alert when the door needs servicing and alerting repair tech from 100 miles to contact- stop
im overreacting
but made my point.

Man, that is some solid whataboutism. Not to mention you can sideload apps on Google, so technically you don't *NEED* the play store to install apps.

 

[DEMinSoCAL]

HUH? Senators dont know the power and monopoly Google has over android phones?
they need an expensive and useless trial?
Even my cat knows one needs google play to install a garage door opener app
that spikes an alert when the door needs servicing and alerting repair tech from 100 miles to contact- stop
im overreacting
but made my point.

Your cat is wrong. Android phones can sideload apps as long as you're supplied with the app.

 

[MBAir2010]

Man, that is some solid whataboutism. Not to mention you can sideload apps on Google, so technically you don't *NEED* the play store to install apps.

Thanks, this is the reply i needed!
so, if someone has a Samsung phone, they can log out of google, delete all their apps and still install what ever garage door opener that is attached to their house? the merchant at ATT said they needed google to install apps.
This is something i need to look into this week

 

[TakeshimaIslands]

Waste of time, why not spend this time on something else? Like looking into why ISPs charge an arm and a leg for a half assed internet connection.

AT&T, Verizon, Comcrap and the likes have been milking the American people with their regional monopolies over network for years and I haven't seen on private hearing with tangible laws released. Yes, the FCC and its Net Neutrality helps, to an extent.

HUH? Senators dont know the power and monopoly Google has over android phones?
they need an expensive and useless trial?
Even my cat knows one needs google play to install a garage door opener app
that spikes an alert when the door needs servicing and alerting repair tech from 100 miles to contact- stop
im overreacting
but made my point.

Yes its a joke! Big tech is nothing more than a huge corrupt racket!

Google has an abusive monopoly on search and advertising using telemetry from apps to spam you with invasive adverts to end users,

example: google play store ovulation apps sends user data to google and in turn google use its algorithms to send targeted adverts for candy/craving related food with cutesy kittens adverts around the time 'user' starts their period..

Googles 'free' services are not free but every single byte of your data is mined and harvested for maximum ROI for alphabet,
example: google offers free high quality photo cloud storage , this is done in attempt to feed the necessary exabytes of unique randomized images needed to perfect its deep learning object recognition AI.
only reason why they are discontinuing unlimited free photo storage from June 1 because its deep learning ai has developed to a level where it does not need the ‘peasants’ images any more.

Insta/facebook apps mic snooping phone calls, repeated flagged key words will result in targeted advertising on the subjects spoken.

amazon has a near monopoly on e-commerce, tracks its customers shopping activities outside of amazon, deploys ai to undercut the competition by 1-5% for popular products

but wait apple is the bad guy here for its app store payment policies?! Wtf! I am all for trillion dollar companies being held to account but this is nothing more than blatant extortion, why constantly single out Apple like this but do nothing about other silicon valley giants who rampantly abuse their monopolistic powers!?

Anyone else disgusted on how powerful big tech has become?!

 

[Premium1]

Thanks, this is the reply i needed!
so, if someone has a Samsung phone, they can log out of google, delete all their apps and still install what ever garage door opener that is attached to their house? the merchant at ATT said they needed google to install apps.
This is something i need to look into this week

A simple search of the interwebs explains all of that. I mean I guess if you have some obscure app (you keep harping on garage door openers for some reason) it might not work, but still is 100% different from what apple is doing. Google isn't the best, but there's a reason they call IOS the "walled garden"

 

[jwhitnah]

This is a PR mistake. Their goal should be to appear to be transparent and helpful, rather than difficult and disrespectful.

 

[qoop]

I “hate” detractorism. Which is also infuriating and why there is such passionate commentary. Put the detractors against fanboys and it’s like universes colliding especially with topics such as:
- app store fees
-side loading
-etc

I agree with you, that's why the site needs to adopt a clear list of viewpoints to which users must agree. It's far simpler in the long run.