Readers may recall that Japan recently passed the Smartphone Act, officially the Bill on the Promotion of Competition for Specified Software Used in Smartphones. Among its most important reforms is a direct prohibition on Apple’s long-standing ban on third-party browser engines on iOS.| Open Web Advocacy
TL;DR: Apple’s rules and technical restrictions are blocking other browser vendors from successfully offering their own engines to users in the EU. At the recent Digital Markets Act (DMA) workshop, Apple claimed it didn’t know why no browser vendor has ported their engine to iOS over the past 15 months. But the reality is Apple knows exactly what the barriers are, and has chosen not to remove them.| Open Web Advocacy
TL;DR: On iOS in the EU, selecting a third-party browser from the choice screen replaces Safari in the hotseat (dock), ensuring the user’s choice is respected. This change has already led to meaningful gains in market share; Mozilla, for example, saw its daily active users double in France and Germany on iOS, where the hotseat change is implemented. DuckDuckGo’s findings suggest that replacing Safari in the hotseat boosted the iOS choice screen’s effectiveness by a factor of nine. Yet G...| Open Web Advocacy
Regulators around the world are working to address competition issues in digital markets, particularly on mobile devices. Several new laws have already been passed, including the UK’s Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act (DMCC), Japan’s Smartphone Act, and the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA). Australia and the United States are also considering similar legislation with the U.S. Department of Justice pursuing an antitrust case against Apple. Across all of these efforts, common q...| Open Web Advocacy
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