Comments on: Is the App Store heading for legal trouble? http://www.technovia.co.uk/2009/11/is-the-app-store-heading-for-legal-trouble.html Ian Betteridge on Macs, mobiles, and technology Sun, 21 Mar 2010 23:02:29 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Ian Betteridge http://www.technovia.co.uk/2009/11/is-the-app-store-heading-for-legal-trouble.html/comment-page-1#comment-3280 Ian Betteridge Thu, 07 Jan 2010 00:38:43 +0000 http://www.technovia.co.uk/?p=2523#comment-3280 "That would be rather like a food producer claiming Tesco was acting anti-competitvely by refusing to stock its produce." Yes, it would: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cif-green/2010/jan/05/supermarket-food-ombudsman-conservatives “That would be rather like a food producer claiming Tesco was acting anti-competitvely by refusing to stock its produce.”

Yes, it would:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cif-green/2010/jan/05/supermarket-food-ombudsman-conservatives

]]> By: Kenny http://www.technovia.co.uk/2009/11/is-the-app-store-heading-for-legal-trouble.html/comment-page-1#comment-3052 Kenny Tue, 17 Nov 2009 13:29:50 +0000 http://www.technovia.co.uk/?p=2523#comment-3052 Regulation of monopolies, including measures to prevent anti-competitive behaviour exist to prevent monopolists abusing their position to the detriment of consumers. To that end, they apply to the behaviour of the monopolist with respect to its competitors NOT its suppliers. App developers are suppliers to the App Store and so would be hard pushed to claim that by denying them access, Apple is behaving anti-competitively. That would be rather like a food producer claiming Tesco was acting anti-competitvely by refusing to stock its produce. Regulation of monopolies, including measures to prevent anti-competitive behaviour exist to prevent monopolists abusing their position to the detriment of consumers. To that end, they apply to the behaviour of the monopolist with respect to its competitors NOT its suppliers.

App developers are suppliers to the App Store and so would be hard pushed to claim that by denying them access, Apple is behaving anti-competitively. That would be rather like a food producer claiming Tesco was acting anti-competitvely by refusing to stock its produce.

]]> By: _sjc_ http://www.technovia.co.uk/2009/11/is-the-app-store-heading-for-legal-trouble.html/comment-page-1#comment-3040 _sjc_ Sat, 14 Nov 2009 11:03:47 +0000 http://www.technovia.co.uk/?p=2523#comment-3040 As much as I respect and admire Fraser as a developer and for the role he plays in the Mac dev community, I've never really agreed with his thoughts on political/economic topics. This is another one of these times. I'm not a lawyer (although I guess I am, technically at least, an economist), but I'd be very surprised if a court accepted that the App Store fell under the definition of "essential facility". And even if it did, that would mean so would many other closed stores served by proprietary development system (eg. games consoles), at least some of which must have more draconian policies. Ultimately, however, we have to remember that the App Store is run by humans. It has problems which can be fixed. But this kind of belligerent "I'm not getting my way so I'm going to sue" attitude -- even if it's only in the form of (well-researched) on-line musings -- isn't going to help. As much as I respect and admire Fraser as a developer and for the role he plays in the Mac dev community, I’ve never really agreed with his thoughts on political/economic topics. This is another one of these times.

I’m not a lawyer (although I guess I am, technically at least, an economist), but I’d be very surprised if a court accepted that the App Store fell under the definition of “essential facility”. And even if it did, that would mean so would many other closed stores served by proprietary development system (eg. games consoles), at least some of which must have more draconian policies.

Ultimately, however, we have to remember that the App Store is run by humans. It has problems which can be fixed. But this kind of belligerent “I’m not getting my way so I’m going to sue” attitude — even if it’s only in the form of (well-researched) on-line musings — isn’t going to help.

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