The Apple Case: Defending the Injunction That Would Have Made Sense of a Macroscopic Privacy and Security Effort

The court saw it as the most anticompetitive option, so Apple decided to combine two different approaches. Apple had a mix of the commission and audit approach.

After the injunction came down, Apple began sizing up what changes it could implement that would “limit the ruling,” as one set of internal meeting notes say.

Apple realized that more prominent links would be more highly used, so it wanted to limit their placement. The company mocked up different designs for links. In one version, links would be included inside of buttons with rounded edges and colored backgrounds; in another, links would be presented in plain text. Links to plain text were restricted.

Designers then went about mocking up what happens when the link is tapped. One option would be a small pop-up warning users that they’re about to open their web browser, and the other would read “Are you sure you want to continue?”

The goal was to make users think twice about going to the web after seeing the full-screen option. The pop up included a paragraph of text, and employees discussed using “scary” language to warn people off.

Rafael Onak, a user experience writing manager at Apple, instructed an employee to add the phrase “external website” to the screen because it “sounds scary, so execs will love it.” Another employee gave a suggestion on how to make the screen “even worse” by using the developer’s name, rather than the app name. “ooh – keep going,” another Apple employee responded in Slack.

Cook was involved in the action. He asked for a second warning be added to state that Apple’s privacy and security promises wouldn’t apply out on the web after seeing the screen for approval.

In court, Apple tried to argue that the term “scary” didn’t actually mean it wanted the screen to scare people. “Scary,” it claimed, was actually a “term of art” — an industry term with a specialized meaning. In fact, the company claimed, “scary” raising awareness and caution is what it means. The court did not buy it, saying the argument strained “common sense.”

Gonzalez Rogers looked at Apple’s continued decision to choose the worst option for developers and decided the company simply hadn’t cared about complying with her order. She wrote that Apple wanted to secure its illegal revenue stream from every angle. Apple’s CEO was given the option between complying with the court’s order and choosing an unjustified App Store fee, the ruling says. “Cook chose poorly.”

Apple won in the legal fight with Epic Games. The company walked away from the trial with a court order mandating that developers be given permission to include links and buttons within their apps that would allow users to purchase methods outside of the App Store. Perhaps as a reflection of how well Apple had fared in court, the injunction did not strictly define what Apple could or could not do: it was vague enough that it left open a loophole by which the company could continue to charge developers a fee on sales even when made over the web.

After that, it’s time for… more monopoly talk! Meta and Google are both still in court fighting to keep their companies intact. We’re learning a lot about how important TikTok has become, how Meta sees the world in general, and why it feared what might happen if Google bought WhatsApp. Meanwhile, just down the hall in the DC District courthouse, Google CEO Sundar Pichai made an impassioned case that this trial could be the end of Google Search.

We talk about what just happened and why it matters. Nilay, David, and Jake walked through Apple’s years of secret meetings about app commission and how Gonzalez Rogers found that she was deceived throughout the process. Nilay also takes a victory lap around thebuttons and links thing. We discuss how developers are reacting to the news, what new apps you can buy in the App Store, and whether or not Apple has any moves left in this case.