For Tim Cook, the hour is serious. He took advantage of the Privacy Summit organized by the International Association of Privacy Professionals in Washington this week to call for the protection of user privacy. A speech that was not without ulterior motives. Because his idea was also to defend at the same time the locked ecosystem of Apple against the blows of new regulations.
No doubt. It made implicit and particular reference to the European text of the DMA (Digital Markets Act) which was recently the subject of an agreement between the European Parliament, the Council of Europe and the Commission. Tim Cook therefore repeated all the bad things he thought of the sideloading, or the possibility of downloading applications outside the App Store, via third-party stores. A provision that the DMA plans to impose and which primarily concerns Apple since the sideloading is already possible on Android.
This question is also at the heart of the ongoing legal battle between Epic Games and Apple.
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Privacy and security risks
According to Tim Cook, this type of initiative would expose users to privacy and security risks.
“This means that data-hungry companies could circumvent our privacy policies and re-track our users against their will. It would also potentially give bad actors a way to circumvent the comprehensive security protections we have in place, putting them in direct contact with our users.”he denounced.
He concluded by assuring melodramatically that the battle for privacy is currently going through a pivotal moment in its history.
Other Apple officials like Craig Federighi have spoken out and voiced their opposition to the sideloading. The American giant is therefore not disarming a few months before the application of DMA. It remains to be seen whether he will take the risk of not complying with it.
Source : MacRumors