Australian court calls out Apple and Google misuse of market power
In a post on X, Epic, the creator of Fortnite which filed cases back in 2020 and 2021, said the court found Apple and Google 'abuse their control over app distribution and in-app payments to limit competition'. The company added this 'is a win for developers and consumers in Australia'.
In a summary of the ruling, law firm Gilbert and Tobin explained the court found the companies' practices, dating back to 2017, breached the country's competition and consumer act, adding Apple and Google had caused developers to pay materially higher commissions.
The law company noted the decision is the first contested case of the country's new misuse of market power law introduced in 2017 and 'grapples with the issues of walled gardens'.
In the case of the app distribution and in-app payment markets, the court ruled both companies engaged in conduct that had 'the purpose, effect or likely effect' of substantially lessening competition.
The court, however, did not accept Epic's other anti-competitive claims covering exclusive dealings, anti-competitive agreements or unconscionable conduct allegations by Apple and Google in the OS licensing market to OEMs.
The companies have 28 days to appeal the decision.
Source: Mobile World Live
Image Credit: Stock Image
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Channel Post MEA
8 hours ago
- Channel Post MEA
Oracle Integrates Google's Gemini AI
Oracle and Google Cloud have expanded their partnership to offer customers access to Google's most advanced AI models, starting with Gemini 2.5, via Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) Generative AI service. Oracle customers can now utilize the latest Gemini models to build AI agents for a wide range of use cases including multimodal understanding, advanced coding and software development tasks, productivity and workflow automation, and research and knowledge retrieval. Oracle plans to make Google's entire range of Gemini models available via OCI Generative AI service through new integrations with Vertex AI, including cutting edge models for video, image, speech, and music generation and specialized industry models like MedLM. In the future, Oracle will collaborate with Google Cloud to make Gemini models via Vertex AI available as an option within Oracle Fusion Cloud Applications, providing customers with a broader choice to enhance workflows in finance, HR, supply chain, sales, service, and marketing. Oracle customers can use their existing Oracle Universal Credits to start leveraging Google's Gemini models. 'Today, leading enterprises are using Gemini to power AI agents across a range of use cases and industries,' said Thomas Kurian, CEO, Google Cloud. 'Now, Oracle customers can access our leading models from within their Oracle environments, making it even easier for them to begin deploying powerful AI agents that can support developers, streamline data integration tasks, and much more.' Google's Gemini models excel in enterprise use cases thanks to their ability to ground responses in up-to-date Google Search data for accuracy, large context windows, strong encryption and data privacy policies, and leading reasoning abilities. 'Oracle has been intentional in offering model choice curated for the enterprise, spanning open and proprietary models,' said Clay Magouyrk, president, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. 'The availability of Gemini on OCI Generative AI service highlights our focus on delivering powerful, secure, and cost-effective AI solutions that help customers drive innovation and achieve their business goals.' Oracle brings leading-edge AI technology close to enterprise data and prioritizes security, adaptability, and scalability. This helps customers across industries apply the right AI technologies, including generative and agentic AI, to the right business scenarios for immediate results. In addition, thousands of AI innovators are leveraging OCI's cost-effective, purpose-built AI capabilities to run the most demanding AI workloads faster. OCI bare metal GPU instances can power applications for generative AI, natural language processing, computer vision, and recommendation systems.
Channel Post MEA
8 hours ago
- Channel Post MEA
OPSWAT Report Reveals 127% Rise In Malware
OPSWAT has released its first-ever Threat Landscape Report , revealing key insights from over 890,000 sandbox scans in the last 12 months. This report offers a unique lens into the evolving nature of cyberthreats. The findings are clear: traditional detection methods are being outpaced, with a 127% rise in malware complexity and a staggering 1 in 14 files—initially deemed 'safe' by legacy systems—proven to be malicious. This report is a call to action for industries relying on outdated defenses and the importance of multi-layered solutions. Key Findings: 127% Increase in Malware Complexity Behavioral telemetry revealed a 127% rise in multi-stage malware complexity over the past year. OPSWAT's sandbox uncovered layered threats designed to evade analysis, including obfuscated loaders such as NetReactor and evasive behaviors missed by traditional tools. These results show that modern malware intends to confuse, not flood, which is why OPSWAT's pipeline is purpose-built to unpack that complexity. Proactive Threat Detection OPSWAT analysis reclassified 7.3% of files that were silent across open-source intelligence (OSINT) feeds as malicious, on average 24 hours earlier than public data sources. These were confirmed executions, not speculative flags, highlighting how adaptive analysis can close dangerous gaps left by static and reputation-based systems. Campaign-Level Threat Correlation With 890,000+ sandbox scans, OPSWAT connects the dots across threats. It identifies shared TTPs, reused C2 infrastructure, and behavioral patterns across campaigns. This provides defenders with context-rich, actionable intelligence instead of noisy indicators. 99.97% Detection Accuracy OPSWAT's behavioral and machine learning pipeline delivers results. Aided by a newly enhanced PE emulator, the platform identified sophisticated threats such as: Clipboard hijacking via ClickFix Steganography-wrapped loaders C2 channels embedded in Google services .NET Bitmap malware loaders delivering Snake Keylogger payloads 'Our strength lies in precision, behavioral depth, and early visibility into emerging attacks,' said Jan Miller, Chief Technology Officer of Threat Analysis at OPSWAT. 'That's what sets OPSWAT apart in delivering high-fidelity, context-aware threat intelligence.' Why It Matters As critical infrastructure, government systems, and enterprise networks face growing targeting from increasingly modular and evasive malware, the findings of this report spotlight the evolving adversary playbook and the need for integrated, multilayered solutions. Cybersecurity leaders must now prioritize adaptability, shared intelligence, reassessing technology, and fast behavioral detection pipelines to protect systems from known threats, but also to keep pace with a rapidly evolving threat landscape and whatever is on the horizon. part of the OPSWAT MetaDefender Platform, powers advanced threat detection and file analysis across critical environments. Download the full report and learn more about OPSWAT's integrated pipeline at .
Tahawul Tech
14 hours ago
- Tahawul Tech
Apple denies bias against Grok AI
Apple has responded to accusations from Elon Musk regarding the company suppressing xAI's Grok AI chatbot by telling BBC News that App Store rankings are objective. The vendor provided BBC News with a statement in response to accusations of bias by Musk, which Apple denies. Musk appears disgruntled by a partnership between Apple and OpenAI to enhance its Siri personal assistant with the ChatGPT chatbot. In a series of posts on X in recent days, the billionaire threatened legal action over what he argues is a breach of competition laws. Apple told BBC News the rankings of its App Store are based on various means, including algorithms and expertly curated lists, denying Musk's accusation of favouritism towards its AI partner. The vendor emphasised the large number of apps on offer through its marketplace and asserted objectivity in how those are rated and presented to users. ChatGPT is the top free app listed for iPhones on the US version of Apple's App Store at the time of writing, with Grok sixth. OpenAI's product also heads free iPad apps, with Grok in 34th place. There are strong suggestions across all news articles on the matter that Musk's grievance lies more with Open AI than Apple, given a well-publicised spat with the AI company's CEO Sam Altman. Source: Mobile World Live Image Credit: xAI Grok
