The Arizona House of Representatives just passed landmark app store legislation in a 31-29 vote on Wednesday that could have far-reaching consequences for Apple and Google and their respective mobile operating systems.
The legislation, a sweeping amendment to Arizona’s existing HB2005, prevents app store operators from forcing a developer based in the state to use a preferred payment system, putting up a significant roadblock to Apple and Google’s ability to collect commissions on in-app purchases and app sales. It will now head to the state senate, where it must pass before its sent to Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey.
A lot of bribes are going to flow from Apple and Google to Arizona, since if a law like this passes, it could have devastating consequences for these two companies. Obviously, I hope it passes, but I have my doubts local Arizona politicians will be able to withstand those juicy, juicy bribes.
If anything, this would make for an excellent anti-corruption honeypot operation. There’s not going to be any better way to finally prosecute and execute lobbyists and politicians if they’re not caught with dirty money, and practically no one in those positions could resist big tech money.
They don’t need to bribe anyone: they can use much cheaper extortion.
If this law passes Google and Apple will simply ban anyone from Arizona making any purchases – no senator who wants to be reelected, will vote for such a thing.
Facebook showed in Australia how it is done …
“A developer based in the state”…
So either apple/google will stop supporting developers based in arizona, or such developers will move their registered offices somewhere else (assuming they haven’t already), or outsource their development to india (assuming they haven’t already).
Unless it applies to end users in the state, they probably won’t care.
And if it does apply to end users, app developers will probably just use Apple or Google’s systems anyway, since most end users won’t bother with purchases for small things such as apps if they have to go out of their way and struggle through alternate payment interfaces to do it. There’s a nice centiment behind this, however it’s yet another example of politicians not understanding technology nor those who use it, and will likely create more problems than it solves. A better law, if you do want to regulate this behavior, would be to force third-party stores or side-loading to be permitted on all computing devices, i.e. abolish vendor lock-in for purchases. This would be more effective than trying to go after specific vendors with a targeted bill.
darknexus,
IMHO that’s fine if that’s what they want. As a developer, I wouldn’t care if a user voluntarily pay google & apple fees if they prefer it, but it’s clearly anti-competitive to ban developers from offering more competitive options. I think epic games made a really good case for competition by allowing consumers to make the choice themselves. Their payment screen gave users the option to pay google & apple premiums or use a more competitive alternative.
I haven’t read the bill, so I don’t really know what the specific problems with it are, but from the summary it seems that they recognize that consumers are best served with more competition.
I agree with this as well.