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Monday, 24 August 2020

Lovecraft Country Would Like to Point Out that You Can't Eat at Just Anybody's House

Lovecraft Country understands that the best horror always allows for its heroes to make at least a few poor decisions in service of the plot.

Are We Already Living in a Tech Dystopia?

For the most part, fictional characters rarely recognize when they’re trapped in a dystopia. Watching their neighbors get carted off for harboring subversive thoughts, they almost never say, “I wish we weren’t living in this dystopia.” To them, that dystopia is just life. Which suggests that—were we, at this moment,…

Apple Korea Pledges $84 Million to Support Small Businesses and Settle Antitrust Probe

Apple's South Korea business has offered to make a 100 billion won ($84 million) payout to support small businesses and help consumers, according to the country's competition watchdog (via Reuters).

The Korean Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) investigated Apple Korea in 2016 for requiring SK Telecom, KT Corp, and LG Uplus Corp to pay the cost of television advertisements and warranty service for its iPhones. The probe found that Apple holds a clear advantage over local mobile carriers and that handing over the cost of advertisements was another means of squeezing the profits of the carriers.

In June of this year, the antitrust regulator decided to allow Apple to map out a set of measures to address its anti-competitive business practices in the country, and Apple has now agreed to fix unfair terms with mobile carriers as part of its proposal. Apple said it will discuss how to share advertising costs with telecoms firms, which will help reduce burdens to carriers, the KFTC said in a briefing.

Apple has reportedly pledged to offer 40 billion won ($34 million) to build a center to support research and development for Korea's small manufacturers and 25 billion won ($21 million) to establish an "academy" to provide education to developers. The rest of the 100 billion won would be used to give consumer discounts on warranty repair costs and other benefits, according to Reuters.

Provided the KFTC accepts Apple's offer, the regulator will close the case and conclude that Apple has not done anything illegal.

Even if that does happen though, Apple could be facing another probe by Korean regulators for its business practices. Last week, an alliance of app developers and small companies submitted a petition to the Korea Communications Commission asking for an investigation into whether Apple and Google may be violating Korean laws on in-app purchases and anti-competitive behavior.

Tags: antitrust, South Korea

This article, "Apple Korea Pledges $84 Million to Support Small Businesses and Settle Antitrust Probe" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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Trump Exploring Ways to Release Coronavirus Vaccine Before Proper Trials: Report

President Donald Trump is exploring ways to release an experimental coronavirus vaccine before the 2020 presidential election in November, even if the vaccine doesn’t meet normal U.S. safety standards established by the FDA, according to a new report from the Financial Times. And while the news is not exactly a…

WeChat Users Group Sues Trump Administration Over 'Unconstitutional' Ban

A group of WeChat users has filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration in an effort to block an executive order that would ban the app in the United States, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Earlier this month, President Trump signed two executive orders that would officially ban any U.S. transactions with ByteDance and Tencent, the Chinese companies that own TikTok and WeChat, respectively. The order will be enacted on September 20, but TikTok can avoid a ban if an American company can agree a deal to acquire its U.S. operations before that date.

Filed by the WeChat Users Alliance and several other plaintiffs in the U.S. District Court in San Francisco, the lawsuit claims the executive order to ban WeChat is unconstitutional and violates the right to free speech. It also claims the ban illegally targets Chinese-Americans who use WeChat to communicate with Chinese citizens. An attorney for the group, which is made up of people who depend on WeChat for personal and business purposes, says it is hoping that the Trump administration will have to clarify which WeChat transactions would be subject to the ban.

WeChat is extremely popular with Chinese mobile device users, essentially operating as its own platform on top of iOS and Android for many users, but the app is also widely used around the world and has over 1.2 billion monthly active users.

It's still unclear whether the ban applies to the WeChat app only in the United States or if it will result in the removal of the WeChat app from iPhones across the globe. At any rate, any ban would be bad news for Apple. In a worst-case scenario, Apple's annual global iPhone shipments could decline by 25–30% if it is forced to remove WeChat from its App Stores around the world, according to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo.

In a Weibo survey, 95 percent of the 1.2 million people who responded said they would switch to an Android smartphone over an ‌‌iPhone‌‌ rather than give up WeChat.

Over the weekend, TikTok also confirmed it plans to sue the Trump administration over the executive order, perhaps as early as Monday. ByteDance, TikTok's parent company, is believed to be in talks with Microsoft about the software giant acquiring the app's U.S. operations. Other companies including Twitter are also reportedly in talks with TikTok.

Note: Due to the political or social nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Political News forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Tag: WeChat

This article, "WeChat Users Group Sues Trump Administration Over 'Unconstitutional' Ban" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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