Apple blocked Web Apps in Europe to comply with the DMA: now Europe is investigating it

We will have to wait and see how events unfold, but from minute one, Apple has already stated that the DMA poses threats to user security, even though they try to mitigate them.

In the face of the imminent arrival of the DMA, Apple made the decision to block Progressive Web Applications (PWA) in Europe from the first beta of iOS 17.4, a measure that the company claims was necessary to comply with the strict requirements of the Digital Markets Act (DMA) of the European Union. Now, as reported in the Financial Times, the European Union is investigating the issue.

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An unexpected consequence of the DMA

The DMA prohibits Apple from requiring browsers to use the system’s web rendering engine, WebKit. Implementing support for non-WebKit engines for web applications, which can now be installed on the system, currently has serious security implications. Implications such as one web application being able to access another’s data, for example, or using permission to access another application’s camera or photos for its own access.

Thus, since Web Apps use the WebKit engine and implementing them for other engines can compromise our security, the company’s only resource was to block this type of applications. Why? Because the law explicitly prohibits favoring the WebKit engine over other third-party engines, so if they do not have support for web apps, neither does WebKit.

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A decision that Apple already explained at the time and that has now caught the attention of regulators. We will have to wait and see how events unfold, but from the very beginning Apple stated that DMA poses threats to user security, even if they try to mitigate them.

Author: David Bernal Raspall

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