Apple will no longer have the right to prevent you from uninstalling its applications

American justice wants to ban Apple from blocking the uninstallation of default applications on its devices. According to the deputies behind the project, this practice is contrary to anti-competitive legislation, since it allows the Cupertino company to promote its own services. Other manufacturers are also targeted.

Although Bill Gates particularly appreciates them, the preinstalled applications are often difficult for users who do not use them much. While there are back door ways to delete them from your device, it is not necessarily easy to get rid of it. And this state of affairs does not please the American authorities. Under the leadership of Democratic MP David Cicilline, a bill aims to prohibit this practice, deemed anti-competitive.

“You can’t stop people from using other identical services. You cannot exclude other people so that you only have this one left ”said David Cicillin. The MP wants users to be able to uninstall any app from their iPhone, to name but one, in order to use another similar application if they wish. However, the law will not prohibit Apple from installing its applications on the device by default.

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You will soon be able to uninstall the applications you want on your iPhone or iPad

Besides Apple, the deputies also have the other big names in tech in their sights. Google and Amazon will also have to comply with these new measures. “It will be just as easy to download the other five apps as Apple’s, so they don’t use their market dominance to promote their own products and services.”, explains David Cicillin. Contrary to what Apple believes, imposing its ecosystem is indeed anti-competition according to the instigators of the project.

The latter is in reality a set of several laws, aimed at limit the constraints imposed by manufacturers on their users. David Cicilline notably cites Amazon which, with its Prime subscription, disadvantages sellers who have not subscribed to the program and who, therefore, cannot deliver their products as quickly. MEPs also want to prevent builders from configure default settings that cause users to prefer their services.

Source: Bloomberg