<story><title>Senators introduce bipartisan antitrust bill to promote app store competition</title><url>https://www.blumenthal.senate.gov/newsroom/press/release/blumenthal-blackburn-and-klobuchar-introduce-bipartisan-antitrust-legislation-to-promote-app-store-competition</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jmull</author><text>This is mostly good, but it forces Apple&amp;#x2F;Google to hand over your email address (or other means of communication) to anyone you download an app from so they can spam you.&lt;p&gt;The bill says they don’t have to allow spam, but specially allows “legitimate business offers, such as pricing terms and product or service offerings”… which &lt;i&gt;is&lt;/i&gt; spam unless one explicitly opts-in to it.&lt;p&gt;I don’t appreciate the double-talk. This part of the bill is user hostile and should be deleted.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>_Nat_</author><text>&amp;gt; it forces Apple&amp;#x2F;Google to hand over your email address (or other means of communication) to anyone you download an app from so they can spam you&lt;p&gt;Which part of the text says this?  I did see:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; (b) INTERFERENCE WITH LEGITIMATE BUSINESS COMMUNICATIONS.—A Covered Company shall not impose restrictions on communications of developers with the users of the App through an App or direct outreach to a user concerning legitimate business offers, such as pricing terms and product or service offerings.&lt;p&gt;But that part doesn&amp;#x27;t seem to be &lt;i&gt;requiring&lt;/i&gt; app-stores to hand over emails, but rather merely prohibits app-stores from controlling communications.&lt;p&gt;Which would seem to be related to, e.g., [&amp;quot;&lt;i&gt;Apple charged over &amp;#x27;anti-competitive&amp;#x27; app policies&lt;/i&gt;&amp;quot;](&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.bbc.com&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;technology-56941173&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.bbc.com&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;technology-56941173&lt;/a&gt;), 2021-04-30:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; &amp;quot;At the core of this case is Spotify&amp;#x27;s demand they should be able to advertise alternative deals on their iOS app, a practice that no store in the world allows,&amp;quot; it said in a statement.</text></comment>
<story><title>Senators introduce bipartisan antitrust bill to promote app store competition</title><url>https://www.blumenthal.senate.gov/newsroom/press/release/blumenthal-blackburn-and-klobuchar-introduce-bipartisan-antitrust-legislation-to-promote-app-store-competition</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jmull</author><text>This is mostly good, but it forces Apple&amp;#x2F;Google to hand over your email address (or other means of communication) to anyone you download an app from so they can spam you.&lt;p&gt;The bill says they don’t have to allow spam, but specially allows “legitimate business offers, such as pricing terms and product or service offerings”… which &lt;i&gt;is&lt;/i&gt; spam unless one explicitly opts-in to it.&lt;p&gt;I don’t appreciate the double-talk. This part of the bill is user hostile and should be deleted.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>PragmaticPulp</author><text>Good catch. I definitely do not want this. I don&amp;#x27;t even understand why it would be necessary.&lt;p&gt;I really don&amp;#x27;t want to be forced to maintain separate e-mail accounts for app stores just to quarantine the inevitable flow of spam.</text></comment>