A U.K. competition authority investigation of Apple and Google’s mobile browsers has concluded that the mobile duopoly’s policies are “holding back innovation” and could also be limiting economic growth.
“Mobile browsers are apps which provide the primary gateway for consumers to access the web on their mobile devices, and hence for businesses to reach them with their content and products. The issues we have identified mean that consumers could be missing out on new features when using mobile browsers; and businesses are limited in their ability to reach consumers through browser apps,” runs a summary of the 611-page final decision report published on Wednesday.
Most of the concerns identified relate to “Apple’s policies that determine how mobile browsers, the way we access the web on mobiles, work on Apple’s devices,” per a press release.
These include issues such as Apple mandating the use of its WebKit browser engine for other browsers on iOS, which limits their ability to differentiate versus Apple’s own Safari browser by offering enhanced features; Safari having greater or earlier access to key platform features versus rival browsers, which the inquiry groups believes is crimping competition (including around privacy features), and holding back development of PWAs (progressive web apps) on iOS; limits on in-browsing which puts limits on rival browsers’ ability to serve app users who click on a link out to the web; and certain choice architecture issues.
When it comes to Google, the investigating inquiry group’s concerns center on revenue sharing arrangements between Mountain View and Apple, whereby Google pays Apple a significant share of the search ad revenue earned from traffic on Safari and Chrome on iOS.
“We have found that Apple and Google earn significant revenue when their key rival’s mobile browser is used on iOS for web searches on Google, significantly reducing their financial incentives to compete,” they observe, going on to note that the extent of the revenue-sharing is “so large” as to significantly limit the financial incentive to compete.
But still no enforcement in sight
Despite this raft of negative findings — and despite U.K. competition concerns over Apple and Google’s grip on mobile dating back many years at this point — there’s still no competition enforcement action in sight; the report recommends waiting for special abuse control powers to kick in.
These are powers that would be unlocked if an active investigation of the two tech giants (opened in January) confirms they fall in-scope of beefed up antitrust powers wielded by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) since a major U.K. reform of competition law targeting digital giants came into force in January. So remedies for the anti-competitive issues identified remain up in the air.
The report advises against trying to remedy the competition concerns using standard market investigation powers — as it says there are “a number significant risks to the effectiveness of these measures.”
Cloud gaming, which had also formed part of the market investigation, was dropped from the inquiry last November after some changes by Apple that the regulator deemed likely to alleviate competition concerns.
