Apple continues to resist the looming US antitrust law, which could lead to major changes to the App Store. The letter, sent by Apple to the Senate Judiciary Committee and received, specifically refutes claims that Apple’s stance against downloading unpublished apps is “baseless, insincere, and dishonest.”
This letter from Apple to the Senate Judiciary Committee is dated March 3 and signed by Timothy Powderly, the company’s senior government affairs executive. The letter was sent in response to allegations by cryptographer Bruce Schneier, who told lawmakers that Apple’s security concerns about sideloading are “unfounded.”
In his own letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee, sent in January, Schneier wrote:
I would like to address some of the unfounded security concerns raised in connection with these bills. It is simply not true that this legislation compromises the privacy and security of users. In fact, it would be fairer to say that this law jeopardizes the business models of these mining companies. Their claims of privacy and security risks are both false and insincere, and are motivated by their own interests rather than the public interest.
Reuters was the first to report Apple’s response to Schneier, and has now received a full copy of the document. Apple explains that Schneier’s allegations are “particularly disappointing” and prove that “even tech talent” can confuse sideloading issues:
Given our general relationship with Mr. Schneier, these allegations are particularly disappointing. In our experience, the work of securing the advanced security and privacy of today’s billion-device computing platform is one of the most complex and challenging engineering and technology policy challenges, and much of the work is still easy to misunderstand. Mr. Schneier’s letter emphasizes that even talented technicians, if they haven’t worked on key issues in the area, can confuse matters.
Throughout the letter, Apple points to a number of different examples of third-party app stores containing malware-infected apps and apps that collect user data. One of the examples given by Apple concerns the Android ecosystem.
In the Android ecosystem, which has 50 times more malware than iOS 5, Nokia found that “the fact that Android apps can be downloaded from almost anywhere is still a huge problem because users can freely download apps from third party app stores. , where many applications, although they work, are trojanized.
The letter continues:
In Nokia’s 2021 threat report, Android devices account for 50.31% of all infected devices, followed by Windows devices at 23.1% and macOS devices at 9.2%. iOS devices were such a small percentage that they weren’t even singled out, but instead placed in “other”. We see this as a triumph in protecting our users, and it wouldn’t be possible without the industry-leading last line of defense of our device security controls, working in tandem with the advanced security and privacy protections we provide to our users through the App Store and App Overview. .
As expected, Apple also points to a range of protections offered by the App Store, including the review process, app tracking transparency, and privacy labels. According to Apple, none of this would be possible with third-party app stores.
The full text of the letter is listed below.
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