Apple rules imposed on music streaming app developers violate EU competition law, the European Commission said. Its tentative findings in a statement of objections announced Friday tentatively said Apple has a dominant position in the market for distribution of music streaming apps through its App Store. For app developers, it's the only gateway to consumers who use the smart mobile devices running on Apple's iOS operating system, the EC said. Apple devices and software form a "closed ecosystem" in which the company "controls every aspect of the user experience for iPhones and iPads." The App Store is part of that ecosystem, and it's the only app store iPhone and iPad users can turn to for downloading apps for their mobile devices. Consumers are loyal to the brand and don't switch easily, so to service iOS users, app developers must distribute their apps via Apple's store, subject to mandatory and non-negotiable rules. Two rules are under investigation: (1) Mandatory use of Apple's proprietary in-app purchase system (IAP) for distribution of paid digital content, on which Apple charges a 30% commission on all subscriptions bought, and (2) "Anti-steering provisions" that hamper app developers from telling users about alternative -- and generally cheaper -- purchasing possibility outside of apps. These rules distort competition in the market for music streaming services by hiking the costs of competing music streaming app developers, raising consumer prices, the EC said. They make Apple the intermediary for all IAP transactions. Spotify had complained. "At the core of this case is Spotify's demand they should be able to advertise alternative deals on their iOS app, a practice that no store in the world allows," an Apple spokesperson said. Spotify doesn't pay Apple any commission on over 99% of its subscribers, and just 15% on those remaining subscribers acquired through the App Store. The EC argument on Spotify's behalf "is the opposite of fair competition," said the spokesperson. A recent Senate Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee hearing on app store competition "heard troubling allegations about Apple and Google's behavior," said Chairwoman Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn.: The EC would "only reaffirm" that app store policies and conduct need careful scrutiny in the U.S. as well. The European Consumer Organisation welcomed the charges.

Qualcomm expects “material improvements” in semiconductor industry supply by calendar year-end, and “a much more favorable supply environment” in 2022, “due to planned capacity builds and multi-sourcing initiatives,” said President Cristiano Amon on a fiscal Q2 call Wednesday. “As one of the leading drivers of advanced semiconductor technology platforms, we’re also excited to see more foundry investment in the United States,” consistent with the “strategic priorities” of Joe Biden's presidency, he said. Some of those priorities were mentioned by Biden to Congress Wednesday; see our report here. The company continues experiencing “unprecedented demand across all of our technologies and businesses,” as the pandemic environment “is accelerating the scale of connectivity and processing at the edge,” said Amon. The “supply constraint” in semiconductors “is really across all product lines,” not “unique to one thing or the other,” like smartphones, said Amon. “It’s a good position to be in that we actually have more demand than supply across all of our business,” because it “gives us confidence” about Qualcomm’s “growth position,” he said. Amon succeeds retiring CEO Steve Mollenkopf June 30. Chief Financial Officer Akash Palkhiwala said Qualcomm stands by its February forecast that the industry will ship 450 million to 550 million 5G handsets globally in calendar 2021. Qualcomm estimates the industry shipped 225 million 5G smartphones worldwide in 2020. “Years of repressed refresh cycles with a boost from 5G” helped propel a 25.5% global increase in first-quarter smartphone shipments to 346 million handsets of all generations, reported IDC.

Federal law enforcement agencies should better assess privacy and other risks, a classified GAO report said Wednesday concerning face-scanning technology (see "Fiscal Year 2021"). No more information was released.

Samsung highlighted 5G, Wi-Fi 6 and custom Bluetooth connectivity in the “next evolution of the PC” during its virtual event Wednesday. TM Roh, head of Samsung Electronics' mobile communications business, called this a “reinvention of the PC” -- laptops with the “mobile DNA of a Samsung Galaxy smartphone.” At the core was the question, “Why can’t laptops be more like smartphones?” said Roh, citing mobility, connectivity and “seamless integration” with other devices, along with instant-on operation and lightweight designs. Roh said there was “open collaboration” with Intel and Microsoft. The Galaxy Book Pro series is the first integration of Samsung's SmartThings smart home technology into PCs, it said.

Altice petitioned the FCC for limited waiver of emergency broadband benefit rules. It asked Tuesday in docket 20-445 to waive the requirement it file a reimbursement claim by the 15th day of a month for a new subscriber, asking for a one-month delay. The Wireline Bureau granted Verizon similar (see 2104200058).

Spotify announced integration with Facebook on a “miniplayer experience” based on social discovery. “Discovery is important to Spotify,” blogged the streaming audio service Monday, saying users can listen to Spotify from within the Facebook app.

The Supreme Court should review a lawsuit against “warrantless, suspicionless” searches of electronic devices at U.S. airports and ports of entry, the American Civil Liberties Union and Electronic Frontier Foundation filed Friday. Merchant v. Mayorkas, filed in 2017, challenges the Department of Homeland Security's warrantless searches of electronic devices. A federal court ruled in 2019 that border agencies’ policies violate the Fourth Amendment; the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the decision in February.

Online scam activity in 2020 increased 185% from 2019, reported fraud prevention company Bolster Thursday. “Remote working, online distribution and digital sales channels created an explosion in digital business in 2020,” said Bolster. “As companies accelerated their digital transformation to adapt to the COVID-19 pandemic, online phishing and fraud activity exploded, averaging more than 19,000 new threats being created daily.” The company estimates 6.95 million new phishing and scam pages were created in 2020, with COVID-19 and gift card scams topping the list. Tech, retail and finance were the top three industries targeted, and Gmail was the phishing email service of choice.

SoundHound expanded its voice AI platform to 22 languages in a plan to add even more, blogged the company Wednesday. Houndify's speech-to-meaning and deep meaning understanding, plus advances in automatic speech recognition and natural language understanding, track speech in real time.

Global IoT connections will nearly triple to 23.6 billion by 2026, ushering in “a slew of new threat vectors and vulnerabilities” that will fuel a $16.8 billion business in IoT security, reported ABI Research Tuesday. Such concerns are “widespread,” said analyst Michela Menting. “There are limited IoT security solutions in the market, due in large part to the fragmented nature of the IoT itself.” The volume of IoT security revenue won’t always correlate with the number of connections, and some markets are expected to experience “disproportional revenue” growth, said Menting.