Apple alters App Store for EU, warns of risks

Apple is opening small cracks in the iPhone’s digital fortress as part of a regulatory clampdown in Europe that is striving to give consumers more choices — at the risk of creating new avenues for hackers to steal personal and financial information stored on the devices.

The overhaul rolled out Thursday only in the European Union represents the biggest changes to the iPhone’s App Store since Apple introduced the concept in 2008. Among other things, people in Europe can download iPhone apps from stores not operated by Apple and are getting alternative ways to pay for in-app transactions.

EU regulators are hoping the changes mandated by the Digital Markets Act, or DMA, will loosen the control that Big Tech’s “digital gatekeepers” have gained over the products and services that consumers and businesses use in everyday life.

The measures took effect just days after EU regulators fined Apple nearly $2 billion for thwarting competition in the music streaming market.

Apple has lashed out at the new regulations for unnecessary security risks to iPhone users in Europe, exposing them to more scams and other malicious attacks launched from apps downloaded from outside its ecosystems and raising the specter of more unsavory services peddling pornography, illegal drugs and other content that the company has long prohibited in its App Store.

Despite trying to maintain security safeguards while adhering to the new rules in the 27-nation bloc, Apple is warning that “the changes the DMA requires will inevitably cause a gap between the protections that Apple users outside of the EU can rely on and the protections available to users in the EU moving forward.”

Apple’s warnings should be viewed skeptically, experts say. Managing mobile devices is “totally different” from thirdparty app stores, and Apple is “deliberately confusing it here to muddy the waters,” said Michael Veale, an associate professor at University College London who specializes in digital rights and regulation.