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Why Apple, a porn app, and Trump’s possible tariff war are connected
American Big Tech companies want Donald Trump to fight back against European regulators.
- Apple is complaining about a porn app that’s now available for European iPhone users.
- But the complaint isn’t really about porn — it’s about European rules meant to unlock its control of its app store.
- That’s one of many EU regulations Big Tech hopes Trump will fight — possibly with tariffs.
Glad you asked. It’s a tiny bit complicated, but I’m here to serve.
Big picture: Apple is complaining about a porn app that’s now available on iPhones, against its wishes, because of European regulations it hates.
Those regulations are among the many complaints Big Tech companies have about the way Europe treats them. And they’re hoping that Trump, their newfound ally, will fight back against them — maybe using the same tariff/threat strategy he has been employing against Canada, Mexico, and China.
The details: Apple is grousing about Hot Tub, a new app available to iPhone users in the European Union. You can’t get it from Apple’s own app store, but it’s available from AltStore, an alternative app store that lets users “sideload” apps to their phones. AltStore works because of new EU regulations — bitterly opposed by Apple — that allow for third-party app stores.
On the porn part: I haven’t used Hot Tub myself, but from what I understand, it lets you … look at porn. Just like anyone with an iPhone can already do using Apple’s Safari browser.
But Apple thinks there’s a big distinction since Apple (like Google) has long banned porn apps from the app store it runs. And it’s particularly upset that Hot Tub and AltStore have suggested that the new app is “Apple-approved.” (The distinction: Though Apple hates the new third-party app stores it has to work with, it still gets to conduct basic supervision of the apps that show up in app stores like AltStore. In Apple’s eyes, signing off on an app for someone else’s app store is very different from approving it for its own app store.)
All of this comes as a result of a drawn-out fight involving Apple and a handful of developers, including Epic Games, that have complained about Apple’s app store rules and EU regulators. I’ve written about this — and the importance of the App Store to Apple’s overall business — a bunch. I’d also suggest reading Shira Ovide’s excellent plain-English explainer in The Washington Post.
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What Big Tech wants from Donald Trump
And the reason Trump comes into play is that rules about the way Apple works with app developers are one of many things Big Tech companies hate about European regulations. (US lawmakers, meanwhile, spent years promising to regulate Big Tech themselves but have largely left it alone: Almost all attempts at Big Tech regulation have instead come from lawsuits filed or threatened by Trump’s and Joe Biden’s administrations.) They’ve been making it clear to Trump that they’d like him to do something about it. It’s certainly not a coincidence that Mark Zuckerberg, who made a dramatic and vocal pivot into Trumpdom last month, now calls European tech rules “almost like a tariff.”
Message received. Last month, Trump used a Davos speech to complain about European fines and regulations aimed at Big Tech. This week, in the middle of tariff threats/negotiations with Mexico and Canada, he suggested that he’d be turning his attention to Europe shortly.
That doesn’t necessarily mean American tech companies will get what they want. Trump will have a long list of concessions he’ll want out of Europe, and it’s entirely unclear what he’ll prioritize and what, if anything, he’ll get.
But you should still connect the dots between porn apps and potential EU tariffs — because Big Tech companies certainly are.
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