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The Arizona House Bill 2005, a hotly contested law that would have forced developer-friendly changes to Apple and Google’s mobile app stores, is now on the brink of death. The bill, which would have allowed alternative payment systems on Android and iOS to bypass 30% store cuts, mysteriously vanished last week ahead of a scheduled vote that could have sent it straight to the governor’s office for that it be signed.
The bill had just won a historic victory in the Arizona House of Representatives earlier this month, and the state Senate was scheduled to officially begin voting at 3 p.m. local time. HB2005 was the first bill on the agenda, but it was never introduced. Now it turns out the Senate decided to withdraw the bill at the last minute, and its sponsor says The edge that his fate is effectively sealed for the remainder of the year. Arizona will close its congressional session next month with no plans to hear HB2005 again.
This is bad news for supporters of the bill, who include a coalition of app makers and prominent Apple critics who have been outspoken in recent months about the need for regulation on the distribution of. mobile applications. The fight is being led by the Coalition for App Fairness (CAF), an industry group made up of critics of Apple and competitors like Fortnite maker Epic Games and Spotify, which brought the fight against the so-called App Store monopolies to the local scene.
CAF has started lobbying state legislatures to introduce bills in more than half a dozen states at this point, with varying degrees of success. HB2005 was its most promising campaign yet, following a failure in North Dakota last month, one of the first legitimate App Store bills to go to vote.
The main purpose of these bills is to allow developers to bypass Apple’s and Google’s 30% commission on app stores, while much more lofty goals are to force Apple to authorize markets for app stores. ‘entire alternative apps on iOS and to ban tech companies from taking revenge on developers for trying to do so. bypass App Store policies. Apple has decried such bills, saying they threaten to “destroy the iPhone as you know it” by opening it up to security risks and undermining the revenue stream it says helps enforce criticism App Store and other perks, although the company has never spoken publicly. on such legislation through testimony. Without Arizona, the movement is all the weaker.
So who killed HB2005? We don’t really know, but a clearer picture is starting to emerge. At the very least, members of Congress have now been prepared to say publicly that Big Tech lobbying was having a noticeable effect on the bill just before it was put to a vote.
State Representative Regina Cobb, bill sponsor and Republican representing the state’s Fifth District, says Apple and Google have “hired almost every lobbyist in town” and appointed six specific lobbyists who, she said, prompted members of the Senate who had previously agreed to vote to hesitate. “We thought we had the votes before going to committee yesterday, then we heard the votes weren’t there and they weren’t going to take the time to put it in place,” Cobb said of the comment. of the decision of the Senate Trade Committee. to pull the bill.
This matches what Commerce Committee Chairman JD Mesnard, a Republican who represents Arizona District 17, said. The American Perspective Friday of last week: He withdrew the bill because he thought it would fail. “I polled the committee members and there just wasn’t enough support for it,” Mesnard said in an interview with the Perspective. “A number of members were in conflict over this, others were just opposed. There was some support for it, but it was definitely a failure. “
Cobb says she doesn’t think anything illegal or bad has happened, just lobbying as usual – unlike outspoken Apple critic and Basecamp co-founder David Heinemeier Hansson, who has publicly accused powerful corporations to make illicit deals, in collusion with House Democrats (some of whom opposed the bill) and Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey.
“The big show turned out to be a no show”, Hansson wrote on Twitter Thursday from last week. “Bill was killed in the air while it was on the agenda with a backstage deal. Apple hired the governor’s former chief of staff, and it is said to have negotiated a deal to avoid that even being heard. Even if The edge heard a similar claim from multiple sources with knowledge of the situation, no one except Hansson felt comfortable offering an explanation on the record.
The apparent death of HB2005 and the confusion and mystery surrounding it underscore both the immense power of tech titans like Apple and Google, as well as the difficult legislative path for similar bills in the United States. Illinois, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and other states across the country. The bottom line is that although these bills are the result of successful lobbying efforts by the CAF and its partners, the lobbying from Silicon Valley that has emerged to counter these bills turned out to be just as savvy.
“There is a legitimate problem here. It’s undeniable [Apple and Google] have the power to stay in control and master the app stores, and there is no other place to go. You have to go through one of these companies to put your app before consumers, ”says Pat Garofalo, director of state and local policy for the nonprofit American Economic Liberties Project, which has expressed support for the projects. of law. “It makes perfect sense that many forces – whether small, medium or large – are deployed on both sides.”
Cobb admits she took up the cause after being approached by CAF and having other big tech companies as opposition didn’t help as it added extreme pressure to the impending vote and brought a number of members of Congress on both sides to express doubts and confusion about the bill.
“I realized that once you start going up against Apple and Google in this way, you’re going to be hit pretty hard,” Cobb said. She said she has had several meetings with Apple, including with longtime Apple veteran Tim Powderly, the company’s director of federal government affairs. She says the conversations were cordial, but Apple was very determined to find a compromise.
Apple declined to comment for this story. Google did not respond to a request for comment.
Regardless of why the bill was withdrawn, the result is the same: Arizona HB2005 won’t change the way Apple and Google run their mobile app stores because its chances of becoming law are slim, or even zero. “Unless he is billed as a striker he will have to be reintroduced next year,” Cobb said. The edge in a follow-up email Monday.
A striker, officially known as the ‘hit it all’ amendment, is a controversial legislative move that seeks to replace the entire text of a bill in an attempt to reopen debate on it and move it forward. without having to meet standard deadlines. Cobb said such a move is unlikely at this point, as strikers “often receive negative publicity and they don’t always succeed,” she said.
While Cobb says she’s not intimidated by Apple or Google, she also says The edge it is unlikely that she will continue to grow unless she thinks she will be successful. “I’m trying to decide how much political capital I want to invest.” Failing that, the Arizona Congress will meet again the following January – but the state’s attempt to regulate Apple and Google’s app stores is effectively over for now.
CAF says it will continue the fight, even though it has now seen two legislative defeats in its app store lobbying efforts, the first a more aggressive bill that failed to garner enough votes to the North Dakota House last month. “The legislative session is not over. We will continue to promote solutions that expand choice, support application developers and small businesses, and end monopoly practices, ”said Meghan DiMuzio, Executive Director of CAF, in a statement to The edge Last week.
Garofalo of the American Economic Liberties Project believes it’s likely that one of these bills will succeed at some point, especially in the absence of meaningful federal regulation or antitrust enforcement.
“That idea is out there, now it’s kind of in the air,” he said. “I think a state will do it, and there are very good reasons for a state to do it.” All it will take, he adds, is a group of lawmakers who “hear the right arguments, get the edge and decide to do it.” At this point, the main obstacle will be the lobbying efforts of tech companies who will profit from the failure of these bills.
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