#apple_card

Apple, Visa and Mastercard sued in proposed class action antitrust case over Apple Pay card fees
▻https://www.engadget.com/apple-visa-and-mastercard-sued-in-proposed-class-action-antitrust-case-ove
▻https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/BGjetIlCid03383qR5jq6A--/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTEyMDA7aD03NTY7Y2Y9d2VicA--/https://s.yimg.com/os/creatr-uploaded-images/2023-12/a427cd60-9c51-11ee-9e3f-5ddd3e5fe4af

Un argument supplémentaire pour développer et imposer (par la loi) l’interopérabilité.
C’est le thème central du livre de Cory Doctorow « The Internet Con »

The lawsuit alleges Visa and Mastercard bribed Apple to hamper competition, which drove up merchant fees.
Cheyenne MacDonald
Cheyenne MacDonald
Weekend Editor
Sat, Dec 16, 2023, 9:34 PM GMT+1·2 min read
3
REUTERS / Reuters

A proposed class action lawsuit has accused Apple of accepting a form of bribe from Visa and Mastercard to ensure their dominance over point-of-sale payment card services for Apple Pay transactions, according to Reuters. As a result, the lawsuit says merchants have been forced to pay higher fees.

The companies are being sued by beverage retailer Mirage Wine & Spirits in Illinois on behalf of “all merchants in the United States that accepted Apple Pay as a method of payment at the physical point-of-sale.” According to the complaint, Apple made an agreement with Visa and Mastercard that did away with any incentive for it to develop its own competing point-of-sale transaction payment network or allow other companies to make use of iPhone’s “tap to pay” NFC functionality with third-party wallet apps. On the iPhone, Apple’s own wallet app is the only option. All of this has led to inflated merchant fees, the suit argues.

“In exchange for agreeing not to compete with Visa and Mastercard in the Relevant Market, the two card networks offered Apple a very large and ongoing cash bribe,” the lawsuit states. This bribe came as a percentage of the two companies’ transaction fees for credit and debit card payments made with Apple Pay. “Even as Apple Pay was in its infancy, the Entrenched Networks and Apple understood that this bribe would amount to hundreds of millions of dollars per year.”

Apple has been accused of anti-competitive behavior with Apple Pay in the past for how it blocks third-party access to its contactless payment technology. But earlier this week, Reuters reported that Apple may open up NFC access in the EU to avoid a fine in a case that has been ongoing since 2020.

#Apple_card #Interopérabilité

Apple Card is being investigated over claims it gives women lower credit limits - MIT Technology Review
▻https://www.technologyreview.com/f/614701/apple-card-is-being-investigated-over-claims-it-gives-women-lower-

https://cdn.technologyreview.com/i/images/ap19314131802312.jpg?sw=1200&cx=0&cy=0&cw=3000&ch=1688

The algorithm that determines the credit limit for users of Apple’s new credit card, which launched in the US in August, is facing an investigation after it appears to give men higher limits than women.

The news: On November 7, web entrepreneur David Heinemeier Hansson posted a now-viral tweet that the Apple Card had given him 20 times the credit limit of his wife. This was despite the fact they filed joint tax returns and, upon investigation, his wife had a better credit score than he did. Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak replied to the tweet and said that he, too, had been granted 10 times the credit limit of his wife, even though they have no separate assets or bank accounts.

Upshot: Now New York’s Department of Financial Services is launching an investigation into Goldman Sachs, which manages the card. Its superintendent, Linda Lacewell, said in a blog post that the watchdog would “examine whether the algorithm used to make these credit limit decisions violates state laws that prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex.” The regulator has already recently opened an investigation into reports that an algorithm resulted in black patients receiving less comprehensive care than white patients.

Wider problem: Goldman Sachs posted a statement on Twitter at the weekend where it said that gender is not taken into account when determining creditworthiness. But the unexplainable disparity in the card’s credit limits is yet another example of how algorithmic bias can be unintentionally created. Algorithms of the sort used to assess creditworthiness are trained on years of historical data and bias can slip into the process in a number of different ways during the process.

#Algorithme #Crédit_bancaire #Inégalités #Sexisme #Apple_Card