Meta Is Planning To Let People In the EU Download Apps Through Facebook

Meta is planning to allow users in the EU to directly download apps through Facebook ads, aiming to compete with Google and Apple's app stores. The Verge's Alex Heath writes: The new type of ad is set to start as a pilot with a handful of Android app developers as soon as later this year, I've learned. Meta sees an opening to try this thanks to new regulation in the EU called the Digital Markets Act (DMA) that is expected to go into effect next spring. It deems Apple and Google as "gatekeepers" and requires that they open up their mobile platforms to alternative methods of downloading apps. Android technically allows sideloading already, though Google makes it difficult by coupling its in-app billing and licensing with the Play Store, along with the scary warnings it shows when someone tries to download an Android app from another source. Even still, Meta clearly thinks it's safer to try its test first on Android rather than Apple's iOS.

Meta's pitch to developers participating in the pilot is that, by hosting their Android apps and letting Facebook users download them directly without being kicked out to the Play Store, they'll see higher conversion rates for their app install ads. At least initially, Meta doesn't plan to take a cut of in-app revenue from participating apps, so developers in the pilot could still use whatever billing systems they want.

Just what nobody wanted

[Local ID10T]

...

Seriously. Who asked for this?

Re:

[timeOday]

EU anti-monopoly legislation, just like the summary says

Re:Just what nobody wanted

[Errol backfiring]

That legislation allows it. It does not in any way ask for it. In fact, there are probably so many privacy violations in the ads that the GDPR actually forbids it.

Re:

[Petr Blazek]

"Who asked for this?"
Easy: Meta shareholders

Re:

[nospam007]

"Seriously. Who asked for this?"

The old people on FB don't even know what an 'app' IS.

Re: Just what nobody wanted

[Z00L00K]

Meta wants this because that's one more way for them to spy on you.

Public Service Announcement

[crunchy_one]

Any offering from Facebook a.k.a. Meta does not have your best interests in mind.

Re:

[sound+vision]

I'm guessing they will eventually require some kind of extra in-app tracking, or passing data off to bookface on the back end. Or maybe they'll just charge them less than Apple and Google's app stores.

Re:

[timeOday]

The whole point of promoting competition in the marketplace is to empower consumers to make demands on companies for their financial survival instead of relying on the companies' benevolence.

Re:

[Waffle Iron]

LOL. That's a good one.

stupid rant

[Petr Blazek]

why do you post such nonsense here?
Even if one substitutes "taxes" for your "cut", it still makes no sense as those taxes would also apply to Google and Apple.

This is GOOD

[RegistrationIsDumb83]

This is regulation working. App devs getting the whole 100% of revenue and only paying for promotion and other services as needed. Less money to middlemen is a good thing.

Re:

[Petr Blazek]

the 0% cut is for the pilot phase, remains to be seen how this unfolds.

On the negative side: this will have some security implications. (No one mentioned them in this discussion so far, which is strange...)

Re:

[Luckyo]

SAFETY. SECURITY. FEAR.

Took you so long to post the standard boilerplate FUD about opening up walled garden.

Re:

[codebase7]

No, This is dangerous.

If I'm reading TFS correctly, Meta's hope is that people will install the apps they show in their ads. Also, keep in mind that on many android devices Facebook is a system app. Which means it gets greater permissions than most apps do, and depending on the Android version it may have even more permissions. Allowing a system app to install random crap that some advertiser paid to show people is a security nightmare waiting to happen. Let alone training people to allow app installation

Re:

[Luckyo]

So it's exactly like google play store and apple app store. They're DANGEROUS.

Re:

[codebase7]

I can't say to Apple, but Google isn't clean here either. (Their Advertising API allows the same behavior as Meta is hoping for here.) Both Google and Facebook's behavior should be stopped, but again, the public should not be beholden and held hostage to a single provider's whims. Simply because there are bad actors. Instead the bad actors should be punished, and the public's ability to choose be left intact / restored.

Re:

[Luckyo]

Did you notice that you ended up with the exact opposite of your initial pre-programmed NPC response, in the land where "we should legislate for more providers of app stores to be possible"? And that's a good thing, it shows an inquisitive mind trying to break out of the shackles imposed on it. Do more of this please, and less of "let me repeat what I heard talking head say".

Mark and the EU dictators are friends again

[thesjaakspoiler]

Mark probably brokered a deal to drop all lawsuits in the EU I guess?

Scared

[dohzer]

Did anyone else just have a chill go down their spine?

Great!

[VeryFluffyBunny]

Just click on the link from some random ad to install an app on your device. What could possibly go wrong?

Break up the monopoly!

[Opportunist]

Break the monopoly! Thwart total surveillance! No longer all eggs in one basket! Stop market concentration! Use Meta!

Question for 100: Which of the statements does not belong to the others?

How will it work?

[coofercat]

TFA doesn't really say how this will work. I sort of infer that FB will setup an app store of their own. An ad will say "download CrappyRingtones now!", which you can click - I assume the FB app (which is a pre-load on just about everything) will then install that app for you on your device (from the FB app store).

In order for this to work then, your phone needs to have the "allow apps from other app stores" setting enabled (or in older cases, "allow apps from untrusted sources"). The FB app store will need

Re:

[tlhIngan]

TFA doesn't really say how this will work. I sort of infer that FB will setup an app store of their own. An ad will say "download CrappyRingtones now!", which you can click - I assume the FB app (which is a pre-load on just about everything) will then install that app for you on your device (from the FB app store).

In order for this to work then, your phone needs to have the "allow apps from other app stores" setting enabled (or in older cases, "allow apps from untrusted sources"). The FB app store will need

First hit's free

[byronivs]

Man, the people that run that company just seem creepy. I mean, they are people with families and regular lives and all that, right? Because nearly every offering I've seen advertised or published lately from the meta company runs along a deeply creepy and antisocial vein.