Some UK network operators have formally urged the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to regulate Apple’s iCloud Private Relay, saying it violates competition and poses a threat to national security. iCloud Private Relay is a new service introduced by Apple in iOS 15. After enabling this option, the user’s real IP address will not be displayed to third-party servers, and service providers cannot track user information on the network.
In response to the CMA’s interim report on the mobile ecosystem, Mobile UK, the industry association for mobile network operators including EE, Virgin Media O2, Three and Vodafone, raised concerns that iCloud Private Relay could negatively impact user experience, internet security and competition influence. It said that Private Relay guides users to use more Apple services, and Apple thus prefers its own applications and services at the expense of other suppliers.
The mobile UK claims Private Relay “impacts the competition of mobile browsers”; in addition, the group accuses Private Relay of allegedly compromising “content filtering, malware, anti-fraud and phishing protection provided by network providers” and threatening national security, because it “diminishes government investigative powers and has implications for law enforcement.”
In response, Mobile UK urged the CMA to take “remedies to limit the use of Private Relay”, or at least prevent Apple from making it a default service. They point out that Private Relay is currently turned off by default, but a large portion of Apple users in the UK have opted to turn it on.
As previously reported, iCloud Private Relay has faced similar questions in the EU, with major mobile operators seeking to ban Private Relay, saying it violates the EU’s “digital sovereignty”.
Earlier this week, Apple responded in detail to the CMA, aggressively defending its ecosystem, saying regulators were ignoring the goodness of Apple’s ecosystem, and that the CMA’s interim report was based on “unsubstantiated allegations and hypothetical concerns” that Concerns come mainly from a handful of multi-billion-dollar companies “all trying to change the iPhone for their own business interests without verification “.