Aaron Tilley

Apple's new App Store payment policies are stirring outrage among software developers who say the iPhone maker is skirting the intention of a court ruling. Apple will require developers to pay it a 27% commission if they use an alternative payment method, much like the company did in the Netherlands and South Korea in response to legal rulings over related issues in those countries. With this change, Apple is effectively saying “we refuse to back down,” said Fiona Scott Morton, a former antitrust official in the Obama administration.

The Trump administration’s campaign to make Chinese-owned video-sharing app TikTok relocate to the US is the latest example of the global fracturing of the internet. Treating user data as a matter of national security is a notion that has dictated many of the policies Beijing has put in place to control the internet in its country for the past decade. China operates what is called the “Great Firewall,” limiting the services people in the country can use and the information they receive.