Competition police in Europe and the UK have started to pay attention to in-app browsers, a controversial mechanism for presenting web content in native apps.
Facebook was sued for spying on users via in-app browsers
Open Web Advocacy (OWA), a group that supports open web standards and fair competition, said in a post on Tuesday that representatives "recently met with both the [EU's] Digital Markets Act team and the UK's Market Investigation Reference in Cloud Gaming and Browsers team to discuss how tech giants are undermining users' choice of default browser via in-app browsers and the harm this is causing."
OWA claims that in-app browsers, without notification or consent, "ignore your choice of default browser and instead automatically and silently replace your default browser with its own in-app browser."
The group's goal is not to ban the technology, which has legitimate uses. Rather, it is to prevent in-app browsers from being used to prevent competition and override user choices.
