Context: Four days ago we reported that Apple front ACT | The App Association, which would be more appropriately called ACT | The Apple Association (or, as of recent, ACT | The Apple-Google Association), jumped the gun by announcing its membership in the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) though it is actually up to ETSI’s membership to decide on that sham application (June 20, 2025 ip fray article).
What’s new: As we predicted, votes against ACT | The App(le) Association’s ETSI membership have indeed been cast in an online poll, thereby requiring a vote at the General Assembly in November 2025 where ACT needs a qualified majority (more than 70% of the votes). The French government and the national standards bodies of France and Sweden have objected, and have raised questions about ACT’s reliability in light of its gun-jumping and about whether it actually is a membership-based association.
Direct impact: At this point, a single objection would have been enough, and there were in fact three. The fact that the government of a major EU member state (which also happens to be home to ETSI) opposed this membership application bears a lot of weight, and is reinforced by the objections that two national standards bodies have raised. Given that it was just a binary question of whether anyone objected, and based on our industry contacts, there is no question that resistance to ACT’s membership application will be broad-based. Every vote counts, but if the ETSI members casting their votes at the General Assembly in November understand what ACT is about, a blocking minority of 30% should be reached. ACT may withdraw its application to avoid further public debate over its astroturfing business model.
Wider ramifications: Despite bad press about its use of ACT as an extended workbench of its lobbying department, even in the form of a Bloomberg article, Apple executives continued to stand by ACT, and kept funding it. That may backfire badly now. If ACT’s membership application fails (whether they withdraw or whether a blocking minority is formed against this sharade), it will discredit not only ACT but, by extension, also harm its backers’ reputation in political circles. Apple has been ACT’s primary backer for some time, and more recently, Amazon and Google became sponsors. Apple and Google have common objectives with respect to both app stores (where ACT works against the category of companies it claims to represent) and standards.
An ETSI-internal document bearing yesterday’s date (June 23, 2025) and number ETSI CL(25)_4207 reports that 18 applications, among them from Datang and the Eclipse Foundation, were not objected to. There being no objection, those 18 applicants are now indeed ETSI members.
We received a copy of the document from the membership, not from ETSI itself.
Three applications drew objections. The University of Hong Kong will have to explain more specifically what it wants to do. Then there is a solo lobbyist who doesn’t have a website and has yet to disclose his clients, “raising concerns about transparency.” And above all, there is resistance to ACT joining ETSI:
- The French Ministry of Economic Affairs and Finance notes that “[ACT’s] website already states that it is a member of ETSI, which raises questions about its reliability.” In France, both standards and patent policy are coordinated by the ministry of economics. But other government agencies, above all the French patent office (INPI), are also key.
- Sweden’s national standards body ITS (Svenska Informations- och Telekommunikationsstandardiseringen) is unconvinced that ACT is (and it really isn’t) “a global trade association for small and medium-sized technology companies within the global app ecosystem” with a view to the correct categorization of the membership application. We also found it odd that ACT categorized itself as a “full manufacturer”, but in any event, ACT is not a membership-based organization. It’s a corporation. Its leadership is not elected, but simply economically dependent on Apple and a few other large companies following Apple’s lead.
- French standards development body AFNOR (Association Française de Normalisation) says ACT’s public claim of being an ETSI member is “untrue” and raises concerns about its reliability.
We know of (and have heard from )a variety of ETSI members who will vote against ACT’s application in November. There would not have been any incremental value in a long list of objections at this stage. Objections from neutral organizations such as the French government and national standardization bodies have the highest credibility at this stage.
Between now and the debate at the General Assembly, there are no restrictions on the issues that can be raised. Through its gun-jumping, ACT destroyed whatever little credibility it had in those circles, but the fundamental problem is that it claims to represent small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) interests while actually being a U.S. company as opposed to an organization with true members that have a say.
Apple controls ACT and should defund it. That might also take care of its application for ETSI membership. Other backers include Amazon and Google, both of whom joined only recently, while Apple has been supporting ACT for years. Continental and Intel have to save costs in all areas, so at some point their finance departments will probably put an end to their support. Verisign and Verizon do not have as much of an interest in the issues on which ACT engages in advocacy as Apple and Google.