Apple Now Spends Over $8 Million Lobbying the EU Annually

[turbineseaplane]

All I can say is:

"that's it?"

They only spend 8 large on lobbying in the EU?

That's incredible to me (on the low end incredible I mean).

 

[Unggoy Murderer]

Bytedance is a gatekeeper, and is neither American nor European.

Booking.com is a gatekeeper and is a Dutch company.

Booking.com's a subsidiary of a US-based holding company. Only thing they're gatekeeping is a dying business model.

Same for Travago (German company, subsidiary of Expedia, a US-based company).

The EU wouldn't dare neuter Spotify though (definitely a gatekeeper to artist royalties). Or SAP.

 

[DougiePhresh]

None. It's in the middle of an warehouse park 30 miles from any town, restaurant or homes. There is no public services, local transport, trash service or anything of the sort. They will be commuting from a city, 30 mins away, in another state...and the entire facility will have about 40-50 employees.

The property, and close areas, are decommissioned military property that is too toxic for homes or anything other than warehouse-style facilities.

The only thing that county, or mine, will get is higher electric bills, which are already some of the highest in the country…and I live in the Midwest.

Okay, so it's going to not be paying property taxes in an area that doesn't sound like it really needs them anyway? If they are 30 miles from the closest town, they are 30 miles from the closest school - which get a huge amount of their funding from property taxes (at least in my area) and therefore likely outside of it's influence anyway. Sounds like the Meta facility will need things like power, water, sewer, internet, etc run to this desolate area ... utilities they will likely foot the bill for and then other businesss can utilize once the infrastructure is in place?

Why would you get higher electric bills? You said they will not be paying property tax, you didn't say thet were also going to be receiving free eletricity at the expense of the current residents?

 

[surferfb]

The EU wouldn't dare neuter Spotify though (definitely a gatekeeper to artist royalties). Or SAP.

In fact, Spotify was specifically excluded as a gatekeeper - unless it is amended, the law CANNOT apply to Spotify even if it meets all other criteria.

• Significant impact on internal market: Either €7.5 billion annual EU turnover for 3 years OR €75 billion market cap
  • Spotify's current market cap: $130B, last year's: $92B
• Important gateway: 45 million monthly active EU users AND 10,000 yearly active business users
  • Spotify has approximately 181-182 million monthly active users in Europe
  • There are over 11 million artists and creators (i.e., business users) on the Spotify platform

Since the DMA says the criteria have to be sustained for three years, that means the DMA should apply to Spotify next year, right? I mean, it's a law designed to go after big tech companies and barring a catastrophe, next year will be three years of meeting the criteria. But it won't, because the EU specifically excluded the entire "music streaming service" product category as a Core Platform Service, despite making it apply for services like YouTube. How is Spotify different than YouTube? Artists absolutely depend on Spotify to reach audiences. Spotify has direct artist upload features, and the economic reality is nearly identical to YouTube's creator economy.

The fact of the matter is that European regulators intentionally and surgically designed the DMA's scope just narrowly enough to capture American tech giants while avoiding Europe's few successful global platforms. The exclusion of music streaming, a category where intermediation exists and market power is just as concentrated as the other CPS is the smoking gun here. Why was it excluded? I'm sure it has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that it just so happens to be dominated by a Swedish company that was among the most vocal supporters of the DMA. Couldn't possibly be that.

Of the six initial gatekeepers, five were American, one was Chinese, and zero were European (despite the EU being home to the world's second-largest economy). One of the strongest backers of the law said the EU shouldn't "include a European gatekeeper just to please Joe Biden" and strongly argued (successfully) to increase the revenue limits to ensure EU companies weren't hit. (Yes, I know Booking.com was designated later, though I'd point out that it's fully owned by an American corporation despite having an EU HQ. Even if you count Booking.com as European, one late designation doesn't explain why music streaming was excluded as a CPS category entirely.)

In other words, the Booking.com designation demonstrates the Commission can regulate European companies. But it absolutely doesn't prove the initial framework design was neutral. Which it couldn't do, because it wasn't. The DMA could be amended tomorrow to add music streaming as a CPS. The Commission has chosen not to. I wonder why that is?

 

[Mousse]

Lobbying is not bribes.

Semantics. A rose by any other name... Your freedom fighter is my terrorist.

 

[amartinez1660]

Property tax should be illegal…

And so should politicians wasting tax payers money.

So you are okay with the government going, “oh you haven’t paid your property taxes. To bad, we are going to seize it, sell it for a fraction of what it’s worth, and if you don’t come up with the money a year after the sell its final.”

You do realize, that one of the reasons our US founders fought against the British was to prevent this type of government behavior!

This is key, I can’t get behind this.
When you ask for a mortgage for 30 years, in reality if the property tax is only 1% a year, you will be paying 30% more on top of the price by the end of it. More than a quarter of the price!
Not only that, it will be more, as with the likely yearly value increases, taxes will be increasing too.

And not only that! (Part 2), that home is bought and paid for with money that was taxed already: the company you work for got taxed for the things they bought, services they sold, and all sorts of corporate taxes.
That taxed money that survived is then used (in part, as expenses can give them credit) to pay the workers wages, who pay income tax, pension taxes, etc.

After all that has been taxed to death, with whatever survived, a person can go try to buy something (if they can, inflation is a form of taxation) that will be further taxed by 30% at the end of the 30 years mortgage.

Any surviving penny after all that gets charged with 15% sales taxes (in most places).

Tax on tax on tax on tax on tax does exist.

Booking.com's a subsidiary of a US-based holding company. Only thing they're gatekeeping is a dying business model.

Same for Travago (German company, subsidiary of Expedia, a US-based company).

The EU wouldn't dare neuter Spotify though (definitely a gatekeeper to artist royalties). Or SAP.

It’s extremely selective… but hey, they love it and vote for more of it, so let them have it. Or have the lack of features starting to creep in.

I say open the faucet… the EU wants to force the hand with backdoors, hyper controlled tech environment, access to your iCloud or equivalent encrypted data, open all sorts of security measures to third parties and whatnot? Sure thing, go ahead, please by all means.

Has to be an strictly different hardware where all the shenanigans can’t bleed to the rest of the world though.

 

[The_Gream]

This is key, I can’t get behind this.
When you ask for a mortgage for 30 years, in reality if the property tax is only 1% a year, you will be paying 30% more on top of the price by the end of it. More than a quarter of the price!
Not only that, it will be more, as with the likely yearly value increases, taxes will be increasing too.

And not only that! (Part 2), that home is bought and paid for with money that was taxed already: the company you work for got taxed for the things they bought, services they sold, and all sorts of corporate taxes.
That taxed money that survived is then used (in part, as expenses can give them credit) to pay the workers wages, who pay income tax, pension taxes, etc.

After all that has been taxed to death, with whatever survived, a person can go try to buy something (if they can, inflation is a form of taxation) that will be further taxed by 30% at the end of the 30 years mortgage.

Any surviving penny after all that gets charged with 15% sales taxes (in most places).

Tax on tax on tax on tax on tax does exist.


It’s extremely selective… but hey, they love it and vote for more of it, so let them have it. Or have the lack of features starting to creep in.

I say open the faucet… the EU wants to force the hand with backdoors, hyper controlled tech environment, access to your iCloud or equivalent encrypted data, open all sorts of security measures to third parties and whatnot? Sure thing, go ahead, please by all means.

Has to be a strictly different hardware where all the shenanigans can’t bleed to the rest of the world though.

I find our US politicians out right fantastic (sarcasm), that we have all these layers of taxes to generate revenue for the federal government, and they still can’t make a budget that doesn’t exceed the money coming in.

If any one of us little people spent more than we have (which people do) we would have debt collectors all over us, we would lose our homes and cars etc. we would live in a state of poverty… oh never mind, we already do because that’s the plan. Keep the poor poor.

It’s crazy to think, (I am not sure what year they changed the tax system from the original set up to what we have now) the US government used to have a surplus of revenue and no debts. The system gets changed to allow the rich to get richer and the poor to stay poor and the government gets into trillions of dollars into debt.

 

[Mousse]

It’s crazy to think, (I am not sure what year they changed the tax system from the original set up to what we have now)

Probably 1984 (probably earlier, but not as poetic as 1984 😉 ). I just like blaming Ray-Gun and his trickle down economics policies.

 

[frownface]

8 million doesn't sound like much but i suppose that could buy 800 paper bags with 10k each inside, or 80 bags with 100k each inside.