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EU Approves Landmark Legislation to Regulate Apple and Other Big Tech Firms

Funny, up until a few days ago all I saw were big-government socialist commenters. I’ve never seen so many small-government libertarians in my life as in this thread.

Hopefully people will start seeing the light with regards to everything else the government intrudes in, regulates, taxes and subsidizes. The result is always exactly the same.
 
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The EU has just throw iOS developers under the bus. With sideloading everyone will just download cracked apps for their iPhone like they do with macOS.
 
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US should regulate electronics and OS's coming out of EU... but can't think of anything tech from EU nations. Haha.
 
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This really sets a terrible precedent. Spend time, money, and effort to develop great tech/products like Messages and Apple Pay only to be forced to give it all away because they are too successful.
 
pastrychef said:
This really sets a terrible precedent. Spend time, money, and effort to develop great tech/products like Messages and Apple Pay only to be forced to give it all away because they are too successful.
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So Messages is a great product now.. I see.
 
iDento said:
Why? Do you really think that politicians do care more about the customers of Apple, Google...etc than the companies themselves?
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Who ever claimed anyone cared about anyone to any degree? This isn’t about any single entities customers or their constituents alone. People freaking out about these changes are just worried about themselves and their own experience with their product. Haven’t heard anyone talk about caring about people here. Not one way or the other. LOL
 
webkit said:
If "gatekeepers" can't give their own apps preferential treatment and can't pre-install certain software applications, I wonder what future iPhones and Android phones will come with out of the box (at least in the EU)?
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“Hello. Welcome to iPhone”

“We have pre-installed the only apps you’ll ever need that we think you and your government will love”

“Enjoy!*”

“*or else.”
 
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Unregistered 4U said:
That exists now, you can only FaceTime from one Apple device to another Apple device. Seeing as that is currently true, the answer to “Then what?” would be “The world just keeps on doing the things worlds do, turning and what not.”
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Please tally up the number of FaceTime calls vs CELLULAR PHONE CALLS. Then wash your brain cells for a bit and try again. LOL
 
siddavis said:
The consumers don't have a more direct say?
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what say do they have? Have you tried to negotiate anything with anyone? They have no more say in the outcome of a product than they ever did and Apple has a long history of telling consumers who disagree to f-off. So… does anyone here really think that this kind of attitude goes totally without consequence?
 
droplink said:
People don't need to write if they are in EU or in the USA when commenting on items like these, you can see it from their replies.
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Then there are people like me who don't live in the USA or the EU. Although from my posts many for the USA would assume that I am from the EU.
 
M3gatron said:
20% is the max fine for violating the law for a second time. You are being deceitful with this attempt to suggest that EU is after 20% of Apple's global revenue.
And second It's not 9 countries it's 7 like I've wrote, not to mention that it says right in your link that the 2021 revenue was $365.8B not $380.
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You disagree that if the EU starts fining Apple at 20% of global (not European) corporate (not iPhone) revenue, they're bringing in a lot of new public funds? Far over 30% of their current budget? Deceitful is a strong word to use when I'm just spitballing the magnitudes we're talking about here-- strong enough to suggest maybe you were surprised by the numbers yourself and felt a need to give a kneejerk defense?

Look at the link I shared. 9 countries as reported by Eurostat. You may prefer a link with different numbers somehow converted to dollars at an unknown exchange rate, but that doesn't make me wrong-- Eurostat can be considered a reliable source of European statistics.

I see this in the link I provided:
  • Apple revenue for the twelve months ending March 31, 2022 was $386.017B, a 18.63% increase year-over-year.
So if your point is that we're looking at 2021 GDP and Apple revenue 3 months later, then maybe it's only 8 countries, but frankly given the relative rates of growth between Luxembourg's GDP (7%) and Apple revenue (18%) it's still essentially 9.

I'm merely providing context on the magnitude of the numbers the EU is proposing-- you can pick nits all you want, but it doesn't change the overall magnitudes by very much.
 
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M3gatron said:
So?
There are other sources as well and they all show the same thing. The difference vs China is confortable enough that is makes is more than obvious thta EU is Apple's second largest market.

www.businessofapps.com

Apple Statistics (2025)

Apple is one of the most influential and recognisable brands in the world, responsible for the rise of the smartphone with the iPhone. Valued at over $2 trillion in 2021, it is also the most valuable technology company in the world. Originally known for desktop computers, Apple was one of the...
www.businessofapps.com www.businessofapps.com
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any "other source" would get it's information from Apple - there is only a single source and its Apple

and since Europe includes the UK, I'm not convinced that the difference to China is "comfortable", nor that the EU is Apple's second largest market ...
 
M3gatron said:
Of course not, EU is a democracy, they don't have the same goals China has.
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Which, as I say, it’s weird to think that the EU, a democracy, is doing the authoritarian thing while China, the authoritarian government is doing the hands off thing.

M3gatron said:
The really funny thing is how CCP's desire to control and oversee every move of their citizens aligns with Apple's way of doing business.
I mean China has already taken over, they control most of Apple's ability to manufacture products and can push apple to do whatever they want, they just don't want to change the control Apple has, they just want to use it as well which I don't see how it can be considered great.
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Well, for Apple, it’s great because they can continue to run their business as they see fit without the overbearing hand of tyrannical rule. Unfortunately for Apple, they have more to worry about from the democracies. :)
 
AppliedMicro said:
...and no one in their right mind would be buying iPhones for hundreds of Euros without installable third-party apps.

… A phone with no first-party apps, backup support isn't going to sell well.
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Well, in the EU there’s not a huge number of people buying iPhones anyway. The numbers would just go from “low” to “none.”

AppliedMicro said:
I still fail to see the business case how that would make Apple better off than just complying.
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Maybe you want Apple to continue to do business in the EU so badly that you don’t want to understand a business case where that’s not the case? I don’t know. I personally am good with Apple doing whatever they need to do in order to maintain their business as they see fit. If that’s changing their systems, fine. If that’s not changing their systems and paying the fine, fine. If that’s reducing their exposure to european fines by curtailing some business in the EU, fine.
 
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FastLaneJB said:
No Europe is still quite a bit bigger than China. You are probably getting confused as China is the second biggest single country but the EU is a massive collection of countries.
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I’m not talking about the size of the region, I’m talking about how much money Apple MAKES in a region. Currently, Apple’s profits in China have been growing quite quickly while Europe is growing, but much slower. Now WHY Apple makes more money from China, I don’t know. Could be that Android’s stranglehold on the EU is that much harder for Apple to break into.

FastLaneJB said:
I’m wondering what you’ll all be saying when the US or individual US states also bring something like this in. You can see it in the pipeline. Will you be telling Apple to pull out of the USA as well? Of course not but I look forward to when that day comes to see the comments. ;)
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States have tried and states have decided not to take it up. Now, whether or not that was due to lobbying from the affected companies, I don’t know. But, I doubt that lobbying will cease and now anyone who desires can attach “european style capitalism” or some other unsavory moniker to anyone that wants to attempt it. The chances of it going forward outside the US is considerably higher, though not in Russia or China where one might expect such draconian steps to be taken. :)
 
Unregistered 4U said:
I’m not talking about the size of the region, I’m talking about how much money Apple MAKES in a region. Currently, Apple’s profits in China have been growing quite quickly while Europe is growing, but much slower. Now WHY Apple makes more money from China, I don’t know. Could be that Android’s stranglehold on the EU is that much harder for Apple to break into.


States have tried and states have decided not to take it up. Now, whether or not that was due to lobbying from the affected companies, I don’t know. But, I doubt that lobbying will cease and now anyone who desires can attach “european style capitalism” or some other unsavory moniker to anyone that wants to attempt it. The chances of it going forward outside the US is considerably higher, though not in Russia or China where one might expect such draconian steps to be taken. :)
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Yes there’s more people in China… but Apple makes more money in Europe. Just look at the link I posted or Google it.

You can say what you want but they aren’t going to stop selling their products in the EU, it’s a market of around 450 million people in mostly very well developed / well off countries that they could no longer target.

They’ll bitch, they’ll maybe try to bend the rules a bit but they’ll comply. I also suspect to fight off this coming in other countries it’ll just be a global change, not EU only.
 
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AppliedMicro said:
It just won't as much money.
It will a negligible amount of money and at most a small percentage of revenue.
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What’s your wet finger in the air estimates? Since you’re happily downplaying revenue loss.
AppliedMicro said:
And factually they've chosen to comply with Chinese law and regulation.
Valuing making money over sticking to their principles and (sometimes, it feels) the moral values they're touting themselves.[…]
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How so?
 
pastrychef said:
It's a lot more than that. The EU is forcing Apple to open up Messages and have rules designed to kill Apple Pay.

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Wow, this is daffy. Third-party voice? Share marketing and advertising data? Is this the same EU that passed GDPR? HEY! hands off that marketing and advertising data. Oh and by the way, hand over that marketing and advertising data to whomever wants it.

It’s really written to be a big giveaway to EU companies that have not been a part of the growth of the internet economy specifically because their regulations are written to prevent EU companies growing as a part of the growing internet economy.

Even for those in favor of it, gotta tell ya, this whole compliance group thing looks to provide about an oceans worth of wiggle room (and while I thought something like this would be a part of it I didn’t know it would be so obvious). I mean, I’m not in government, so I don’t know… but having a problematic company charged with staffing their “independent” group to monitor their own compliance… maybe they just don’t know how to be as authoritarian as they’re acting. They should ask China for authoritarian lessons :D
 
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