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EU Approves Landmark Legislation to Regulate Apple and Other Big Tech Firms
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Did you do any research or did you spend all of your time making dozens of nearly incoherent posts? Apple sold over $89 billion in goods and services in Europe in 2021. That's 25% of their worldwide revenue. So to answer your question, that cash.
Well you forget about the Dollar being more powerful than the Euro and when the US pulled out of Nato under Trump, the EU started crying and and suddenly wished the US came back!
They have pretty clearly defined what classifies a company as dominant or a "gatekeeper" e.g., turnover, sales in at least 3 EU countries, number of active members, etc. It is obviously meant to target the biggest companies which is what antitrust laws do. No surprises here.
It can be a fine line but these laws aren't always just about the consumer as they can be designed to help competitors or potential competitors which hopefully help consumers at least eventually through lower prices, more choices, etc.
Not really. While technologies, markets, and other things have changed and evolved over time, "anticompetitive" behavior has long covered a variety of potential business activities. Also, antitrust laws have always targeted "successful" (dominant position) companies as that is essentially what they are designed to do.
Your logic is flawed so much I would be embarrassed if I were you, so please try again. Thank you!
you are more likely to end up in jail than Cook, so keep dreaming!
Kissing the EU's butt won't make them like you, so accept that they hate you!
Stop crying, stop it, get a grip and deal with it!
I put dominance in quotes because different countries/regions and even cases/rulings can define dominance differently. In the case of the EU, I think they have defined dominance ("gatekeepers") more specifically than most.
When it comes to monopolies, monopoly power, duopolies, dominance or whatever, it is not defined by share percentage a company has of their own product (e.g., 100% of iOS) but rather share percentage they have of a particular market (e.g., Apple's iOS has 57% share of mobile OS in the United States).
Yes… yes it does. Considering GSM died decades ago at this point. And it works on CDMA. And W-CDMA, aka UMTS, which is what replaced GSM and is what we called “3G” for so long. And LTE, which is 4G. And NR, which is 5G.
Google, since it now controls RCS, (which is merely a standard) does not require a mobile network. In fact it circumvents it entirely and routes the data to Google’s servers… but hey, maybe I’m getting too technical for you.
But that is essentially how antitrust laws are designed to work.
There is little evidence of that. Sideloading certainly didn’t kill the Google Play Store.
Two things:
First, it creates opportunity for innovation.
Second, it keeps the cost of payment transactions down - which the EU already successfully regulated, for the benefit of consumers and merchants.
I‘m not sure Apple should or needs to regulated with regards to their payment system specifically y but it also seems a bit disingenuous to ask why can‘t competitors come up with their own phones in the context of Apple Pay.
If anything, it will get more competition. That’s generally good for consumers.
They didn’t suck. Apple and Google just parlayed their early-mover advantage with „desktop-class“ developer tools and application download into the dominant position today.
Maybe Apple should develop iOS Proprietary Europe Union Whimsical Interoperability Edition (iOS-PEU-Wie!) and let people choose which system they prefer.
If iOS-Android/Surveillance/Malware edition takes over, so be it. If you wanted an Android Phone, why didn't you BUY an Android phone. It would have saved you money and trouble.
I Agee that tech companies need to be monitored and regulated. But I see no reason to let every last 3rd party dev have access to the hardware abilities.
The other day, I wanted a "lighter app" to simulate lighters at a concert. It wanted access to my location data and my contacts. Whatever for?
If any government wants to regulate the tech giants, kindly regulate this nonsense as well. Call it the 'up front pricing act."
Apps that do not work as a reasonable person would expect must be labeled "Demo," with the actual prices clearly listed.
Apps must clearly state the features it wants to access and justify that as a part of the function of the app.
Stuff like that.
If iOS-Android/Surveillance/Malware edition takes over, so be it. If you wanted an Android Phone, why didn't you BUY an Android phone. It would have saved you money and trouble.
I Agee that tech companies need to be monitored and regulated. But I see no reason to let every last 3rd party dev have access to the hardware abilities.
The other day, I wanted a "lighter app" to simulate lighters at a concert. It wanted access to my location data and my contacts. Whatever for?
If any government wants to regulate the tech giants, kindly regulate this nonsense as well. Call it the 'up front pricing act."
Apps that do not work as a reasonable person would expect must be labeled "Demo," with the actual prices clearly listed.
Apps must clearly state the features it wants to access and justify that as a part of the function of the app.
Stuff like that.
This is where we can expect users to make those kinds of decisions. Is having that lighter app worth the access to contacts and location? Maybe, maybe not, the individual can decide.
Addressing "potential" antitrust issues? Are we in Minority Report world now?
They will go to other app stores. Apple's Appstore would be barren. It would lose about 80 billion revenues annually (and 15% of it as commission assuming an average of 15%). For a company that sells cleaning cloth for 20 dollars, I doubt this is a good move. Do you know how many cleaning cloths it would have to sell to make this shortfall?
This will completely disincentivize innovation. If you develop better tech, the EU will just force you to open it up and give it away to the competition.
How and why is it disingenuous to suggest companies are welcome to develop their own phone? Apple did it. Why should these leeches be given free access to what Apple spent years and billions to develop?
So every bank is going to have its own phone now? It’s obvious to most everybody that such an idea would fail spectacularly and we’d be right back in the same situation we are now, with two tech giants dictating terms to everyone else.
This, IMHO, is a real cluster *****. Wouldn't it have been easier for all concerned for the EU to have consumers tick of the items that are super important to them and then give the consumer a list of all options that meet that list? That could solve all of their petty issues while protecting the significant investments that all of the tech companies have made in their products?
Ford those still confused, plan on buying the device offering the functions you really want, and forget about the fashion trends.
Ford those still confused, plan on buying the device offering the functions you really want, and forget about the fashion trends.
Assuming the sales of smartphones per capita are (more or less) similar between the US and the EU (which I still do), the estimate is reasonable. The EU market for Apple is smaller - but not „tiny“ compared to their home market, as was suggested.
I‘m not aware of major consumers businesses having withdrawn from the EU.
That’s not what I said.
Apple is doing it on their platform.
Apple used to sell smartphones. They then created a software application store that today controls („gatekeeps“) effective access to consumers for substantial parts of the economy digital sales and services: ride-hailing, public transit, music and video streaming sales and subscriptions, dating, personal communication, online banking, retail payments - while moving to offer their own products against competitors.
The bundling and self-preferencing of their products needs to stop to ensure competition and innovation - and prevent a duopoly of all-controlling megacorporations that dystopian science-fiction warned us of.
Yes. And if they overwhelmingly choose rest-of-world edition, it‘s still subject to the very same regulation.
There is no innovation in blocking payment providers from access to iPhone’s NFC hardware.
And there’s no truth to it being necessary to ensure that Apple Pay is secure.
(Tokenisation and cryptography make payments secure, not NFC itself, being a very insecure means of wireless communication)
Also, preventing developers (or competitors) from deploying their own solutions on widely-deployed hardware doesn‘t incentivise innovation. Especially not when the applications (NFC payments) are standards-based.
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More competition with less innovative products. EU is a model on how to teach tech not to deploy their prized innovations.
There’s some question about it. I mean, I question it.
I know, right? And that’s just one of these companies they can shake down if they choose to. 20% of Apple, 20% of Google, 20% of Meta. Amazon? Who else?
Yes, I understand it’s “up to” and fines of Apple may cover less than 40% of their budget, so they may still need to levy taxes and tariff sugar when all is said and done.
I’m sure you’re right. Just like no government ever imagines they’ll actually see revenue from speeding tickets.
Remind me who makes the determination of compliance? Is it the the government benefiting from these fines on foreign companies? I mean, I’m sure they’d be heartbroken about the loss of foreign jobs it causes as they fund their European growth initiatives.
Notice that they aren’t threatening to block import of Apple products or services— that was your statement, not the EUs. If they were really detrimental, wouldn’t that be the right approach? That would be a pretty strong signal that they want to protect people from bad companies. Instead they’re perfectly happy to continue importing those products in exchange for a kickback.
Europe is something like 23% of Apple’s worldwide annual turnover, so I’m guessing the EU accounts for 20% or less. Levying a 20% fine of worldwide annual turnover means the EU is basically being fully reimbursed for the products they’ve bought, and keeping the products.
”Turn your technology into a European public utility, or we’ll just keep it for free.”
Can you link me to the part where it says the fine is based on 2021 revenue numbers? It would be weird to base a fine on a year before a law is enacted, or violated. Annual doesn’t mean starts in January. Bar charts can be hard to read for some people. $386B is the previous 12 months from March ‘22. A year of revenue. If you have it in your head that a year has to end in December, that number will almost certainly be higher by December ‘22.
This will blow your mind, but winter in the Southern Hemisphere is in July!