Because they had negotiated such a deal in order to harvest money from other countries. That's the illegal part.
Yes, it's because it's a Union
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Because they had negotiated such a deal in order to harvest money from other countries. That's the illegal part.
Yes, it's because it's a Union
Yeah that's just blatantly wrong. Please read up on the case.
All of Apple's worldwide profit outside of the Americas went through the two Irish subsidiaries. So no, not because it was a union, unless all of Asia, Africa, Oceana, and the non-EU countries of Europe retroactively joined the EU.
However, they were not forced to give money to other countries because it wasn't a tax, but a subsidy issue. If tax havens were illegal there'd be more countries and companies in trouble in the EU than just Ireland and Apple.
There are plenty of software markets besides mobile; that developers choose mobile says there is a lucrative market created by Apple and Google; both of whom are entitled to profit from their stores.
The US, fortunately, has a deduction or credit for foreign taxes paid, up to a little more than 100K, so most people aren't double taxed.
It's not that easy for tax purposes. I've wondered what would happen to an accidental citizen, i.e. born in the US to non-US citizen parents, who never lived in the US except for a very short period, decided to live in the US as an adult. As a US citizen by birth, they could face some interesting tax questions.
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There’s literally no way for Apple to know if it would be ok or not. If there’s a few companies that were to adopt it, then, like the iPad, even though it meets zero actual metrics of being a gatekeeper, it could be designated one because an EU company likes and adopts it. I would imagine that everything Apple does is going to be approved by regulators first. That’s the only way they can do business there now.
So “Apple is a Monopoly”
so, we need more competition?
“No, we don’t need any more competition”
And, at the same time, nothing more than the duopoly is required! We MUST maintain the duopoly at all costs! No other hardware vendors with other more innovative/effective platforms must be given any opening because then there might be a triopoloy or a quadopoly which would ALSO be bad for the EU as it’s a sure thing those other polies would be non-EU companies as well.
This is speculative, but I wonder if the makeup of the E.U. impacts their perspective. The U.S. has 50 states, but when it comes to companies we tend to view them as 'American,' not Californian, etc...
The E.U., on the other hand, isn't made up of states, it's made up of somewhat independent nations, some with a history of war with each other. Some are about the size of one of our states (e.g.: Sweden and California (which has far more people)). They don't all seem to have equal footing in real world clout (just from the general buzz it sounds like Germany is one of the more influential). Like a bunch of siblings in a family - bound together, but with rivalry and concern about one's status and power (Brexit comes to mind).
So I wonder...does that setting inspire a greater fear of concentrated influence/power in the hands of a couple of huge companies?
Apple, Microsoft and Google each look powerful to us in the United States. How must they look to people in Sweden? Or Greece?
The E.U., on the other hand, isn't made up of states, it's made up of somewhat independent nations, some with a history of war with each other. Some are about the size of one of our states (e.g.: Sweden and California (which has far more people)). They don't all seem to have equal footing in real world clout (just from the general buzz it sounds like Germany is one of the more influential). Like a bunch of siblings in a family - bound together, but with rivalry and concern about one's status and power (Brexit comes to mind).
So I wonder...does that setting inspire a greater fear of concentrated influence/power in the hands of a couple of huge companies?
Apple, Microsoft and Google each look powerful to us in the United States. How must they look to people in Sweden? Or Greece?
It’s absolutely correct.
And you served the explanation yourself:
Exactly. They funnelled it through their Irish subsidiaries to minimise taxes.
Not because they develop or manufacture so much in Ireland.
And they obtained advance tax rulings („deals“, in your new president’s parlance) from Ireland to do so.
Operating systems are platforms that serve as the basis and infrastructure for other applications and services.
Consumers converge on one such platform. Or two, maybe three - very few anyway.
Just as no one needs a dozen incompatible colour TV standards, no one is asking for a dozen competing (but incompatible) operating systems.
I don‘t know what you’re trying to get at.
The DMA certainly does not cement such duopoly - but it implicitly acknowledges that they exist.
It’s not about different nation states.
It‘s that Europe has (admittedly sometimes unwieldy or misguided) well-meaning consumer protection laws - whereas the U.S. (on a federal level) does not.
It‘s that balancing out the interests of employees and consumers vs. companies and their shareholder is ingrained in European political culture - whereas the U.S. mostly cares only companies, their shareholders and their ability to enrich themselves. And their people are conditioned into believing everything else is „evil socialism“.
Airbus - a company that can and is well considered to be „European“ -
(rather than belonging to a nation state) looks powerful to us in Europe.
I don‘t believe many Europeans would consider exchanging Airbus for Boeing and its corporate culture.
Neither would they exchange healthcare providers or pharmaceutical companies for large (exchange-listed) American ones.
Or textbook publishers. And their corporate culture.
Even though Boeing has a history of bringing more profitable than Airbus, and I don‘t doubt that some (many?) U.S. hospitals are leading in advanced healthcare technology.
Europeans don’t celebrate ruthless profit-seeking by big companies as much as United-Statesian Americans do.
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When you get outside of computing, yes, European makers are known for a range of products - like BMW. What I was getting at is the curious dearth of major personal computer and smart phone operating systems and major application categories big names by European companies.
To be fair, given the relative sizes and populations, I don't expect any one Western European nation to have more big brand name platforms, etc..., like what I described, because the numbers are so skewed - if Germans were 5 times the software engineers and entrepreneurs Americans are, we'd probably still have more software products like that because of numbers.
But when I lump the Western European nations together, I start to wonder...where is their big name answer to MS Windows, Mac OS, iOS, Android, MS Word, MS Excel, MS Power Point, the biggest name Internet browsers, etc...?
There is Linux, though I think some international 'cross pollination' was in play, so a nod to that and its powerful presence in servers.
Once China shut out major U.S.-based social media platforms, they made their own. I don't know how good We Chat and the rest are, but given China's technical sophistication and user base I suspect at least pretty good.
So I'm asking...are there major non-U.S. operating system and major application products I'm overlooking? My focus is on software.
We in the U.S. have pretty much made our peace with much of our material stuff being manufactured by our 'foreign adversary.' I wonder how Europeans feel about booting up their computer with American company OS, web browser, word processor, etc...?
Given their greater 'regulation state' opposition to some American firms, I'm surprised they're not putting out answers to FaceBook, iOS, Android, etc...
“How to spread hardware across multiple regions so that many benefit” is a solved problem. At its core, it’s a government project. Doing the same with software is harder and, for the EU regulators of the past, it must have seemed impossible. Because, rather than figure it out, they solved the problem of companies in particular regions getting too much clout.. by regulating those companies out. “Member states will stop complaining about some other member state being anticompetitive, and, even if they’re based in the US, we’ll still be able to use their products, win/win! I’m sure relieving ourselves of this headache in this way won’t come back to bite us in the rear at ALL!”
The DMA cements the duopoly because any “Apple iPhone” of the future that has the potential to gain wide marketshare in the region will not be introduced in the region. Because, after they’re labeled a gatekeeper, they would have to switch from offering new innovative features for the customers that decide to buy their products, to being forced to add in compatibility for the “Nokia’s, Blackberry’s, Windows Phone’s”, i.e. products the market doesn’t desire. There’s no innovative company looking at the EU regulations, where they can be defined as a gatekeeper simply because a few companies buy and like their products, and seeing a place where it would be worth dealing with. Especially since the EU consists of 500 million of the 8 billion people in the world. A company could sell 2 EU’s worth of devices OUTSIDE the EU and never have to deal with the potentially company ending fines of the EU.
Wow. If that's accurate (no offense, I don't know enough about their system to judge) it sounds bizarre to an American sensibility - and that level of 'central planning' is worrisome (as an American, I'm predisposed to disapprove of things that sound like communism).
In the U.S., a person or company of talent, vision and drive gathers with others, offers value in free markets via products, reinvests in growing the company, builds more products, may eventually make strategic acquisitions, grows and leverages itself in varied ways into a successful equilibrium as a major player in a sector.
It's private sector. There is no 'government project.' And the 'many benefit' would define 'many' as customers who vote with their dollars for perceived product value, share holders, upper level management and to some extent all employees (who'd presumably leave and work elsewhere if other options were better).
Thanks. Wasn't familiar with them, but my awareness is more of the frontline consumer experience (hence the examples I gave). From the Wikipedia page you linked:
"SAP SE (/ˌɛs.eɪˈpiː/; German pronunciation: [ɛsʔaːˈpeː]ⓘ) is a European multinational software company based in Walldorf, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. The company is the world's largest vendor of enterprise resource planning (ERP) software.[3][4]"
Also happened to notice this interesting bit:
"The majority of the company's employees are in Germany and United States. About 20,000 employees are based in Germany[80] and about 19,311 employees are based in the United States.[81][82]"
The U.S. has a large corporate market far distant from the European nations, so I suppose that makes a kind of sense.
If this tells you anything, until 2007, Airbus had TWO CEO’s, a German and a French one
It seems the German Bundeskartellamt are deciding Apple's 'do not track' feature is anticompetitive. TFA is not clear on details, but it appears the result of Meta and others complaing about Apple letting uses opt out of app tacking and that's costing them money. I'm not sure how giving users choices is ant-competitive since it's our data; unless Apple tracks and collects it from apps.
It would seem a simple solution would be to push out a similar splash screen for all Apple apps and have it open the first time you open them after the update. If users trust Apple more than Meta, well, that's Meta's problem, not Apple's. If you have to go to a paywall or limit content to users who agree to be tracked, then users get to choose if the app is worth it.
Seems like a pure money grab to me and an attempt to weaken privacy.
It would seem a simple solution would be to push out a similar splash screen for all Apple apps and have it open the first time you open them after the update. If users trust Apple more than Meta, well, that's Meta's problem, not Apple's. If you have to go to a paywall or limit content to users who agree to be tracked, then users get to choose if the app is worth it.
Seems like a pure money grab to me and an attempt to weaken privacy.
Score a point for those of us who have been saying “the EU doesn’t care if its rules hurt consumers”.
It’s anticompetitive because Apple exempts themselves from opt-in and the ATTF rules.
Maybe - but that’s not what Apple are doing.
Wrong. To quote from their original press release:
“Für uns ist ganz zentral, dass die Nutzerinnen und Nutzer frei und informiert darüber entscheiden können, ob ihre Daten überhaupt für personalisierte Werbung verwendet werden dürfen oder nicht. Die Frage ist aber, ob Apple für andere Anbieter diesbezüglich strengere Maßstäbe aufstellen darf als für sich selbst.”
https://www.bundeskartellamt.de/Sha...ngen/2025/02_13_2025_Apple_ATTF.html?nn=52004
👉 They clearly care about users and their choice on data sharing and tracking - but Apple should not engage in self-preferencing and applying different, more favourable rules on app tracking in their own apps.
They don’t though. Apple doesn’t use cross-app tracking so ATT doesn’t apply to them.
I would think if Apple applies ATTF rules to its apps then it should be compliant; but I think that's not what Meta et.al. want; I suspect they want the Bundeskartellamt to force Apple to not have an anti-tracking opt-in splash screen.
It should be a simple fix that puts user privacy over Meta et.al's bottom line.
According to the press release, they do (or at least can):
“the strict ATTF rules do not cover Apple’s own practice of combining user data across its ecosystem – from its App Store, Apple ID and connected devices – and using them for advertising purposes. (…)
In addition, (consent dialogues) do not refer to Apple’s own processing of user data across services“
Maybe - but that’s not what they’ll be getting.
There’s literally nothing in that legal assessment that would mean Apple get rid of the opt-in dialogues.
The only thing of concern is Apple applying different screens and wording for their own apps:
“third-party apps may show users up to four consecutive consent dialogues under the ATTF, while Apple’s own apps show a maximum of two”
“the consent dialogues provided by Apple are currently designed in a way that encourages users to allow Apple to process their data. The consent dialogues for third-party apps, on the other hand, steer users towards refusing third-party data processing”
It’s clear the Beamte at the Bundeskartelamt don’t understand ATT.
ATT doesn’t prevent Meta from combining user data across Meta’s apps, just third party apps and websites. ATT only applies to companies connecting data from other company’s apps and websites on iOS.
It’s like complaining Apple doesn’t throw up a warning that their AppleTV shows contain nudity. Their shows don’t contain nudity so there’s no need for a warning.
Just make them throw up a useless warning that asks a user for permission to do something Apple already doesn’t do, which will cause users to think Apple is collecting and selling their data when they’re not.
Apple should then either add 2 or delete 2 from 3rd party apps.
I hope not, but I do suspect that is what they want.