Italian Watchdog Confirms Third Antitrust Inquiry into Apple

[czoli]

Well, the Italian government has to maintain its high standards for ethical behavior and culture of fairness in business...

lololololol

Despite what you may think of the Italian government this is about an investigation on Apple behavior.

There are so many ongoing investigations around the world on Apple on so many fronts that one would need a scorecard.

There are laws everywhere and it happens that big organizations fail to comply and get investigated.

It is something very common, nothing to scream about.

Then why these are not met then it is a completely different topic but I do not see the point of reacting like a 12 years old Apple fanboy

 

[czoli]

Well, at the moment it's just an investigation, they didn't demand any money at the moment.
The authority is investigating also Google and Dropbox as well.

True and to be honest the fines from the AGCOM has always been very small compared to the size of the business of the companies not respecting the law.

So it is not really about milking money from Apple, definitely much much bigger fines would be needed.

 

[czoli]

yep, one huge bank account... attracts a lot of bad attention.

Not respecting the laws tends to attract attention too.

 

[ThunderSkunk]

Well, your comment is deeply unjustified as a lot of things changed in the last years.
You'd better focus on Mr. President

It’s funny, but when I was living in Rome, the attitude was, “don’t be naive, of course it’s all corrupt & full of criminals, they’re politicians, corruption is what you expect from these people. Just get on with your day and live the best life you can.” And as an American I was like “but you have to maintain the public trust or blah blah blah”. And 15 years later, Italy is cleaning up its mess & rebuilding the public trust, and in the US we’re like “don’t be naive, of course it’s all corrupt...”

but yeah, I’m not the only one who has to worry about Mr Pres. The man who created him has since created a cult dedicated to mass producing more of him, & right there outside Rome:

Steve Bannon wins case to set up Italy political academy

Steve Bannon, the former adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump, has won the latest phase of a legal battle with Italy's culture ministry to set up a right-wing Catholic political academy.

www.reuters.com

 

[Amazing Iceman]

Right, because the almost complete lack of ancient riches in North America is why we’re all so poor over here.

But just out of curiosity, who would you rather had the keeping of Italy’s ancient riches? The nobility? Do you really think they would have done a better job of preserving Italy’s ancient wealth for future generations?

What with invasions by Ostrogoths, Huns, Byzantines, Lombards, Saracens, Normans, and French (to name just a few of the foreign belligerents who fought in Italy and Sicily in the past 1700 years), and what with constant warring between the Italian city-states themselves, just what do you imagine would have happened to those riches had the Church not had the keeping of them?

You got a point there. But the invasions stopped long ago. Did Italy get their riches back from their keepers? If not, why not?

 

[Colonel Blimp]

You got a point there. But the invasions stopped long ago.

It could be argued that in the context of Italy’s two millenia of Church history, a mere two centuries ago is not all that long!

Did Italy get their riches back from their keepers?

Very largely, yes. From the Encyclopeadia Britannica:

[Under Napoleon’s direct personal rule]

…Properties held in mortmain, the old feudal ecclesiastical tenure (specifically those of the regular clergy), were transferred to the state and sold....

[In the Kingdom of Naples, under the rule of Napoleon’s general Murat]

…By purchasing the property confiscated from the church and from exiled landowners, southern notables subverted Murat’s plan to distribute small landholdings to peasant families....

[In the Kingdom of Italy during the Risorgimento]

…The Risorgimento had deprived the church of the Papal States, including Rome itself, and of much of its income. The church had lost its previous virtual monopoly of education and welfare, and compulsory state education was deliberately secular. Many religious orders had been disbanded; monasteries and convents had become public buildings, used by the state....

The main issue of political debate in late 19th-century Italy was land ownership. Liberal governments insisted that the municipalities should sell off most of the common land to private owners—at least 740,000 ac (300,000 ha) were sold by 1880 in southern Italy alone, and more was occupied illegally. Another 1,250,000 ac (500,000 ha) of ecclesiastical estates were similarly sold, often at extremely low prices....

By the way, how the Church actually acquired its wealth is an interesting study. (Much of it was given to the Church for the support of the poor.) See Peter Brown’s fascinating and meticulously researched book Through the Eye of a Needle: Wealth, the Fall of Rome, and the Making of Christianity in the West, 350-550 AD [Princeton University Press, 2013].