(Just for fun) Breach of EU laws? Unable to merge two EU iTunes accounts.

[gelorobinson]

I have two iTunes accounts.

One that I created when I lived in Germany. The other in the UK.

The purchases I made on either are kept separate. Thus far not a huge problem, but since subscribing to iTunes Match rather irritating when it comes to reinstalling old app purchases.

By making it impossible to consolidate European iTunes accounts is Apple in breach of European laws that guarantee citizens free movement?

At first sight I said that law makers wouldn't challenge industry decisions, the I read about the enforced drop of roaming fees by carriers by 2014 within Europe. Now I'm not sure

This is suppose to be a just for fun discussion. I think it's very unlikely that one of the areas covered by European law is the "free movement of iPhone apps" but it would be nice to be proven wrong.

 

[valdikor]

Inability to merge accounts from two EU member states is certainly somewhat against the spirit of the free movement of goods and services within the EU, even though it's stretching its meaning just a tiny bit.

However, this free movement is not enforced by EU Directives, meaning there is no direct obligation for subjects or private entities (such as Apple) to facilitate it. This duty is there for member states not to obstruct this free movement and also to create legal framework that doesn't give needless opportunity for free movement obstruction. In other words, there is no legal grounds to sue Apple for acting against free movement, because it has no legal duty to facilitate it. You would have to sue Germany and/or UK at the EU Court of Justice, and your argumentation would have to be along the lines of them not providing enough incentive for private entities to act in accorance with EU free movement principles.

To be able to successfully sue Apple for this, you would have to come up with a possible breach of consumer law, but it would be quite tricky (and also varying in each member state to a certain degree). Not very feasible, but less likely legal cases have been won already. 😀

I'm a lawyer and EU Law is in my area of focus, I'm just saying that to clarify I'm not just guessing here 🙂