White House Hits Back at Apple's Massive EU Fine

[cocky jeremy]

Quite honestly, Apple should voluntarily withdraw their iOS products from the EU over their draconian laws of competition and see how the (former & current) Apple customers react to the loss of Apple iOS / iPadOS / Apple Watch products.

PRIVACY is certainly one of my priorities in my data and how it’s handled.

EU, the Choice is simple — keep your grubby hands out of the Apple Secure Garden or allow customers in the EU to only buy android-based products. See how that goes over with the EU Voters come election time!

It needs to go way further. I've preached forever that Apple, Google, and Microsoft need to leave all at once, with no warning. Let them figure out how to run their businesses with none of those three. They'd come back on their knees begging them to come back. Guaranteed.

 

[Karma*Police]

The govt taxes us our earnings, the things we buy, the things we own, and when we die. But that’s not enough… they’ll tax companies and call them fines. Not always but clearly the EU has been extorting American companies with ridiculous lawsuits to enforce even more ridiculous laws/regulations. There’s a reason why we haven’t seen any major innovations coming out of Europe in a very long time.

What’s worse, we have a segment of society who think we should be giving government even more of our money 🤦‍♂️

 

[H2SO4]

Of which you can find pictures of Haitians on the street with Domestic Cats turning in rotisseries grills.

Pls, link to one.

 

[anthogag]

Extortion? This is the same White House that imposed tariffs on penguins.

Donald thought penguins were Canadian.

 

[H2SO4]

It needs to go way further. I've preached forever that Apple, Google, and Microsoft need to leave all at once, with no warning. Let them figure out how to run their businesses with none of those three. They'd come back on their knees begging them to come back. Guaranteed.

You think my Mac will stop working tomorrow if every Apple Store, Data centre and Office burned down tonight?

 

[cjsuk]

Lets throw some corrections in here...

Correct because the EU instated tarrifs against the US first in addition to "non-tariff barriers" include intellectual property rules, environmental and digital regulations, licensing requirements and, in some cases, "corruption." Such as the nonsense going against Apple and others.

Actually that's disingenuous and misrepresenting reality. It reads like Fox News quite frankly.

Firstly the EU is going to protect the bloc first. That is the point of it existing. That means freedom from policy being applied externally. And that means protecting local regulation. The issue is that US tech companies in particular have made a pretty large incursion into the EU and have used this to leverage their position and completely destroy competition while avoiding local taxation and regulation entirely. The EU decided to act with the DMA.

America: you do not have rights to **** all over other countries. Simple as.

You have no idea what you are talking about. Do you hate how every website you go on has MASSIVE popups about cookies that you have to fill in every single time. Thank the EU for that. The EU says I have to allow my users to delete their data, however our app is a medical app which we are required to keep records for 7 years per federal law. Which means I can be fined 300k+ for every user that wishes to delete their data but I cant let them due to US laws.

That's quite frankly wrong. I work for a big American company within the EU. There are reasonable conditions you can retain data.

As for the popups, read the regulations. They only need to exist in certain circumstances. The fact you see them is that most companies that you seem to visit are doing stuff which is exactly doing what the popups are supposed to inform you about.

If you spit in their general direction you get slammed with massive fines.

No you don't. Only when you break regulations.

Its really that simple. Especially one devoting 500 billion dollars to build manufacturing plants in the US (a huge part of his agenda)

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha have fun putting screws in iPhones.

They did make the changes but they got fined anyways. The EU routinely crushes American companies and protects EU monopolies such as spotify. The rules are so vague and open ended intentionally so no matter what apple does short of making the entire OS free and open source the EU will fine them regardless.

They did not make changes which were fully compliant so got fined.

As for crushing American companies, boo hoo. If you can't survive in the EU market, back to your marginal deregulated dystopia you go.

Not to mention their changes are horrible. Safari is the only competing browser to the Google Chrome monopoly. EU forces apple to let users select a browser and make it easier for the current monopoly to grow even larger.

Firefox works fine.

 

[Athonline]

Correct because the EU instated tarrifs against the US first in addition to "non-tariff barriers" include intellectual property rules, environmental and digital regulations, licensing requirements and, in some cases, "corruption." Such as the nonsense going against Apple and others.

You have no idea what you are talking about. Do you hate how every website you go on has MASSIVE popups about cookies that you have to fill in every single time. Thank the EU for that. The EU says I have to allow my users to delete their data, however our app is a medical app which we are required to keep records for 7 years per federal law. Which means I can be fined 300k+ for every user that wishes to delete their data but I cant let them due to US laws.

If you spit in their general direction you get slammed with massive fines.

Its really that simple. Especially one devoting 500 billion dollars to build manufacturing plants in the US (a huge part of his agenda)

They did make the changes but they got fined anyways. The EU routinely crushes American companies and protects EU monopolies such as spotify. The rules are so vague and open ended intentionally so no matter what apple does short of making the entire OS free and open source the EU will fine them regardless.

Not to mention their changes are horrible. Safari is the only competing browser to the Google Chrome monopoly. EU forces apple to let users select a browser and make it easier for the current monopoly to grow even larger.

"MAGAstan"? Really? Why can't people like you talk normal. 6 year old children can articulate arguments better then half of these political extremists.

Also what due process? What are you even talking about.

Actually, Spotify is also considered a Gatekeeper under the DMA.

They made *some* changes by offering the choice with a lot of steps and warnings to deter but even more worrisome requiring a cut from other app stores. This is what we call “malicious compliance.”

This is not the first time a tech —or any company— company is using malicious compliance tactics. It is always a gamble. Sometimes you buy yourself time to put a better defense, hope for regulatory changes, or simply to generate sufficient revenue to cover potential fines once the regulator disagrees with your interpretation. Now, it is up to courts to decide if Apple’s approach suffices or not.

As for your GDPR concerns: well, the massive pop-up windows with “legitimate interest” preselected a few years ago was actually a good example of malicious compliance. This is why the GDPR got a small update and why the DMA was needed.

PS: the GDPR allows you to keep your data for the 7 years as you have a legitimate interest (compliance with local legislation).

 

[Bazza1]

Well, this Administration knows all about 'economic extortion'. See also Tariffs, Ukraine.

 

[bcortens]

Lets throw some corrections in here...



Actually that's disingenuous and misrepresenting reality. It reads like Fox News quite frankly.

Firstly the EU is going to protect the bloc first. That is the point of it existing. That means freedom from policy being applied externally. And that means protecting local regulation. The issue is that US tech companies in particular have made a pretty large incursion into the EU and have used this to leverage their position and completely destroy competition while avoiding local taxation and regulation entirely. The EU decided to act with the DMA.

America: you do not have rights to **** all over other countries. Simple as.

It's odd that Americans think that all countries should just conform to their laws. The US has pretty poor pedestrian safety laws w.r.t. automobiles, does hat mean the rest of the world has to as well? Of course not.

Calling local regulations "Non-trade-barriers" is just these scummy people trying to cover up that they want to control the laws of other countries, they think the US should get to dictate to the rest of the world how they operate their domestic economies, hopefully the rest of the world has the spine to tell them where to shove it.

That's quite frankly wrong. I work for a big American company within the EU. There are reasonable conditions you can retain data.

I too work in a medical company that operates in Europe and this doesn't comport with my experience either.

As for the popups, read the regulations. They only need to exist in certain circumstances. The fact you see them is that most companies that you seem to visit are doing stuff which is exactly doing what the popups are supposed to inform you about.

The popups could be better designed (a reject all should be available at the same level of the view hierarchy as the accept all button) and one valid use of cookies would be remembering that I have already said "NO" 14 times.

 

[surferfb]

Actually, Spotify is also considered a Gatekeeper under the DMA.

No, it is literally not. Music streaming services were specifically excluded in the legislation, and they set the revenue requirements way higher than Spotify's revenue to ensure they wouldn't get hit.

They made *some* changes by offering the choice with a lot of steps and warnings to deter but even more worrisome requiring a cut from other app stores. This is what we call “malicious compliance.”

No, it's following the letter of the law. If the EU didn't want Apple charging apps using third party app stores fees for using Apple's intellectual property, then they should have banned charging of said fees, not say "wait, that's not what we meant so the law says something that isn't written into the law".

(Side note: complying to the least extent possible allowed by law is not malicious compliance. Malicious compliance would be "fine, we're not doing any security screening on any app downloaded anywhere except the App Store, and if an EU citizen gets their accounts drained or their phone hosed, we're going to give them the phone number of their MEP and tell them to complain to the politicians who required opening up the walled garden to virus developers and scam artists."

This is not the first time a tech —or any company— company is using malicious compliance tactics. The question that is up to courts to decide if Apple’s approach suffices or not.

Agree here absolutely. It's for the courts to decide.

As for your GDPR concerns: well, the massive pop-up windows with “legitimate interest” preselected a few years ago was actually a good example of malicious compliance. This is why the GDPR got a small update and why the DMA was needed.

PS: the GDPR allows you to keep your data for the 7 years as you have a legitimate interest (compliance with local legislation).

People arguing that the GDPR was good will never not be funny. Your regulators made the internet so much more annoying to use. Yes, we know cookies exist, thank you EU. Example #1 on how the EU clearly can't think through the consequences of their overbearing regulations.

 

[Athonline]

It needs to go way further. I've preached forever that Apple, Google, and Microsoft need to leave all at once, with no warning. Let them figure out how to run their businesses with none of those three. They'd come back on their knees begging them to come back. Guaranteed.

As a shareholder of those companies, I am glad that their decision makers act based on data and often some logic rather than feelings.

As someone in tech though, I wouldn’t mind this given the amount of open-source alternatives and SMEs.

 

[MilaM]

It needs to go way further. I've preached forever that Apple, Google, and Microsoft need to leave all at once, with no warning. Let them figure out how to run their businesses with none of those three. They'd come back on their knees begging them to come back. Guaranteed.

This strategy worked on China already, or did it 🤔?

 

[bcortens]

No, it's following the letter of the law. If the EU didn't want Apple charging apps using third party app stores fees for using Apple's intellectual property, then they should have banned charging of said fees, not say "wait, that's not what we meant so the law says something that isn't written into the law".

As I and others have pointed out before, the fact that the CTF is a steering mechanism is obvious and was explicitly called out by the EU.


The EU didn't say that they couldn't charge for something like the CTF, but Apple is using the CTF to continue to disincentivize third party stores and side-loading.

Apple (and you) are using the IP excuse as a distraction. The exact same app can be sold with or without the CTF depending on which terms they agree to, this is clearly steering developers to the terms which aren't going to trigger the CTF and making it less likely that developers explore alternative distribution channels.

Remember, I said the exact same App, because it is completely possible for an app to be hosted in the App Store that pays Apple nothing for "use of their IP", which is why your constant going on about the IP is a red herring.

 

[transmaster]

Watching China Observer. They featured a Chinese businessman who was claiming that he was the one who manufactured the handbags of Hermes (made in France), Louis Vuitton (Made in Switzerland, Germany, and Italy), Chanel (made in France, Italy, and Spain) Gucci (Italy). The real handbags sell for thousands of dollars. He was pissed because he had tens, of thousands of these handbags stuck in a warehouse their order having been cancelled. It would seem that the EU does very little to protect luxury European marques from Chinese counterfeiting.

 

[surferfb]

As a shareholder of those companies, I am glad that their decision makers act based on data and often some logic rather than feelings.

As someone in tech though, I wouldn’t mind this given the amount of open-source alternatives and SMEs.

Related side note: I do wonder what Steve Jobs would have done in this situation. I absolutely am not of the opinion Apple should leave the EU over this (as much as I disagree with the DMA), but I could absolutely see him telling the EU "Enjoy telling your constituents they can't have iPhones anymore".

 

[miric]

thank you trump

You give thanks without due respect.

 

[AppliedMicro]

Quite honestly, Apple should voluntarily withdraw their iOS products from the EU over their draconian laws of competition and see how the (former & current) Apple customers react to the loss of Apple iOS / iPadOS / Apple Watch products.

If Apple decides to withdraw, that’s their choice.
Not the EU’s. It’s not as if the EU enacted prohibitively high tariffs on Apple’s products or anything.

See how that goes over with the EU Voters come election time!

You may be overestimating the power and reach of Apple’s Reality Distortion Field.
And consumers’ attitudes.

I’m not suggesting that Europeans attitudes towards their national governments, let alone the E.U., is all roses. But confronted with Apple withdrawing from Europe claiming regulations, don’t expect everyone - or even majorities - to side with Apple against their politicians.

The U.S. have lately (and rather quickly) acquired a reputation as a ruthless bully boy in international trade and diplomacy. So don’t be surprised when that reputation rubs off on Apple (the embodiment of an American company) and makes public perception side with the E.U. - against a multi-billion dollar U.S. American company that believes it can violate European law and bully lawmakers around to change it.

 

[surferfb]

As I and others have pointed out before, the fact that the CTF is a steering mechanism is obvious and was explicitly called out by the EU.

The EU didn't say that they couldn't charge for something like the CTF, but Apple is using the CTF to continue to disincentivize third party stores and side-loading.

Apple should be allowed to give preferable pricing and terms to those apps that take advantage of its preferred services. Or is charging good customers less illegal in the EU?

Apple (and you) are using the IP excuse as a distraction. The exact same app can be sold with or without the CTF depending on which terms they agree to, this is clearly steering developers to the terms which aren't going to trigger the CTF and making it less likely that developers explore alternative distribution channels.

Remember, I said the exact same App, because it is completely possible for an app to be hosted in the App Store that pays Apple nothing for "use of their IP", which is why your constant going on about the IP is a red herring.

Apple should be well within its rights to charge different prices for access to its IP. They could say all apps with blue icons pay nothing, all apps with red icons pay $10,000 a download. Totally should be Apple's decision. The EU is absolutely mandating Apple give its IP away for free, or alternatively, massively hurting its business and customers to be permitted to charge a fair price for said IP.

 

[miric]

Always the hypocrites.
View attachment 2504922

I guess the UK can say sofafu..er hate speech instead.

 

[nnoble]

These "laws" are ad hoc tactics by cash hungry governments. If you actually read the DMA it becomes so evident that this is nothing more than targeting the US cash cow.

Speaking of money, when are EU nations going to start paying their fair share of NATO?

The only time article 5 was invoked other members rushed to the call from the USA. Perhaps the myopic morons in the White House should be constantly reminded of that as they now seem dead set on turning their obscene treachery to selling out Ukraine.

 

[cjsuk]

Watching China Observer. They featured a Chinese businessman who was claiming that he was the one who manufactured the handbags of Hermes (made in France), Louis Vuitton (Made in Switzerland, Germany, and Italy), Chanel (made in France, Italy, and Spain) Gucci (Italy). The real handbags sell for thousands of dollars. He was pissed because he had tens, of thousands of these handbags stuck in a warehouse their order having been cancelled. It would seem that the EU does very little to protect luxury European marques from Chinese counterfeiting.

They aren't counterfeits. They are just selling direct.

And no you can't just sell those in the EU. You'll end up in trouble. And there is no tariff into the EU on that other than taxation so there will be no import issue for the items.

Also the Chinese businessman said he'd just sell direct to the customers in the US rather than through the brands. Only the legitimate brands are hurt by the tariffs, and probably the customers if anything goes wrong.

Toes blown off.

Also

 

[bcortens]

Apple should be allowed to give preferable pricing and terms to those apps that take advantage of its preferred services. Or is charging good customers less illegal in the EU?

According to the DMA, apparently yes, it is illegal to have any incentive that prevents developers from taking advantage of their rights under the new act. Steering developers to a certain set of terms if those developers behave according to Apple's rules is undermining the DMA and they have taken issue with it.

Apple should be well within its rights to charge different prices for access to its IP. They could say all apps with blue icons pay nothing, all apps with red icons pay $10,000 a download. Totally should be Apple's decision. The EU is absolutely mandating Apple give its IP away for free.

I said the exact same app. So this is, yet again, you bringing up a red herring.

If the app pays nothing to Apple if it agrees to one set of terms but a fee if it agrees to another set of terms, then Apple is steering developers to terms which reinforce Apple's dominant market position and undermine competition.

 

[Athonline]

No, it is literally not. Music streaming services were specifically excluded in the legislation, and they set the revenue requirements way higher than Spotify's revenue to ensure they wouldn't get hit.


No, it's following the letter of the law. If the EU didn't want Apple charging apps using third party app stores fees for using Apple's intellectual property, then they should have banned charging of said fees, not say "wait, that's not what we meant so the law says something that isn't written into the law".

(Side note: complying to the least extent possible allowed by law is not malicious compliance. Malicious compliance would be "fine, we're not doing any security screening on any app downloaded anywhere except the App Store, and if an EU citizen gets their accounts drained or their phone hosed, we're going to give them the phone number of their MEP and tell them to complain to the politicians who required opening up the walled garden to virus developers and scam artists."


Agree here absolutely. It's for the courts to decide.


People arguing that the GDPR was good will never not be funny. Your regulators made the internet so much more annoying to use. Yes, we know cookies exist, thank you EU. Example #1 on how the EU clearly can't think through the consequences of their overbearing regulations.

You are right, I forgot the change. Still, as soon as a target gets hit, they will be considered. The same way that booking.com is.

Let’s agree that the courts will decide if it follows or not the regulations. My opinion is not given the purpose (to offer realistic alternatives to customers and devs) and how difficult they made it.

(I will disagree and we —or any lawyer— agree as “malicious” is a cultural-defined term. In corporate law it is releasing a supposedly compliant but inferior version of a product; usually to signal passive aggressiveness in order to deter the use of the compliant product. I would also consider your example as a case of malicious compliance.)

The GDPR is not just about cookies. Even for that though, I am glad that more people got to see how many vendors get their data at each website.

 

[MentalFabric]

The EU should be clearer about their intentions so these fines are unnecessary and there isn't this back and forth about what's allowed by the regulations. But I agree with the EUs principle that users should be allowed the software model used on macOS on iOS too, where if you're techie enough to bypass gatekeeper security warnings you can install whatever you want. That's the opposite of stifling innovation and enabling censorship…

 

[AppliedMicro]

Do you hate how every website you go on has MASSIVE popups about cookies that you have to fill in every single time. Thank the EU for that.

Nope - we can thank the online advertising industry that believes it acceptable to collect and combine data and stalk users across the internet. And these creepy data collection practices have emerged first and predominantly among American companies.

The EU says I have to allow my users to delete their data, however our app is a medical app which we are required to keep records for 7 years per federal law

U.S. federal law is not applicable in Europe. Period.

Which means I can be fined 300k+ for every user that wishes to delete their data but I cant let them due to US laws.

If you have a problem with that, operate your service for Europe through a European entity - and make sure that data does not get transferred to the U.S.

Keep in European data on European clients in Europe.