[HN Gopher] Apple and Meta fined millions for breaching EU law
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Apple and Meta fined millions for breaching EU law
Author : Aldipower
Score : 301 points
Date : 2025-04-23 10:01 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (ca.finance.yahoo.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (ca.finance.yahoo.com)
| pjc50 wrote:
| Ah, they said the T-word, presumably to invoke some political
| fire support from across the Atlantic. I wonder how that will go.
| Of course, this is not a tariff, for two reasons: firstly, it
| does not involve money (the UK's digital services tax does, but
| that's not this), and secondly, the same rules would apply to EU
| native competitors .. if there were any. It's what's knows as a
| "non tariff trade barrier". Of course those are all over the
| place, and many of them are there to protect consumer and public
| interests.
|
| > The EU regulator also dropped Meta's Marketplace's designation
| as a DMA gatekeeper because the number of users fell below the
| threshold.
|
| Now that's interesting. I think the threshold is 45 million?
| Falling EU userbase?
| rsynnott wrote:
| I'm a bit surprised usage was ever that high; that would imply
| that almost 10% of the population was using _Facebook
| Marketplace_!
|
| I think I've looked at it maybe twice since it launched, to
| admire all the weird scams. Maybe it's gotten better since? It
| used to be sub-ebay levels of complete nonsense.
| Aurornis wrote:
| Facebook Marketplace is extremely popular depending on the
| city you're in.
|
| It has taken the place of Craigslist for younger generations.
| xnorswap wrote:
| What surprises me is how much people on this site
| underestimate facebook.
|
| Facebook literally _is the internet_ for millions of
| people.
|
| Facebook marketplace is far larger than craigslist and ebay
| combined, even if you take both of those at their
| respective peaks.
|
| The open web might seem huge, but it's actually dwarfed in
| size by Facebook.
| aaronbaugher wrote:
| Yeah, I often see claims online that Facebook is dead,
| Facebook is just Boomers posting pictures of their
| grandkids, etc. Maybe it's a regional thing, because
| where I live, everyone's on Facebook. Most small
| businesses, organizations, and communities here use it as
| their primary (or only) online presence for promoting
| themselves and staying in contact with their
| customers/members. Marketplace has completely replaced
| the old newspaper classified ads. That's unfortunate
| since the search in Marketplace sucks, but it's happened.
|
| My family uses its messenger for organizing things
| because everyone has it, even if some of us rarely use it
| except for that. If I wanted to draw attention to
| something locally, whether it was promoting a service or
| running for office, I'd be a fool not to use Facebook.
| MyPasswordSucks wrote:
| Part of the disconnect is that these days, a lot of the
| Facebook use is concentrated in places you don't
| necessarily see from the outside.
|
| Like, fifteen years ago, if you happened upon the
| Facebook page of a random person, you'd usually see a
| handful of vacation pictures, a meme or three, some
| updates from their latest Clash of Cookie Farm Kitchen
| Dash session, and whatnot.
|
| These days, all that stuff - if it's even still being
| posted - is likely siloed away to Friends-only posts.
| That random person might still be there, might still be
| logging in every day, but you don't see the Messenger
| group chats and the Marketplace offers/haggles.
|
| Likewise for small businesses - a lot of the "look at
| this thing we're selling now, come check it out" posts
| now go to Instagram. They might still be auto-logging in,
| still responding to PMs on Facebook, still clicking a few
| news posts here and there, but that's just not visible on
| the outside, and creates the perception of Facebook the
| Ghost Town.
| Aurornis wrote:
| > What surprises me is how much people on this site
| underestimate facebook.
|
| It's the classic disconnect between engineering and
| product management: When engineers don't want a product
| and therefore conclude that nobody wants the product.
|
| When I've brought up Facebook active user stats here in
| the past I got flooded with responses suggested Facebook
| was lying or manipulating their user counts to pump up
| the stock.
| Sloowms wrote:
| *US city. I think people in my country would be able to
| name Craigslist (not in use) over fb marketplace.
| disgruntledphd2 wrote:
| Remember that you're probably in a bubble. Marketplace was
| _incredibly_ popular back in the days when I was at FB, and I
| 'd have expected it to get more popular based on the people I
| see around me (kids stuff is all over it).
|
| Maybe the gatekeeper thing is a reflection of less people in
| the EU using FB at all, rather than specifically Marketplace.
| Sloowms wrote:
| That bubble is the EU, which this law is about. I know a
| bunch of European countries have their own Ebay/Craigslist
| websites. Marketplace has never been even somewhat popular
| in my country.
| disgruntledphd2 wrote:
| Yeah fair. I guess I forget that Ireland is now the
| largest English speaking country in the EU, so I guess
| I'm in a bubble. I am still really surprised that
| Marketplace is no longer big enough to count as a
| gatekeeper.
| pyrale wrote:
| > the same rules would apply to EU native competitors .. if
| there were any.
|
| By this same logic, I guess we can say that the EU isn't trying
| to build a trade barrier favoring local competitors. So, while,
| as you say,
|
| > It's what's knows as a "non tariff trade barrier".
|
| ...It's also not that, since the goal isn't prevent them from
| competing equally in the market, where they have no
| competition.
| Mindwipe wrote:
| I wonder if eBay's free listings is taking marketshare back?
| reissbaker wrote:
| "the same rules would apply to EU maybe competitors... if there
| were any."
|
| That can actually be an example of a tariff, though. Basically
| every country specializes in something, and imports things
| they're not good at making. For example: cheese, or luxury
| watches, or GPUs. If you have a special law that charges
| companies money _only for the categories you import_ and you
| carve out exceptions for "small" (aka domestic) markets, a la
| the DMA, you have effectively created a tariff.
| drooopy wrote:
| I don't understand meta's statement that this handicaps american
| businesses while allows European and Chinese companies to operate
| under different standards.
| pjc50 wrote:
| The measures apply by size, not by country of origin. It
| happens that the companies over the threshold are American. So
| their statement is basically untrue, but that's politics these
| days.
| robin_reala wrote:
| There are a couple of companies in the list[1] (of seven)
| that aren't US-based. ByteDance are Chinese and Booking are
| EU (NL).
|
| [1] https://digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu/gatekeepers_en
| phatfish wrote:
| Booking Holdings which Wikipedia has as the parent of
| booking.com seems to be US owned.
| andsoitis wrote:
| Yes. Booking Holdings Inc. is incorporated in Delaware,
| listed on the Nasdaq with principal executive offices in
| Connecticut. See SEC filing: https://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloud
| front.net/CIK-0001075531/87dc4e5...
| xeromal wrote:
| Had no idea booking.com was american. I always assumed it
| was euro-based.
| dagw wrote:
| Booking.com was founded in the Netherlands and is still
| headquartered there, but was bought by a US company
| (Priceline) well over a decade ago.
| xeromal wrote:
| That makes sense. It just didn't have the energy of an
| American company and I say that as one. I love
| booking.com
| c0n5pir4cy wrote:
| Probably also important to note, is that ByteDance and
| TikTok are also currently being investigated by the
| European Commission. Although for different reasons under
| the Digital Services Act - so it's not like they are
| targeting US companies specifically with the law.
|
| Also the commission is known to fine European entities all
| the time for various reasons, one of the recent ones I can
| think of is Pierre Cardin and it's partners for restricting
| cross border European sales.
| xvector wrote:
| Spotify conveniently falls outside of the scope of this law
| when any artist would tell you it should absolutely be
| covered.
|
| The DMA is gerrymandered to exclude domestic businesses.
| Whenever the EU faces budget shortfalls, they know they can
| just make up some bullshit law and fine US tech.
|
| > EU are basically enforcing market capitalism by disallowing
| monopolistic practices.
|
| Users are free to just not buy iOS devices. Users are free to
| just not use Meta services.
|
| There is no monopoly here. This is all much ado about
| nothing.
|
| No real-world user is meaningfully harmed by the current
| state of Apple App Store/Meta Ads, but plenty will be harmed
| once spyware/piracy sideloading becomes common. Many small
| businesses will collapse due to ineffective advertisement
| (large businesses will love it though - it becomes a winner-
| take-all market).
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| I'm curious, what is your preferred financial regime? EU
| are basically enforcing market capitalism by disallowing
| monopolistic practices. Do you find that wrong in general?
|
| Perhaps you prefer an industro-fascist regime where
| businesses are not bound by any tailored laws? Pretty sure
| there would already be alternative iOS app stores under
| such a regime - government controls (IPR system, computer
| security laws) seem necessary to enable these sorts of tech
| monopolies.
| mhitza wrote:
| > Whenever the EU faces budget shortfalls, they know they
| can just make up some bullshit law and fine US tech.
|
| If that would be the case, the EU could be drowning in
| money by being more aggressive with GDPR enforcement and
| follow-through.
| Yeul wrote:
| 500 million sounds like a lot but that is just a drop in
| the ocean for first world nation states. The Netherlands
| has a yearly budget of 300 billion for example.
| piva00 wrote:
| > Whenever the EU faces budget shortfalls, they know they
| can just make up some bullshit law and fine US tech.
|
| The EU's budget is massive, no shortfall is covered by
| these fines since to collect them it takes another massive
| legal battle, that's just bullshit being regurgitated on
| the internet (especially on this forum). If that was the
| case the EU would be issuing GDPR fines all over the place
| to cover shortfalls, it doesn't happen in reality.
|
| > Spotify conveniently falls outside of the scope of this
| law when any artist would tell you it should absolutely be
| covered.
|
| Spotify does not behave like the most similar category
| covered by the DMA: video sharing like YouTube. Spotify
| does not hold exclusive access to the content and the
| audience, YouTube Music, Apple Music, and other players
| have almost the same catalogue as Spotify has so users are
| free to move between those services without penalty. Now
| try moving from YouTube to a competitor, a completely
| different beast.
|
| The DMA exists to counter an imbalance in the power these
| massive tech companies have in detriment to competition,
| it's quite a simple prerogative, Spotify doesn't hold at
| all the same power as YouTube has, or Google Search, or any
| other platform under the DMA.
| rsynnott wrote:
| Spotify feels like a slightly marginal case, and it
| wouldn't be surprising to see it added to the list. It
| clearly wasn't big enough a few years back when all this
| was being defined, but it's gotten quite a lot bigger
| since.
| sensanaty wrote:
| > The DMA is gerrymandered to exclude domestic businesses.
|
| Except Booking (~EU, based in NL~* _) falls under the DMA,
| and ByteDance (China? I think) does as well. All the same
| restrictions fall on them too.
|
| > Users are free to just not use Meta services.
|
| True in theory, not so much in practice. I work for a
| company that deals directly with WhatsApp in NL, and I
| guarantee you for businesses it's a death knell to not have
| a WA Business presence. Even the local gemeente (aka city
| council) and other gov't establishments are on WhatsApp
| too. Recently more people are moving onto Signal and
| Telegram, but that remains a minority.
|
| Don't even get me started on Asia, especially
| India/Indonesia, where even despite the existence of Line
| and similar apps everything is _still* almost exclusively
| on WA. A bit different in East Asia where Line and other
| apps are more predominant (hardly relevant for the EU
| though).
|
| Spotify doesn't fall under the DMA because it's not
| gatekeeping anything and it _does_ have plenty of
| competition, many of which pay artists better and have
| basically equal selections. YT Music, Apple Music, Deezer,
| Tidal, Bandcamp and I 'm sure dozens and dozens of others
| all exist and are used.
|
| > ... but plenty will be harmed once spyware/piracy
| sideloading becomes common
|
| Interesting how this evil sideloading boogeyman hasn't
| happened on Android.
|
| > ... Many small businesses will collapse due to
| ineffective advertisement
|
| The same small businesses that are forced into paying 30%
| to Apple/Google for simply existing on their app store?
|
| > (large businesses will love it though - it becomes a
| winner-take-all market).
|
| So, the gatekeepers as listed under the DMA? Y'know, the
| giants that literally hold all the keys and can dictate how
| the entire market should work based on their rules? The
| very same ones that have opaque ad-bidding systems that
| they control inside-and-out and can do anything they want
| to with?
|
| [**] Seems I'm wrong there (See andsoitis' reply to my
| comment), but didn't want to edit out my original comment.
|
| Regardless, calling it gerrymandering of local businesses
| is simply incorrect, and I can speak for at least myself
| that if we even had any tech companies that big (and I hope
| we never do), we'd expect them be subject to the exact same
| rules and laws.
| andsoitis wrote:
| > Booking (EU, based in NL)
|
| Booking Holdings Inc. is incorporated in Delaware, listed
| on the Nasdaq with principal executive offices in
| Connecticut. See SEC filing: https://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloud
| front.net/CIK-0001075531/87dc4e5...
| sensanaty wrote:
| Thanks, edited my comment to reflect I was wrong there.
| onli wrote:
| It's not completely unwarranted. According to the article,
| Facebook was fined for their model of asking for pay or accept
| tracking. Which is exactly what almost all publishers do, e.g.
| all big German newspapers. It's absolutely clear that this is
| against the law - they could show ads, but can't invade the
| users privacy for that, so no tracking ads - but they do it
| anyway and got away with it in various decisions. And now
| Facebook gets a huge fine for the same behaviour.
|
| Which is good in a way, maybe it will lead to a behaviour
| correction also for the smaller publishers. But it's of course
| not an equal treatment.
|
| Apple on the other hand completely deserves its fine, without a
| question. They got clear rules and did everything to circumvent
| them. The Apple's Core Technology Fee was obviously illegal.
| Don't know why they expected to get away with that, there
| wasn't even a minimal chance of that working. Idiots.
| tossandthrow wrote:
| Big German newspapers do not need to comply under DMA.
|
| The EU focusses, rightfully, on EU macro dynamics with these
| laws, not how smaller outlets work.
|
| This is very much reasonable. When a platform is big, it has
| bigger impact, but also bigger budgets to hire legal help and
| bigger budgets to stay compliant.
|
| This is well established in accounting where there exists
| different rules depending on size (in many jurisdictions)
| fp64 wrote:
| What's another example of different rules depending on
| size? "Content Moderation" I think? Anything outside the
| DMA? I think small companies get some exceptions for
| documentation requirements?
| agos wrote:
| in my part of Europe there are tons: companies over a
| certain size might have different rules for layoffs, have
| to have union representatives, must pay for safety
| courses for the employees, must employ a certain
| percentage of people with disabilities...
| tossandthrow wrote:
| It is a derivative of what is called the "Risk Based
| Approach" in compliance, and is widely adopted.
|
| As for companies and accounting you can look into the
| directive 2013/34/EU that established micro, small, and
| medium sized companies based on their size. These types
| of companies have different reporting requirements.
| eesmith wrote:
| In the US, some laws specifically exclude small
| companies. For example, the Equal Employment Opportunity
| Act of 1972 requires 15 employees, and the Immigration
| Reform and Control Act of 1986 requires 4 employees.
| intrasight wrote:
| You could try to find some analogies but you probably
| won't succeed since this is clearly just targeting
| American big Tech
| dktp wrote:
| G-SIB banks for example
| BurningFrog wrote:
| In practice it means that only American companies end up
| paying large fees to the EU.
| alextingle wrote:
| There are no fees.
| pyrale wrote:
| It also means that not all US companies have to comply,
| and that the ones that do are the most competitive
| companies in the market, making their claim that they
| have trouble competing moot.
| Arkanum wrote:
| I agree, except the DMA specifically only applies to
| companies over a specific size. I think if the German
| newspapers were at FB/Apple scale, in terms of number of
| users, then the DMA would apply (i.e. they would be
| designated gatekeepers or similar) and they could also be
| fined. Although I think pay for no ads is also a violation of
| GDPR maybe?
| onli wrote:
| Exactly. While DMA does not apply, GDPR does. But it gets
| ignored and weakened by decision against the letter and the
| spirit of the law - which does not surprise if you realize
| how much power those legacy publishers hold. Not so FB, not
| here at least.
|
| So it's not exactly the same regulation but pretty much the
| same situation. I'd also be pissed.
| tzs wrote:
| GDPR does not purport to outlaw targeted advertising. It
| just purports to require that the target consent.
|
| In pretty much every other area of law in most of the
| world (including Europe) consent can be bought--the party
| requesting consent gives the consenter something in
| exchange for consent, and will not give that thing unless
| consent is given.
|
| But under the rulings from some regulators that doesn't
| work for GDPR. Consent is apparently only considered to
| be freely given if withholding it would not result in any
| detriment such as not getting the same level of service
| or having to pay money for service.
|
| If regulators want to outlaw targeted advertising it
| would be a lot better if they just did that, instead of
| making consent in GDPR work differently from how it has
| worked for pretty much everything else pretty much
| everywhere for centuries.
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| That's not entirely fair. The concept of duress exists
| and is always at odds with consent in a transactional
| setting. The issue is where to draw the boundary between
| "you freely chose to do business" and "you were coerced
| into accepting unfavorable terms".
|
| I'm inclined to think that "pay or be tracked" is usually
| the former. The issue was never that I shouldn't have to
| pay but rather that I wasn't given the choice in the
| first place.
| poizan42 wrote:
| GDPR Art. 7 section 4:
|
| > When assessing whether consent is freely given, utmost
| account shall be taken of whether, inter alia, the
| performance of a contract, including the provision of a
| service, is conditional on consent to the processing of
| personal data that is not necessary for the performance
| of that contract.
|
| Don't blame the regulators, it's pretty clear that
| "paying" with consent is a no-go from the text itself.
| orangecat wrote:
| _If regulators want to outlaw targeted advertising it
| would be a lot better if they just did that_
|
| Exactly. As it is now they're practically encouraging
| publishers to use dark patterns to trick users into
| "agreeing" to tracking.
| etiennebausson wrote:
| Pay for no tracking / Personal Information trade is
| illegal. Pay for no advertising is legal. That's what
| Youtube is doing.
|
| It's meta's "pay or allow us to sell your personal
| informations that is the issue, not advertising by itself.
| tossandthrow wrote:
| This is a result of the severe neglect to enforce anti trust in
| the US. Now other countries need to kick in with diplomatic
| adverse effects... sigh.
| ENGNR wrote:
| Would looove to distribute an app without it having to be in the
| App Store, and not paying the App Store fee (direct download of
| signed binary). Happy to pay a yearly fee or fee per update to
| cover code review if it's crucial. But 30% of revenue for doing
| bugger all... cmon, they're squeezing the lemon a bit too hard.
| intrasight wrote:
| From what I hear, users are tired of installing apps. You can
| make a website and not face any gatekeepers or restrictions.
| popol12 wrote:
| What if your app needs to send notifications and/or use
| bluetooth, for instance ?
| intrasight wrote:
| From what I hear, most users disable notifications.
|
| You can do like Airbnb and send text messages.
|
| You can do Bluetooth in JavaScript through the Web
| Bluetooth API.
| Sayrus wrote:
| A little caveat of Web Bluetooth API is that it's like
| WebUSB and mostly available on Chrome. I don't think
| Chrome for iOS is using blink yet so you'll probably not
| have access to this API on iOS.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| Both WebUSB and WebBluetooth is still a draft spec, and
| is doubtful to progress any further with both Mozilla and
| Webkit objecting to it
|
| https://mozilla.github.io/standards-positions/#web-
| bluetooth
|
| https://webkit.org/tracking-prevention/#anti-
| fingerprinting
|
| Essentially, these are proprietary that are a part of an
| embrace, extend, and extinguish strategy by Google
| Chrome.
| thoroughburro wrote:
| > From what I hear, most users disable notifications.
|
| Where'd you hear that? Surely _most_ users don't change
| defaults.
| acdha wrote:
| There isn't a default on iOS, you're prompted for each
| new app when it requests notification permissions. People
| have found that users hit no a lot more when the app
| prompts with no explanation than when it clearly explains
| what benefit it has to the user.
| rini17 wrote:
| Then the flood of notifications gets ignored, with
| practically the same result.
| darekkay wrote:
| There are web APIs for both.
| echoangle wrote:
| Not on iOS. There's no Bluetooth support in safari.
| JimDabell wrote:
| "Web Bluetooth" is a Blink-only API that both Mozilla and
| Apple rejected on security grounds.
| mdhb wrote:
| What a weird thing to put in scare quotes.
| acdha wrote:
| All modern browsers support notifications:
|
| https://caniuse.com/notifications
|
| Bluetooth is limited to Chrome because Apple and Mozilla
| were concerned about privacy and security:
|
| https://caniuse.com/web-bluetooth
| merek wrote:
| PWAs offer support for push notifications [1], but
| apparently they are not as seamless as in native apps,
| especially on iOS.
|
| If you've never heard of PWAs [2], they allow you to add
| native mobile app functionality to a mobile website,
| including the ability to install your website as though it
| were an app, and ability to cache resources for offline
| use. I haven't worked on app development for a while, but
| when I did several years ago, all that was required to turn
| a mobile website in to a PWA was a service worker file (a
| JS file to define resource caching rules), and a
| manifest.json file (essentially metadata used by the home
| screen icon, including title and icon image).
|
| Apparently PWAs still aren't on par with native apps in
| terms of capability and UX. Nonetheless I hope PWAs become
| popular for their simplicity, and for being decoupled from
| platforms. It's a bit insane to me that native app
| development usually requires heavy platform specific IDEs
| (Android Studio, Xcode), both of which have steep learning
| curves, and after all that development effort, you only
| have an app that works on 1 platform. Building a basic
| mobile app shouldn't require anything more than HTML, JS
| and CSS, and it shouldn't be tied to any specific platform.
|
| 1. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
| US/docs/Web/Progressive_web...
|
| 2. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
| US/docs/Web/Progressive_web...
| Arkanum wrote:
| AIUI Apple has deliberately kneecapped PWAs on iOS to
| stop them competing with their App Store.
| arrowsmith wrote:
| Most apps that "need" to send notifications don't, in fact,
| need to.
| popol12 wrote:
| Yeah but, what about apps that actually do ?
| layer8 wrote:
| Web apps offer a subpar experience.
| immibis wrote:
| Meanwhile on Hacker News: "Web apps suck. Native apps are so
| much better. Why can't everything be a native app?"
| Hamuko wrote:
| The barrier of entry for me is having to pay $99/year just to
| notarize and sign my macOS applications that me and maybe three
| other people use. Just a lot easier to link to instructions on
| how to bypass Gatekeeper or make them compile it themselves
| from source.
|
| Although I think my go-to instructions at https://disable-
| gatekeeper.github.io/ are not being kept up to date?
| eastbound wrote:
| No, the barrier is to pay above 1m downloads. $99/yr is a
| o(everything your have to do to publish a safe app online and
| maintain it safe).
| irusensei wrote:
| Personally I wouldn't install software unless it were from a
| really trusted person doing something extremely unique and
| useful that doesn't have an alternative on the Apple Store
| (think UTM with JIT for iPad).
|
| Please don't take that as a negative comment but I suspect most
| people source their software from conveniently centralized
| repos whether it be App Store, Steam or even the main package
| manager on a Linux distribution.
| nottorp wrote:
| Most and mostly.
|
| But I'd still like to be able to install whatever the fuck I
| want on my iPhone, should I decide to based on my own
| criteria, without going through Apple or even a fucking
| "alternative app store" that is still Apple censored.
| Silhouette wrote:
| The point is that it becomes your choice. For example some
| people might choose to use a different web browser instead of
| Safari on their Apple device so they can use some web apps
| fully and not have to install similar local apps at all.
| mpweiher wrote:
| Great, and you are free to do so and will continue to be free
| to do so.
|
| The point is that the OP is not free to do so.
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| >Great, and you are free to do so and will continue to be
| free to do so.
|
| Not necessarily, once other channels are available
| developers could choose to force their clients down that
| road.
| thrance wrote:
| You mentioned linux package managers, these existing are
| proof enough that a 30% cut isn't required for ensuring the
| safety of what you install. In fact, I'd wager there is that
| much more dangerous garbage in the app store than in pacman's
| database.
| charlie-83 wrote:
| As much as I think Apple's cut is unreasonable, I think all
| this shows is that people are making a lot more dangerous
| software for apple's larger less tech savvy userbase than
| for arch's.
| immibis wrote:
| The Linux package repositories take a 30% cut of zero. If
| the software wasn't free, it would be entirely reasonable
| for them to demand a cut
| lukeschlather wrote:
| On Android there's a repository called F-Droid which
| offers free software. Apple won't let anyone create a
| FOSS repo like that for iOS.
| TheDong wrote:
| I can install Jetbrains via most linux package managers,
| launch it, and pay money. I can install steam and pay for
| games. I can install sublime text and give em cash.
|
| Arch linux doesn't try to take 30% of all the games I buy
| on steam, nor does it prevent steam from asking me for my
| credit card.
|
| Apple reviews all apps to make sure they don't ask for
| your credit card, don't tell you where you can buy the
| same good online, and make sure that if you do sell
| anything, apple gets its 30% cut, even if it's a virtual
| store like steam. That's the reason you can't buy kindle
| books on iOS (even though you can buy apple books? Weird?
| Isn't that illegal anti-competitive behavior?)
|
| It would absolutely not be reasonable for linux package
| managers to demand that I pay 30% more for all games on
| steam if I did "pacman -Sy steam" vs downloading steam
| from valve's website and figuring out how to get it
| working on arch-linux (taking the deb, extracting it with
| 'ar', and installing some dependencies)
| blitzar wrote:
| > cmon, they're squeezing the lemon a bit too hard
|
| They got hooked on the lemon juice. Nobody at Apple making
| millions a year to write emails and sit in meetings wants to be
| out on the street for putting up their hand and saying "hey
| lets just take 10% and have a healthy ecosystem long term,
| which will let us continue to sell phones to people every year
| with a profit margin of $500".
| Hamuko wrote:
| Phil Schiller has actually made some comments about being
| less greedy, like possibly ratcheting down the 30% cut once
| the App Store started making serious revenue or not shaking
| down developers if they use external payment methods. Not
| that Schiller has actually made any changes at Apple to do
| any of the less greedy things.
|
| https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/4/22418828/apple-app-
| store-c...
|
| https://www.macrumors.com/2025/02/25/apples-phil-schiller-
| co...
| madeofpalk wrote:
| That was a long time ago. Now,
|
| > _"You download the app and it doesn't work, that's not
| what we want on the store," says Schiller. This, he says,
| is why Apple requires in-app purchases to offer the same
| purchasing functionality as they would have elsewhere._
|
| https://techcrunch.com/2020/06/18/interview-apples-
| schiller-...
| hadrien01 wrote:
| Press release:
| https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_25_...
| sunaookami wrote:
| Huh, so Facebook Marketplace is no longer designated as a
| Gatekeeper because it has not enough business users.
|
| --
|
| Other related PR:
| https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_25_...
|
| This rules that the "Core Technology Fee" is de facto illegal.
| izacus wrote:
| The EU Comission press release:
| https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_25_...
| robinwohlers wrote:
| It's funny to see a "share this page on Facebook" option at the
| bottom of the press release.
| qwertox wrote:
| Which shows that they're not discriminating. TikTok is
| missing, though.
| diggan wrote:
| At least they seem to have their own system in place for
| displaying those share buttons, as there are no requests to
| 3rd party domains on page load, everything loads from
| *europa.eu. Could have been worse :)
| owebmaster wrote:
| It shouldn't be funny, social media isn't doing the world any
| favor, they gotta behave
| robinwohlers wrote:
| "Not funny haha, funny weird"
| miohtama wrote:
| EU comission has been fined for breaching GDPR they designed
| themselves
|
| https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/first-eu-court-fines-
| eu...
| bootsmann wrote:
| A government that is not above its own laws. Surprisingly
| difficult for some people here to appreciate.
| yupyupyups wrote:
| Apple should remove privacy from their vocabolary.
| lopis wrote:
| They keep doing that to try to paint this as a loss for users.
| Users have much to win with this, as it will give some real
| competition to the Apple ecosystem, and potentially saving
| users money. So it's only natural Apple will pull all the cards
| like saying it threatens users privacy.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| > _Under the DMA, app developers distributing their apps via
| Apple 's App Store should be able to inform customers, free of
| charge, of alternative offers outside the App Store, steer them
| to those offers and allow them to make purchases._
|
| To me, this is the most easily agreeable part of what the EU has
| been after. It is unfair that Apple restricts Netflix from
| telling it's users that they can sign up and pay for Netlifx on
| their own website. It's unfair that Netflix can't even tell its
| users the rules that Apple enforces on them.
|
| It's telling that Gruber is pretty staunchly against EU/DMA
| interferance in Apple, and broadly thinks they're wrong. But this
| is the one thing he agrees on
|
| > _If Apple wants to insist on a cut of in-app purchased
| subscription revenue, that's their prerogative. What gets me,
| though, are the rules that prevent apps that eschew in-app
| purchases from telling users in plain language how to actually
| pay. Not only is Netflix not allowed to link to their website,
| they can't even tell the user they need to go to netflix.com to
| sign up_
|
| https://daringfireball.net/2019/01/netflix_itunes_billing
|
| https://daringfireball.net/2020/07/parsing_cooks_opening_sta...
|
| (I _think_ Apple now has their 'reader app' carveout for apps
| like Netflix, but it's still pretty obtuse and inconsistent)
| madeofpalk wrote:
| Also,
| https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_25_...
|
| > _The Commission takes the preliminary view that Apple failed
| to comply with this obligation [to allow third party app
| stores] in view of the conditions it imposes on app (and app
| store) developers. Developers wanting to use alternative app
| distribution channels on iOS are disincentivised from doing so
| as this requires them to opt for business terms which include a
| new fee (Apple 's Core Technology Fee). Apple also introduced
| overly strict eligibility requirements, hampering developers'
| ability to distribute their apps through alternative channels.
| Finally, Apple makes it overly burdensome and confusing for end
| users to install apps when using such alternative app
| distribution channels._
|
| This is great to hear. It sounds like they've just found Apple
| non-compliant in making alternate app stores as discouraging
| for both developers and user as possible. I guess it'll take
| another 12 months for any fines or changes from Apple.
| stavros wrote:
| The two companies have two months to comply, or there will be
| daily fines.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| I don't think so - they've only been fined for the in-app
| anti-steering provisions.
|
| For the second App Marketplace issue, I think that's just a
| preliminary finding and is going to take longer to work out
|
| > _Apple now has the possibility to exercise its rights of
| defence by examining the documents in the Commission 's
| investigation file and by responding to the preliminary
| findings_
| stavros wrote:
| Hm, maybe, I'm just going by what the article says:
|
| > The companies have two months to comply with the orders
| or risk daily fines.
|
| Maybe they got it wrong, though.
| antasvara wrote:
| I think you're both sort of right.
|
| The orders in question here are 1 for Apple (the one that
| made circumventing Apple payments super difficult) and 1
| for Meta (their ad-free subscription service). Meta and
| Apple have to comply with those within 2 months.
|
| The preliminary finding on sideloading apps isn't subject
| to that 2 month compliance deadline from what I can tell.
| Yeul wrote:
| Aren't Americans always going on about free speech?
| mdhb wrote:
| Just never in a logically consistent manner.
| NilMostChill wrote:
| and usually in a context where the concept they are
| thinking of (the constitution) doesn't apply (anywhere that
| isn't the government)
| orangecat wrote:
| Free speech isn't good because it's in the Constitution,
| it's in the Constitution because it's good.
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| Sure it is. Lots of us also go on about private property
| rights and freedom of association. Apple is restricting the
| behavior of entities doing business through them on a
| platform they own. The logic is that you remain free to
| speak - elsewhere. Meanwhile Apple remains free not to do
| business with you if you can't or won't accept their terms.
|
| (Well really the _legal_ argument is that Apple isn 't the
| government and so the first amendment doesn't bind their
| policies but there's an ideological aspect in addition to
| the legal one.)
|
| The issue missed by such an analysis is the outsized impact
| the megacorp has. Without strong competition (ie not a
| duopoly or even an oligopoly) regulation is required to
| protect consumers against practices that otherwise would be
| financially discouraged.
|
| There are also a few other blindspots people here tend to
| have regarding regulation. In particular that sometimes
| detrimental behaviors exist that are perversely
| incentivized rather than discouraged by the market despite
| being obviously worse for consumers. A lot of people here
| seem to conveniently forget that such things are even
| within the realm of possibility.
| paxys wrote:
| Every American is pro free speech for the kind of speech they
| like.
| LanceH wrote:
| There is also the freedom to engage in a contact.
|
| The freedom of speech isn't restricted, apple just isn't
| providing a platform to speak on.
|
| This is an anti trust issue balance against two parties
| ability to be bound by contract.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| If you extend "speech" to "any kind of action an individual
| or company can do", then no. There's plenty of laws
| regulations that restrict what you can do in USA.
| freedomben wrote:
| As an American who thinks free speech is one of the most
| important rights we have, I wish the answer to your question
| would be a collective "yes" but unfortunately it is not.
| baby wrote:
| In America free speech is always limited to what "I find
| acceptable". There's an infinite number of things that lots
| of Americans will find unacceptable. Swearing is
| beeped/censored everywhere (even on youtube), songs release
| "explicit" and "clean" versions, nipples are blurred on TV,
| some words you can't say even in an educational or karaoke
| setting (N-word, R-word, etc.)
| freedomben wrote:
| I don't disagree with you, but I do think it's important
| to distinguish between a censored swear word or nipple,
| and taking down an entire video because it mentions the
| Lab Leak Theory at a time when that was politically
| unacceptable. The former may be suppressing a small
| element of the "speech" but it's not (for the most part)
| restricting the expression/transmission of ideas. It's
| also a very firm and defined standard that is unambiguous
| (i.e. here is a list of words you can't say, use
| substitutes to convey meaning v. here is a list of
| opinions you aren't allowed to express). The latter on
| the other hand is absolutely the suppression of ideas,
| which IMHO is what "free speech" is really about and why
| it's so important.
| rzwitserloot wrote:
| I don't understand what you're on about. The only laws that
| the USA has on the books that says anything about this are
| either [A] recently written state laws written as vehicles
| to virtue signal, particularly by DeSantis in Florida, or
| [B] the exact opposite.
|
| For example, the first amendment indicates that apple
| doesn't just have the right to tell its users of its app
| store to say nothing about alternate payment methods. It
| goes further than that: The government must not tell Apple
| anything else. That's stretching 1A a bit; more likely 1A
| says nothing at all about what Apple is doing here.
|
| "Free Speech" is a thing americans are fond of saying, but
| unfortunately, considering that 1A is often called 'the
| free speech amendment', what that _actually_ means is
| usually unclear, and in this day and age, that means it
| gets weaponized: Folks start harping on about free speech
| and pick whatever of the many conflicting definitions so
| happens to suit their needs at that exact moment.
|
| Evelyn Beatrice Hall was british, not american. She's the
| author of "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend
| to the death your right to say it".
|
| The thing about 1A and free speech in general: Forcing
| somebody to say something is just as bad as forcing
| somebody not to say something. And, once you start talking
| about non-governmental entities and 'free speech', those
| two things are at odds. After all, if the government tells
| some social network that they MUST NOT ban some user or
| delete some posting, that is compelled speech, and that's
| what I meant with '1A means the opposite of what you / this
| case / most americans think it means'. 1A protects the
| right of private companies to restrict your speech. It does
| not protect your right to have your speech protected from
| being suppressed, deleted, or otherwise restrained by
| private actors.
| bloppe wrote:
| Technically, the first amendment applies only to state
| actors, not private entities. See Manhattan Community Access
| Corp. v. Halleck, Hudgens v. NLRB, and many other cases that
| upheld this interpretation. Private companies like Apple can
| restrict free speech on their platforms legally (at least as
| far as the first amendment is concerned).
|
| That said, I believe in the principle of free speech,
| especially as envisioned by Tim Berners Lee for the Web. I
| wish more Americans could adhere to those principles even
| when the speech is not to their taste. Certainly feels like a
| lot of cultural backsliding happening.
| rzwitserloot wrote:
| > Technically, the first amendment applies only to state
| actors, not private entities.
|
| That's probably not what the person you're responding to is
| talking about.
|
| Americans have this unfortunate tendency to harp on and on
| about 'free speech' in contexts where the first amendment
| obviously does not apply, or, even more
| intriguingly/ironically, where the first amendment pretty
| clearly states the exact opposite.
|
| For example, if some non-government-owned platform (such as
| a social network) bans a user, and that user says "My free
| speech rights are being infringed".
|
| Whereas what the 1A actually states is the exact opposite:
| That platform has the right to ban that user, and the
| government is constitutionally restrained: If the
| government were to make a law that forces this social
| network to unban this user, that'd be the 1A violation.
|
| Then there are only 3 options:
|
| 1. That user wildly misunderstands free speech. And given
| how common this is, 'most americans' is perhaps [citation
| needed] but the sentiment is understandable. It's not just
| that "My free speech!" is so common, it's also that
| articles about some incident pretty much never talk about
| this. Lawyers, legal wonks, legal podcasts that sort of
| thing - they talk about it, but, niche audience.
|
| 2. The meaning of 'free speech' in the sentence 'this
| social network has banned me; my free speech is being
| infringed' is not referring to 1A but to the concept as a
| general principle; a principle that is orthogonal, or even
| mutually exclusive with, the definition of 'free speech'
| the way 1A intends it.
|
| 3. They know exactly what 1A means but they are lying
| through their teeth in order to get some internet group
| ragin' going on.
|
| If we make a habit of assuming good intentions, the nicest
| choice is option 2.
|
| The somewhat famous "Section 230" covers part of this, and
| explains some of the pragmatic reasoning behind MCAC v
| Halleck: If you hold private companies responsible for
| having infringed free speech rights, then private companies
| are going to bend over backwards making clear they are not
| going to moderate. Anything. For any reason. Legal reasons,
| you see.
| kube-system wrote:
| It's a combination of 1 and 2 for the most part.
|
| There's a lot of nuance lost when the Bill of Rights is
| being taught in US grade schools. Most kids read each of
| the amendments but then are given a simplified
| interpretation. "The first amendment guarantees a right
| to free speech" would have been correct enough for a test
| answer when I was in school, although it loses enough
| nuance to frequently be incorrect, because people often
| presume that equates to "I can say what I want without
| consequence and the government will protect my ability to
| do it", when it more accurately should probably be taught
| as "the government has a limited ability to meddle in
| other's speech"
|
| The net effect is both that people misunderstand the 1st
| amendment, and they also believe that _what they thought
| it meant_ is an important value.
| freedomben wrote:
| > _I don 't understand what you're on about._
|
| Likewise, I think we have a miscommunication here because
| I agree with everything you wrote.
|
| I'm not making a legal argument about free speech at all.
| I agree with your analysis on the legality there. Now
| that said, I do think the Biden admin crossed the line of
| legality with their collaboration (and a little implied
| threatening) Twitter and Facebook, and their whole
| establishing an office whose job it was to report
| "disinformation" on social media to the tech giants.
|
| I'm speaking culturally. To go back to the Lab Leak
| Theory example when Youtube was taking down any videos
| that even mentioned it (even if the mentioner was a well-
| respected Evolutionary Biologist) wasn't illegal, but it
| was a total abandonment of free speech principles. It
| feels like it's abated quite a bit in the last year or
| two, but for a while there, there were ideological rakes
| all over the place that any mention of would get your
| content taken down by big tech.
|
| Now all that being said, I do think there's a point at
| which the line between private corp and government starts
| to blur, and I do think big tech is approaching that
| line. For most of history, no corporation could even
| approach the level of power over our lives as government,
| but increasingly they are getting so powerful that we
| can't even function in society without them. I think
| we're approaching or past the point where regulation
| and/or breaking them apart is necessary to reduce the
| amount of power that they have over us.
| kube-system wrote:
| > To go back to the Lab Leak Theory example when Youtube
| was taking down any videos that even mentioned it (even
| if the mentioner was a well-respected Evolutionary
| Biologist) wasn't illegal, but it was a total abandonment
| of free speech principles.
|
| Not really, this is a case where two cooperating parties,
| who both have speech rights, have a dispute about which
| speech they collectively want to espouse.
|
| Unless you're saying that people should lose their speech
| rights when they form a business?
| freedomben wrote:
| > _Unless you 're saying that people should lose their
| speech rights when they form a business?_
|
| I tried to make clear I wasn't making a legal argument,
| but since you mentioned it I will address it, but first
| I'll just say that no I'm not saying that people should
| lose their free speech rights when they form a business.
| I'm not sure how you got that from what I wrote, but no,
| legally they don't and shouldn't (with maybe one
| exception, mentioned next). What I have a problem with is
| the lack of cultural appreciation for free speech.
| Culturally, the powerful people at Youtube decided that
| free speech was not important, at least not as important
| as controlling the narrative and preventing the spread of
| ideas they considered "dangerous" (or whatever
| description they might provide). I think that's the
| mainstream cultural attitude in the USA today, and I
| think that's unfortunate. I wish that everyone would
| believe as I do, that free speech as a cultural value is
| important and should be honored and respected,
| _especially_ when it 's speech you disagree with.
|
| But to the legal argument: When that "business" gets to
| be the size and scope of a company like Youtube, yes I do
| think some regulations (i.e. restrictions) on what they
| are allowed to impose on their users are reasonable. If
| we had a dozen small providers then I don't think there's
| any need for regulation there because the market
| competition will provide a powerful check on potential
| abuse, but Youtube is an entrenched behemoth with a giant
| moat. At that scale, the amount of power they have over
| the people is immense, and IMHO approaches that of the
| government, and therefore there need to be some checks on
| that power.
|
| I do also think the "compelled speech" defense for
| Youtube et al is a bit of a stretch. I agree that
| compelled speech is not ok and is just as bad as
| restricted speech. However, I do see a difference between
| being a communication service and someone being compelled
| to say certain speech. I would strongly oppose an attempt
| to compel Youtube the company to say something, but I
| don't think somebody having a channel that is clearly
| attributed to themselves and _not_ to the parent company,
| is the equivalent of forcing Youtube the company to say
| something specific.
|
| For example, imagine a world where the telephone system
| operators got to decide which speech was permitted on
| their phone lines. They had people listening in the
| conversation and "moderating" by cutting off the live
| feed if the topic veered into something they disagreed
| with, and any voicemails/recordings made were also
| deleted and scrubbed so the recipients wouldn't hear the
| wrong think. In that scenario would you defend the rights
| of the phone company not to host "compelled" speech that
| they disagree with? Compelled speech would be forcing the
| company themselves to say something. Them passing the
| electricity on the wire (aka being a "dumb pipe") is not
| the same thing.
|
| I also think the argument falls apart when taken to it's
| logical extent. Who decides what speech they are
| "compelled" to host? If I make a Youtube video and say "I
| support <presidential candidate not favored by the
| company>" are they being compelled to say that? I don't
| think so.
| kube-system wrote:
| > I tried to make clear I wasn't making a legal argument
|
| I know which is why I used the word "should" to indicate
| moral hypothetical and not existing law.
|
| >I'm not sure how you got that from what I wrote
|
| Because you said that a situation in which YouTube
| exercised the right to moderate their own platform was a
| "total abandonment of free speech principles".
|
| But as you recognize, compelled speech is also a
| violation of free speech principles, and that is, whether
| either of us agree with it (I also don't entirely), it is
| also factually a free speech principle that is in balance
| here.
|
| > For example, imagine a world where the telephone system
| operators got to decide which speech was permitted on
| their phone lines.
|
| And we're back to the common carrier argument, which I
| think is more relevant to this conversation than a vague
| appeal to "free speech". Ultimately when the government
| grants monopolies to businesses, they start to become an
| effective arm of the government and should be regulated
| more in line with the rules that apply to government. I
| think we need to start classifying more of these
| platforms as common carriers and require them to carry
| all speech equally -- or break them up until the point
| they don't hold effective monopolies and/or wrongfully
| crush competitors.
| freedomben wrote:
| Indeed, sounds like we're largely in agreement then.
|
| > _Because you said that a situation in which YouTube
| exercised the right to moderate their own platform was a
| "total abandonment of free speech principles"_
|
| True I did say that, and I'll definitely walk that one
| back a little bit. I didn't mean their moderation as a
| whole was the abandonment, I mainly meant their
| philosophical approach to it. (i.e. deciding that
| anything that goes contrary to the CDC/WHO narrative may
| not be discussed)
| avar wrote:
| > Whereas what the 1A actually > states is the
| exact opposite: > That platform has the right to
| > ban that user, and the > government is
| constitutionally > restrained: If the government
| > were to make a law that forces > this social
| network to unban > this user, that'd be the 1A
| > violation.
|
| If I build a bridge and offer it for public use for a
| toll, and I overhear you saying something I don't like as
| you travel across in your car, you think the government
| stepping in if I ban you from traversing the bridge
| solely for that reason is a 1A violation?
|
| This principle is obvious if I was running a newspaper
| and printing user-submitted comments. I can have whatever
| inclusion policy I deem fit, or my own speech would be
| curtailed.
|
| But this is now being applied by private companies in
| cases wildly removed from that. Meta er whoever can ban
| two users having a private conversation on their
| platform.
|
| It seems to me that the private bridge builder in the
| example above has a stronger case than these companies in
| such cases.
|
| Perhaps I overhear that you dislike fast-food, and I only
| sell billboard space to fast-food companies.
|
| Or perhaps you think that would be just fine, and we just
| need to close the technological gap of being able to
| embed hypersensitive microphones into asphalt.
| dataflow wrote:
| > Then there are only 3 options
|
| I can imagine at least one more:
|
| 4. Americans believe companies too frequently do the
| government's bidding, and by allowing corporations to
| suppress speech, they're allowing the government to
| exploit that and indirectly violate their direct 1A
| rights.
| chgs wrote:
| Most people who go on about free speech are the ones who
| clamp down the most on it and are massive snowflakes when
| people decide not to buy their stuff because of their speech.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| Sorry, Fox News changed its mind in January. Come back in 2
| years and they'll be back to "pro free speech" (to mock
| minorities).
| mrtksn wrote:
| >the most easily agreeable part of what the EU has been after
|
| It's also probably the most dangerous for Apple. It creates a
| cash incentive to push people outside of Apple's walled garden
| and show them what's outside.
|
| I really really hope Apple gets its act together, they are the
| greatest "the user experience comes first" company and they
| actually have great hard tech but they show signs of rent
| seeking behavior which can destroy them.
|
| If Apple just play nice with EU, open up and focus on bringing
| the greatest experience possible they will keep winning. If
| not, they will have blunders and they will lose Europe since
| people are willing to look for alternatives as USA gets
| increasingly unpopular among the Europeans due to politics.
|
| The Apple's AI blunder is mostly a blunder only because they
| insist to do it all by themselves so to have higher margins on
| the services revenues. IMHO those blunders will be more
| damaging as the Americans no longer have the higher moral
| grounds than Koreans or Chinese.
|
| I hope Apple is treading carefully.
| Derbasti wrote:
| > If not, they will have blunders and they will lose Europe
| since people are willing to look for alternatives as USA gets
| increasingly unpopular among the Europeans due to politics.
|
| But what alternative? There is no European smartphone OS.
| Windows and Steam OS and XBox are US-american, too.
|
| I suppose Linux, Playstation, and Nintendo, then?
| mrtksn wrote:
| The alternatives are Samsung, Xiaomi, Oppo and others.
| Already the dominant brands in Europe. It doesn't have to
| be European, it has to be good and those are pretty good at
| much cheaper prices. They also offer premium models that
| Apple doesn't have a match.
|
| People pay a lot extra for the feelings the brand invokes
| in them. Tesla was like that when it was about the values
| it used to represent, right after Musk dropped those values
| they had to start pricing their vehicles based on the specs
| to compete with similarly specced alternatives.
|
| If Apple goes into fight with EU and becomes the "anti-
| european tech giant" they will have to start selling 300
| euro iPhones.
| reissbaker wrote:
| American brands should tread carefully: while _America_
| is willing to ban their (cheaper, sometimes better)
| competitors, Europe is much less willing to -- especially
| now as America itself has taken a much more bullying tone
| towards its allies.
| xandrius wrote:
| Wouldn't be sad about a Linux smartphone.
| ireadmevs wrote:
| My dream is to run NixOS in all my devices...
| codethief wrote:
| With all apps being sandboxed, though, please!
| msh wrote:
| There is android. Works pretty well in China without any
| google services.
| superzamp wrote:
| I would imagine that getting the user out of the in-app
| purchase payment screen and attempt to redirect them at the
| website for payment, have them figure out how to enter credit
| card details etc would result in a drastically decreased
| conversion rate though.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| So it should! Then Apple's App Store and IAP could compete
| on its own merits, rather than restricting competition from
| existing at all.
| mrangle wrote:
| Apple does compete on its own merits. Its merits are that
| it built and controls the operating system and hardware
| that people choose to buy.
|
| If other companies have an issue, then they can build
| their own software, their own hardware, and compete.
| withinboredom wrote:
| Companies don't make laws (unless you live somewhere like
| the US); people do. If the people say "stop fucking
| around and rent-seeking" then companies should have to do
| that. It's pretty simple, really. Just because you build
| your own hardware and software doesn't give you the right
| to do whatever you want.
| chgs wrote:
| Apple is free to leave the European market if it doesn't
| like the rules.
| mrtksn wrote:
| Imagine a major streaming service: Subscription through
| Apple 30USD/Month or 25USD/Month if you do it through this
| one click fintech app.
|
| The fintech app can even pay the streaming service for
| every customer they bring.
|
| So for the users who already have the fintech app its a no-
| brainer, click once and get a free coffee each month. For
| those who don't have the app already it can push them to
| create an account as they see it on every app as a cheaper
| alternative. In Europe at least, even traditional banks are
| able to create a new customer account through a few steps
| in the in the app. It's usually just about entering your
| name, taking a photo of your ID and then scanning your face
| by looking left and right on the camera. You can have a
| grace period to add the funds for the subscription.
|
| Banks already pay a lot of money for new customers, its
| pretty common in some places to offer interest-free loans
| or give cashbacks when you create a bank account through
| the app. They can partner with those services to offer
| months of free use or upgrades and then suddenly the value
| for the trouble of a few click and a scan goes up
| substantially.
| miohtama wrote:
| The money comes first (:
| mrangle wrote:
| Apple has its act together. Those, who are not Apple, do not
| in comparison. They are Big Mad that Apple does.
|
| You don't understand the term "rent seeking". Because in this
| case, it's Apple's competitors that are rent seeking by
| utilizing the force of the government to make Apple give
| competitors access to its private but non-monopolistic
| ecosystem.
|
| I think that Apple should call that bluff and leave the EU.
|
| Which in turn will increase public pressure on the EU, but
| not as functionally as it would in a democratic system.
|
| All hollow talk. It will lose all of its aggression the
| moment that Apple leaves the EU, and EU citizens are left
| with the remaining options.
| mrtksn wrote:
| Totally, the Spaniards are on the edge against EU for
| forcing Apple to allow competing services on %25 of the
| smartphones they use. Madrid is pouring police force into
| Barcelona as we speak as the Catalans started burning cars
| on the streets against the unelected bureaucrats
| threatening them to give App Store alternatives to every
| 4th smartphone. Unjustified violence by the police is being
| reported against people who don't want to know about
| cheaper payment options. The situation is considered stable
| at this point but I don't think that EU will survive if
| Apple pulls out of EU. The president of the EU commission
| was caught mumbling at the mic "Ich hoffe, Apple ruft nicht
| an oder blufft, sonst ist alles verloren." which roughly
| translates to "I hope Apple doesn't call or bluff or all is
| lost" in Bavarian.
| vander_elst wrote:
| Interested in learning more, do you have links to the
| sources?
| mrtksn wrote:
| It's joke :) It was impossible to give it a serious
| reply, so...
| fennecbutt wrote:
| They're being facetious.
|
| But here's a source for future readers:
| https://justpaste.it/jog4v
| vander_elst wrote:
| That might be a very risky bet. Currently a lot of people
| are looking for alternatives of US products, if Apple gets
| out of the EU, it might not be that easy to get back as the
| market might have drastically shifted.
| npc_anon wrote:
| People like you keep forgetting that the EU is the single
| largest consumer market in the world. This does not mean
| that Apple gets most of it revenue from the EU, but it's
| still a sweet $90B in 2024.
|
| In which world does a company give up on close to $100B in
| revenue out of spite?
| chgs wrote:
| In a hypothetical world where it threatens $1T of
| revenue.
| dehrmann wrote:
| I know it would leave a lot of money on the table, but if
| Apple had set the app store fee at 5% (enough to cover credit
| card fees and running the service) and been content with a
| 50% margin on hardware, it never would have been in this
| mess.
| akaij wrote:
| Even 15% would probably have been universally accepted.
| sabellito wrote:
| "Show signs of rent seeking behaviour" seems like an
| extremely generous position. Forbidding your customers from
| even mentioning The Outside is full-on rent seeking
| behaviour, since its inception.
| jader201 wrote:
| > _It 's telling that Gruber is pretty staunchly against EU/DMA
| interferance in Apple, and broadly thinks they're wrong. But
| this is the one thing he agree on_
|
| I've stopped seeing Gruber as any sort of authority on Apple
| for a while now. He's just a single guy with an opinion like
| everyone else, and it's, more times than not, clearly biased in
| favor of Apple.
|
| Some of his analysis of objective data is informative, but when
| he gets into subjective material, I tune out. I don't really
| care any more about what he says than most others sharing their
| opinion on the internet -- it's just one more data point to
| consider collectively alongside everyone else's.
| johnmaguire wrote:
| I agree with your overall comment, but I think this is
| basically what OP was getting at: it's not surprising that
| Gruber is against EU/DMA interference, yet even he has issues
| with this particular point.
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| I liked his piece on the Apple AI debacle, I figure if he is
| criticising Apple for that then there is something to the
| complaints.
|
| What I really dislike and the reason I don't subscribe to his
| feed is the politics.
| mentalgear wrote:
| A good start, but far from enough regarding the societal damage
| (anti-competitive, anti-user, psychological harm especially of
| minors, proliferation of radicalisation) they did.
| 1oooqooq wrote:
| *insert Mike Myers One Million Dollars meme
|
| they made more than the fine, so it's just reduced profit a
| little. mere higher cost of business and continue as usual.
| riffraff wrote:
| The DMA fines are not supposed to be punitive damages,
| they're a tool to correct behavior, like the GDPR.
|
| If Apple & co don't comply there are higher amounts that can
| be imposed, but the idea is that the companies will comply
| before that.
| mdhb wrote:
| The EU made a serious point that these are the first time
| they are issuing those fines as as such have capped them as a
| signal to show that they are serious but also that they
| aren't taking the maximalist approach some in the US are
| accusing them of.
|
| They can legally go for 10% of global revenue if I'm not
| mistaken as the top level of fines and both Apple and Meta
| would be wise to not find themselves as repeat offenders as a
| result.
| llm_nerd wrote:
| > The EU fines could stoke tensions with U.S President Donald
| Trump who has threatened to levy tariffs against countries that
| penalise U.S. companies.
|
| Mark Zuckerberg, in his appearance on Joe Rogan's podcast,
| specifically noted this as his goal for falling in behind Trump.
| That Trump would be the big-stick man that would protect Meta and
| other cos from foreign interference. Where "interference" is
| anything restricting that American exceptionalism "do anything we
| want, however we want".
|
| Only then Trump started a trade war with quite literally the
| entire world -- aside from, predictably, Russia -- and now he
| holds, as he likes to say, no cards. The EU and anyone else can
| do whatever they want and Zuck and co can cry about the millions
| they wasted trying to buy a protection racket.
|
| Of course Meta could just withdrawn from the EU. I _wish_ they
| would withdraw from Canada. Their garbage misinformation platform
| is a massive net negative for humanity and has offered nothing
| but harm for the planet.
| xvector wrote:
| Most Canadian small businesses rely on Meta to get customers.
|
| If you think these companies don't add value, you are totally
| oblivious to the millions of small businesses that _rely_ on
| these platforms to reach customers and niche audiences around
| the world.
| pjc50 wrote:
| They need _a_ platform, but it doesn 't have to be Meta.
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| Yeah, because small businesses didn't exist before Facebook
| arrived.
| lores wrote:
| Someone here hazarded the hypothesis that Trump's tariffs are a
| stick aimed not towards other countries, but towards American
| corporations, who have to pledge fealty (and resources) to
| Trump in exchange for relief. I think it makes a lot of sense,
| if any of this is rational, which I'm not entirely sold on.
| blitzar wrote:
| You gotta kick back to the big guy.
| piltdownman wrote:
| Look at 47's truth social some time. In between the posts
| 'destroying' liberals and lionising the worst actors in his
| party, he posts up a disturbing amount of 'settlements' with
| Law Firms that previously displeased him.
|
| They were basically forced at gunpoint to make deals to
| provide pro bono services to the Trump administration, in
| return for regulators dropping investigations into their
| diversity practices.
|
| The firms - including Kirkland & Ellis, Latham & Watkins,
| Allen Overy Shearman Sterling, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett,
| and Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft - are among the most
| prestigious and recognized firms in the US.
|
| Cadwalader is the former firm of Todd Blanche, who resigned
| his partnership there to represent Trump in criminal cases
| when the firm would not take on Trump as a client. Blanche is
| now the deputy attorney general - the number two official at
| the Department of Justice.
|
| Overall the MAGA cabinet has now secured more than $900m in
| pro bono pledges from law firms threatened with either
| executive orders or investigations from the equal opportunity
| commission. How this isn't seen as a straight up RICO case or
| old-fashioned criminal shakedown is beyond me.
| paxys wrote:
| It's always funny when shit happens and everyone jumps over
| themselves to figure out what "5D chess" the people in charge
| are playing. There's never any chess. They are just
| incompetent.
| lores wrote:
| That's not 5D chess at all. Very straightforward, in fact,
| and backed up by the documented strong-arming of law firms.
| rsynnott wrote:
| > Of course Meta could just withdrawn from the EU.
|
| I mean, probably not without being sued by their shareholders.
| As a public company, you cannot simply abandon 40bn
| revenue/year because you feel aggrieved.
|
| But yeah, the "you'd better be nice to us, EC, or Trump might
| be angry" tactic is kinda shot at this point.
| barbazoo wrote:
| > I mean, probably not without being sued by their
| shareholders. As a public company, you cannot simply abandon
| 40bn revenue/year because you feel aggrieved.
|
| What are the laws that Meta would be violating?
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| >As a public company, you cannot simply abandon 40bn
| revenue/year because you feel aggrieved.
|
| The fines need to get bigger then.
| popol12 wrote:
| I hope this will make Apple finally comply with EU law and allow
| app side loading on iOS. Real side loading, not the joke they
| implemented since iOS 17.
| SanjayMehta wrote:
| I would not hold my breath. They are adept at malicious
| compliance. Cook will do a cost/benefit assessment and will
| come up with another workaround.
| londons_explore wrote:
| The EU should instead set targets.
|
| Ie. "More than half of users have installed at least one app
| from a non-apple affiliated store by Jan 2026 or you shall
| pay a fine of $10 per month per iPhone in use in the EU".
| dlachausse wrote:
| That's a terrible idea. How would they have any control
| over that. I think you are way overestimating the amount of
| iOS users that want to use software from outside the App
| Store.
| rokkamokka wrote:
| Agreed, the only realistic way they could hit such a
| target is to shut down their own app store...
| londons_explore wrote:
| If 3rd party stores didn't charge the Apple tax, I think
| you'd find plenty of apps moving to other stores, and
| within a matter of weeks more than half of users would
| have used a 3rd party store.
| dlachausse wrote:
| That's my worst nightmare. On my iPhone I want the
| equivalent of Spotify, not Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, Max,
| etc.
| socalgal2 wrote:
| I want the equivalent of a shops in the real world. One
| shop doesn't carry everything. Even Spotify doesn't carry
| everything. For one, Apple doesn't allow adult content
| apps. Steam does. I'm sure there's a market for adult
| games on iPhone as Steam's success there would seem to
| suggest. I don't think Apple should be required to sell
| adult games but I also don't think they should get to
| dictate that people can't use their phones for adult
| games. So, more stores would great.
| dlachausse wrote:
| Why can't people just buy Android phones that allow for
| this? They should change, not Apple and their users that
| like the walled garden.
| sheepdestroyer wrote:
| It's a bit of a false comparison, since you wouldn't have
| to pay monthly subscriptions to others stores as you have
| to for streaming services.
| dlachausse wrote:
| Yeah but I would have to deal with multiple app stores of
| varying security, quality control, resource usage, and
| other annoyances. No thanks.
| socalgal2 wrote:
| That really depends on the store. If Value made a Steam
| store, or Nintendo made a Nintendo store with Nintendo
| exclusives I'd expect millions of installs.
| neilc wrote:
| Maybe but that is also not within Apple's control.
| StopDisinfo910 wrote:
| > They are adept at malicious compliance.
|
| They just got fined 500 millions for failure to comply so I'm
| not sure adept is the adjective I would use.
| weavie wrote:
| 500 million is like half a days revenue.
| mdhb wrote:
| The actual fines for this moving forward are up to 10% of
| a companies global revenue. The EU made a big point to
| say that this is the first time they are issuing those
| fines and as a result they are smaller than they
| otherwise would be especially in the case of repeat
| offenders.
| serial_dev wrote:
| Whether it's adept or not depends on what would have
| happened if they actually complied.
|
| Sure, a half a billion fine sounds like a lot, but if you
| don't have another number to compare against, you can't
| tell if it was clever or not.
| _Algernon_ wrote:
| How much additional profit have they made based on their
| malicious compliance? I bet it dwarfs this fine.
| myrmidon wrote:
| That is not so clear. Appstore revenue is ~ $100
| billion/y, but Apple makes less than 30% from that.
|
| So the question is: Would more convincing compliance have
| cost Apple more than single digit percentage decreases in
| Appstore sales? Comparing the F-Droid vs Playstore
| situation, this seems unlikely to me.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Apple's take is 30%, but they have expenses that have to
| be covered by that. The profit if any would be much less
| than $30bn.
| Jensson wrote:
| > The profit if any would be much less than $30bn.
|
| It doesn't cost that much to maintain and run the
| appstore, it is almost all profits.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| I've never heard anyone make this kind of claim before,
| you are trying to tell me that credit card processing
| fees are negligible, software engineers work for free,
| advertising doesn't require overhead, etc...
|
| I guess that kind of thinking is why alot of startups
| just fail so easily.
| pornel wrote:
| If Apple is so bad at this that they have to charge 30%,
| they should have failed in the free market to a
| competitor that can do the same or better for 3%.
| However, Apple has prevented that, not by being better or
| cheaper, but by implementing DRM that locks users out
| from having a choice (and the market as a whole ended up
| being a duopoly with cartel-like pricing).
|
| Whether Apple can be cheaper isn't really the point (they
| should be, digital services are a very high margin
| business). It's that they're anti-competitive to the
| point that the market for paid apps and in-app payments
| became inefficient (in a financial sense).
| oofManBang wrote:
| Perhaps "compliance" is the wrong term, but surely such a
| tiny fine will do little to convince them to comply.
| gebruikersnaam wrote:
| They have a couple of months (2? 6?) to comply, otherwise
| they get additional fines.
| judge2020 wrote:
| Isn't it just in the name of competition, i.e. alternative app
| stores? Or is sideloading an explicit goal of the EU's efforts?
| dmitrygr wrote:
| Generally, as a society, we hold that a contract cannot be
| modified without both parties' agreement. When you bought that
| phone, it was with the completely clear, overt, and in no way
| uncertain understanding that it does specifically X Y Z, and
| does not do A B C. Now, without additional payment to the
| counterparty, you're demanding your phone do A B C. What am I
| missing? According to accepted understandings of contracts, how
| are you possibly in the right? How are you possibly in a
| position to demand government use force to modify a contract
| you accepted before to somehow benefit you more at a cost to
| your counterparty?
| bootsmann wrote:
| Parts of the contract can be illegal, this is completely
| within the power of the EU to enforce a crackdown on illegal
| contracts.
| Sloowms wrote:
| I'm not sure what society you are referring to but contracts
| have to adhere to laws in the EU.
|
| This is also about software that is being updated. So the
| transaction is not completed yet. Apple could probably go the
| route of not providing the update to phones that were sold
| before the law was voted on/in place. I would guess that
| would lead to other legal battles.
| dmitrygr wrote:
| And is it reasonable that the laws are created after the
| contract was already agreed to and still apply to it? At
| least here in the United States, laws are not allowed to
| make things illegal that happened before the laws were
| written.
| vanviegen wrote:
| You are of the opinion that it is reasonable for a company to
| expect you to read, understand and fully agree with a
| contract that consists of countless pages of opaque legalese
| and that you have no say in whatsoever, just in order to use
| a service that's arguably a necessity to participate in
| public life?
|
| The EU does not seem to share that opinion, and puts some
| restrictions on these types of 'contracts'. Are you really
| concerned that this is somehow unfair towards these
| companies? Companies that retain whole teams of lawyers to
| create a contract that hardly any of its billion counter
| parties (individual consumers) can fully comprehend, let
| alone push back on?
| dmitrygr wrote:
| What service? You are free to use cellular service without
| your iPhone. There are other phones available. Apple is not
| gating your access to cellular
| Ukv wrote:
| There's a range of anti-competitive behavior which can
| subvert that ideal, and as such there's regulation aimed to
| prevent it. Apple used to forbid apps from telling users
| about Apple's 30% cut or cheaper places to buy the app, for
| instance, hindering users from making an informed choice.
|
| Many of the policies in question are intentionally not
| publicized to end-users, often requiring first paying to be
| part of the developer program before you can even see what
| you need to agree to to publish an app.
| dmitrygr wrote:
| > intentionally not publicized to end-users
|
| Apple allows no-questions-asked full-refund returns for two
| weeks. > requiring first paying to be part
| of the developer program
|
| They are all available right here, online, without any
| purchase requirement:
| https://developer.apple.com/support/terms/
| Ukv wrote:
| > Apple allows no-questions-asked full-refund returns for
| two weeks.
|
| That's the bare legal minimum in the EU. Many anti-
| competitive practices are not things consumers find out
| about within some short fixed period of time, if at all.
|
| > They are all available right here, online, without any
| purchase requirement:
| https://developer.apple.com/support/terms/
|
| True that it does now all (including schedules 2/3 and
| the guidelines) appear to be publicly available. Looks as
| if this was done on June 7th 2021, shortly after the EU
| Commission had sent the Statement of Objections on April
| 30th 2021.
| p_ing wrote:
| Is this a fine the companies can appeal, or is this a final
| decision?
| lekevicius wrote:
| They can appeal.
| zoobab wrote:
| They will appeal to Court so that they win another 2 years.
| rini17 wrote:
| They called it on themselves. Were so greedy with access to
| unlimited capital, bought everything out or undercut with free.
| And now there are no EU competitors left to lobby for more
| favorable regulations.
| iagooar wrote:
| The EU is using populist claims to introduce laws with
| ideological bias (big corp bad, America bad, America corp super
| bad). Everyone knows the digital act was never meant to be a fair
| set of rules, it was introduced to punish US companies at will.
|
| At the same time, most governments, public offices, agencies and
| businesses in Europe would not be able to operate normally
| without access to American software.
|
| The problem is that it is way easier to (over)regulate and tax,
| than to create a strong environment for business and innovation
| to thrive, in order to grow your own tech giants.
| rini17 wrote:
| The real problem was that Silicon Valley was flooded with
| capital and bought out all competitors. Or undercut with free.
| Or all kinds of other Microsoftlike practices. So nobody was
| left in the EU to advocate for better rules.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| If that is true, how come new competitors spring up all the
| time in Silicon Valley and other places in the US while the
| European sector lies dormant?
| codingbot3000 wrote:
| That's just a US propaganda myth people can't stop
| parroting. The SV ecosystem is definitely better funded,
| but there is no lack of digital start-ups in the EU.
| rini17 wrote:
| Consider what happened to Nokia. The first business blunder
| caused it to be sold to US and gutted. Now if someone else
| wants to make smartphones in EU, has to start from scratch.
| But if that happens to US company, everything(at least the
| IP) stays in the US.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| Nokia is a strange story. I remember when it happened,
| and absolutely everybody knew it would kill the company
| to sell it to Microsoft. So of course the leaders and
| owners of Nokia knew the same thing. My guess is that
| they decided that they couldn't compete with the iPhone
| and decided to cash out what they could. Maybe Microsoft
| could help them with shuttling money to offshore accounts
| or some other under the table services? Nokia was
| publicly traded, so it could have been a great robbing of
| small time investors. But did Microsoft really get
| anything out of the deal that was worth the price?
|
| I had the Nokia N9 at the time, which was years ahead of
| its time and one of the most well designed smartphones so
| far, both in hardware and especially in software. Modern
| iOS and Android still look dated in comparison.
| skummetmaelk wrote:
| That's a lot of emotional words without a single bit of context
| from the actual article. Your comment is better suited to FOX
| news' website.
| iagooar wrote:
| I don't see how your comment is adding value to the
| discussion besides claiming emotionality and an absurd
| reference to FOX news, which implies that my opinions are not
| welcome here and I should go elsewhere with them.
|
| My post is my opinion, offering an entry point for a
| discussion to those who might have a different opinion from
| mine.
| kubb wrote:
| The opinion is so detached from reality that it's not going
| to result in a useful discussion.
|
| There's nothing about America in the consumer protection
| laws. It doesn't matter if the service provider is a
| corporation or a non profit.
|
| You can have any opinion you want but if you don't ensure
| the quality of it, people will call it out for what it is.
|
| In some circles you can defend lack of intellectual rigor
| with ,,any opinion is valid" and ,,you just don't like my
| politics", but that's useful for electoral politics, not
| for intellectual inquiry.
| iagooar wrote:
| > The opinion is so detached from reality that it's not
| going to result in a useful discussion.
|
| Maybe you should try.
|
| > There's nothing about America in the consumer
| protection laws. It doesn't matter if the service
| provider is a corporation or a non profit.
|
| Thierry Breton and his "the sheriff is in town". Jean-
| Noel Barrot: "Apply with the Greatest Firmness"
|
| Axel Voss, German MEP, called for the EU to use the DSA
| against (what he calls) fake news and platform owners
| like Elon Musk interfering in elections. This explicitly
| links the DSA to regulating US tech companies
| (particularly X).
|
| Pedro Sanchez (Spanish Prime Minister) proposed using the
| DSA to regulate social media, fight bots, fake profiles,
| and go after tech barons undermining democracy - US
| platforms, of course.
|
| You may agree or disagree with my views being right or
| wrong, but it is clear that the leitmotif seems to be EU
| politics vs US big tech here.
| tzs wrote:
| By that ridiculous argument the federal case against Al
| Capone showed that the US tax code was ideologically
| biased against Italian Americans.
| kubb wrote:
| When it comes to election interference it's more like EU
| vs Russia. Who owns the platforms is secondary, it's not
| like TikTok should be allowed to do election interference
| because it isn't American.
|
| You'll learn in the course of your future experience that
| not every discussion will introduce a new perspective
| into your life. And you usually can tell very early when
| that's the case.
| _Algernon_ wrote:
| >Maybe you should try.
|
| If somebody claims the moon is made of cheese without
| joking, I'm not going to argue with them. I'm going to
| laugh them out of the room assuming.
|
| Your opinion is like claiming the moon is made of cheese.
| dabeeeenster wrote:
| "Over regulate and tax"? What? Have you done any reading on how
| almost all US tech companies go to extreme lengths to avoid
| paying tax?
| iagooar wrote:
| Most companies in the world do exactly that. Prove me wrong.
| dabeeeenster wrote:
| Thanks for proving my point that they need more taxation.
| iagooar wrote:
| Are you saying that if a business (or individual) wants
| to pay the lowest tax possible (legally, that is) it
| should be a reason for more taxation? Is that what
| taxation is about, revenge?
| tossandthrow wrote:
| Of cause that is a reason for more taxation.
|
| There are 2 types of taxes: Those we charge for revenue
| and those we charge for behavior.
|
| We don't charge income tax to deter people from working.
| We charge income tax because we really need money to fund
| stuff.
|
| If you can not raise enough money, because companies /
| individuals are optimizing their tax, then you change it
| such that the budget holds.
|
| ... Oh well, I reckon if you are in the US you just keep
| borrowing. In that case, sorry about my reasoning.
| wasmitnetzen wrote:
| The very idea of this regulation is that Tech Giants are not
| desirable, since they're mono- or oligopolies.
|
| Any average EU politician would be far left in the US.
| codingbot3000 wrote:
| Can't deny that some EU politicians (mostly conservative ones,
| surprise, surprise) have a hidden agenda behind it.
|
| The statement that gov & businesses in Europe would not be able
| to operate normally without American software is easy to
| disprove. Just look at how easy the Chinese or the Russians
| could shed or avoid their dependency on crappy Microsoft or
| expensive US cloud providers. The problem is just that many
| European politicians are so technically inept they believe it
| themselves.
| phtrivier wrote:
| > Apple faces a EUR500 million fine for breaching the
| regulation's rules for app stores, while Meta drew a penalty of
| EUR200 million for its "pay or consent" advertising model,
|
| > The procedural fines fall short of the two giant penalties
| issued by the EU executive under its antitrust laws last year:
| EUR1.8 billion to Apple for abusing its dominant position while
| distributing music streaming apps, and EUR797 million to Meta for
| pushing its classified ads service on social media users.
|
| Really honest questions: are those fines actually paid, in
| practice ? Is there a way for a citizen to know ? (As in, do they
| appear in the public budget of the UE ?) Or are they somehow
| deducted from subsidies, added to taxes, etc... ?
|
| I know who collects taxes in France ("Le Tresor Public"). I don't
| know of a EU version of a treasury. Is it collected by one of the
| member states (Ireland, I would guess ?)
| i_have_an_idea wrote:
| > somehow deducted from subsidies
|
| Do you think the EU subsidizes Meta/Apple.
| phtrivier wrote:
| Not necessarily Meta, but it's very much possible that a
| large company is the recipient of both EU subsidies and EU
| fines :)
| nuthje wrote:
| > Fines imposed on undertakings found in breach of EU antitrust
| rules are paid into the general EU budget. This money is not
| earmarked for particular expenses, but Member States'
| contributions to the EU budget for the following year are
| reduced accordingly. The fines therefore help to finance the EU
| and reduce the burden for taxpayers.
|
| This quote is re: anti-trust, but likely generalizes.
|
| https://competition-policy.ec.europa.eu/index/fines_en#:~:te...
| judge2020 wrote:
| > "pay or consent" advertising model,
|
| Wait, so the EU has made it illegal to sell a paid service
| while also offering an alternative where the user pays via
| seeing ads?
| tantalor wrote:
| It's not the ads you are consenting to, its the personal data
| collection and targeting.
|
| You could have non-personalized, or contextual ads. But those
| are much less effective.
| cge wrote:
| >You could have non-personalized, or contextual ads. But
| those are much less effective.
|
| This is always a bit frustrating to me, in that, if someone
| doesn't like personal data collection, they likely have
| enough blocked that the attempts at targeted advertisements
| are likely to be very ineffective. And even in spaces where
| there is little personal data available, online advertising
| still seems to desperately cling to targeting rather than
| context.
|
| I remember being struck by the contrast between the printed
| Times Literary Supplement, with advertisements for new book
| releases, conferences, cultural events, and so on, which
| all seem quite relevant to the audience, are often
| enjoyable and informative, and have directly motivated me
| to buy things, and the automated advertisements that were
| added to their podcast, for things like... a football-
| themed advertisement for a car dealership vaguely located
| near some rough geolocation of my IP address.
| tremon wrote:
| No, the EU has made it illegal to extort payment before
| allowing people to opt-out of data collection or profiling.
| g-b-r wrote:
| Except for newspapers
| kzrdude wrote:
| right, that seems to be the model for German newspapers
| online, haven't seen it other places.
| g-b-r wrote:
| It seems to have become common at least in several
| European countries
| tantalor wrote:
| Extortion is a stretch. Nobody is being forced to use these
| services.
| buzzy_hacker wrote:
| Tell that to the embedded Facebook trackers ubiquitous
| throughout the web
| arkh wrote:
| > embedded Facebook trackers
|
| And most social trackers and google analytics, and
| adsense, and most captcha alternatives or stripe anti
| fraud scripts.
|
| People have sold their audience to FAANG for 2 decades
| now.
|
| And let's not think too much about the Android and iOS
| ecosystems (phone, TV, "assistants" etc.).
| lucb1e wrote:
| Try not using Wechat in China. Facebook's Whatsapp is
| going in that direction in the Netherlands and probably
| other European countries: I don't yet _need_ it for daily
| life, but a lot of services are moving to supporting
| WhatsApp and turning off things like regular phone
| support, website chat, etc. The only things where it was
| a requirement so far, were things I didn 't yet care
| about (like sending in voice messages to be used in a
| podcast) but I bet it won't stay that way forever and
| sooner or later a company will discontinue email support
| in favor of "just message us on Whatsapp". Between going
| back to the 80s and writing/printing letters and sending
| them in the mail, and installing WhatsApp, any reasonable
| person will begrudgingly click that agree button no
| matter if they really agree. I'd say they were extorted
| at that point and it is not voluntarily/freely given
| consent, even if they technically have made that choice
| themselves
| jdlshore wrote:
| Under the GDPR, it's illegal to treat PII like currency. You
| can't gate a service behind PII consent.
| jobs_throwaway wrote:
| Whack. Let consumers and sellers decide what to do with
| their own data
| SllX wrote:
| No. They just made it illegal for Meta specifically to do it,
| and they're reserving judgment for anyone else on their hit
| list covered by the DMA. The DMA is not neutral laws on
| neutral principles despite the PR and the extra layers of
| indirection, it targets American and Chinese companies
| specifically because that's what it was designed to do.
| phtrivier wrote:
| Not Meta specifically, although Meta as a monopoly on being
| apple to infrige this rule. (A long time ago, in a
| capitalism far, far way, America was against monopolies and
| cartels. Those days will come back.)
|
| > The DMA is not neutral laws on neutral principles
|
| What do you mean "neutral law on neutral principles" ? Does
| that exist ?
|
| I can agree on some version of "not a neutral law" in that
| it is "objectively" targeted: the law makes a difference
| between smaller actors and bigger ones ("gatekeepers") (and
| it's not clear to me if the criterias (size, audience,
| revenues, etc...) are set in store, or arbitrary [1]).
|
| It happens that they're all from the US except TikTok's
| ByteDance and Booking.com. It was probably _designed_ for
| that.
|
| But I suspect the case here "Meta is offering you to pay,
| so that they don't have to respect your rights to privacy".
| I suspect it would be illegal for even the smaller data
| collectors. But IANAL.
|
| However, the "neutral principles" don't make sense. All
| laws are principled, except the laws of physics.
|
| In this case, yes, the "principle" is that personal data is
| something to be treated with care. As often, you can state
| that something is a "principle" when someone can have the
| opposite version. So the "opposite" version of this is that
| personal data is a commodity that can be sold at will.
|
| None of those version is neutrally "true" or "false".
|
| However, we just happen, in the EU, to have pretty strong
| memory of people doing bad things with extensive databases,
| so we have different views on the matter.
|
| The shame is that it never was directly settled in a
| democratic debate - it's entirely the work of the
| legislative bodies of the EU, which, though elected and
| representative, are not exactly well know of famous. Maybe
| the debate is too technical to be popular.
|
| [1] https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/q
| anda_...
|
| [2] https://digital-markets-
| act.ec.europa.eu/gatekeepers_en#book...
| SllX wrote:
| > Not Meta specifically, although Meta as a monopoly on
| being apple to infrige this rule. (A long time ago, in a
| capitalism far, far way, America was against monopolies
| and cartels. Those days will come back.)
|
| I've been asking for years here and nobody has made a
| solid argument to me how Facebook has a monopoly in
| _anything_ or how a social networking monopoly even
| _could_ exist. It's a competitive market out there. Some
| of their competitors are on the DMA's hit list too.
|
| > What do you mean "neutral law on neutral principles" ?
| Does that exist ?
|
| Sure it does. A law against murder is a law applied to
| everyone. That's a neutral law, and it's not targeted,
| and it's a fairly neutral principle to state that "murder
| is intolerable in our society".
|
| > However, we just happen, in the EU, to have pretty
| strong memory of people doing bad things with extensive
| databases, so we have different views on the matter.
|
| The bad people doing bad things with extensive databases
| were European governments.
| phtrivier wrote:
| > I've been asking for years here and nobody has made a
| solid argument to me how Facebook has a monopoly in
| anything or how a social networking monopoly even could
| exist. It's a competitive market out there. Some of their
| competitors are on the DMA's hit list too.
|
| This seems pretty convincing to me, given that Meta owns
| Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp: [1]
|
| > Facebook leads the pack with 3.04 billion users,
| maintaining its position as the most extensive social
| networking site globally. > YouTube follows with 2.5
| billion users, reinforcing its status as the premier
| platform for video sharing and consumption. > WhatsApp
| and Instagram are tied in the third position, each with 2
| billion users. WhatsApp is renowned for its messaging
| services, while Instagram is a favorite for photo and
| video sharing. > TikTok, with 1.5 billion users, rounds
| out the top five, showcasing its rapid rise as a leading
| platform for short-form video content.
|
| In terms of social media, the only "competitor" at the
| same scale as facebook is tiktok and snap.
|
| We might leave in the bubble that uses twitter, bluesky,
| reddit, etc... but their small relative to the blue site,
| for better or for worse.
|
| Break up Meta into differents, apps, and suddenly the
| monopoly becomes much less obvious.
|
| > and it's a fairly neutral principle to state that
| "murder is intolerable in our society".
|
| Do you mean it's "neutral" because there is no
| "arbitrage" in deciding if someone is a murderer ?
|
| Or that the principle behind it is universal ?
|
| In this case, is it still "neutral" once your start
| talking about, say, self defense ? death penalty ?
| assisted suicide ? war times ? (or, if you're going to
| stretch it a lot, abortion ?) I'm not bringing it to say
| there is an equivalence, I'm saying you _will_ have
| people making the equivalence, and different people will
| disagree. It's called principles - no law say they have
| to be universal, and they're usually not.
|
| [1] https://prioridata.com/data/social-media-
| usage/#Social_Media...
| Aloisius wrote:
| _> It happens that they 're all from the US except
| TikTok's ByteDance and Booking.com. It was probably
| _designed_ for that._
|
| Booking.com is owned by an American company.
|
| _> In the EU, to have pretty strong memory of people
| doing bad things with extensive databases_
|
| Lack of databases didn't stop "people" from doing bad
| things. They _built_ the databases, rather quickly, while
| they were doing bad things.
|
| I find it bizarre that the response to trying to prevent
| the rise of another fascist European government was to
| avoid collecting data as if a populist fourth Reich
| wouldn't ignore the law and use neighbors to rat out
| neighbors again. Not that I believe for a second any
| European country doesn't keep far more extensive records
| on citizens than the Nazis did when they came to power.
| mapcars wrote:
| > while Meta drew a penalty of EUR200 million for its "pay or
| consent" advertising model, which requires that European Union
| users pay to access ad-free versions of Facebook and Instagram
|
| Wait, isn't pretty much all web content is like this nowadays?
| You have to buy youtube premium to avoid ads, how is it
| different?
| tpm wrote:
| > You have to buy youtube premium to avoid ads
|
| Or you can block the ads in the browser for free. In this case,
| you have to consent being tracked (or pay) or otherwise the
| page will not display.
| sussmannbaka wrote:
| It's not about being shown ads, it's about collecting (and
| sharing to third parties) private information that goes beyond
| the technically required amount to use the service. GDPR says
| companies need to get my consent in order to do that, that I am
| free to not give this consent and that a service can't not be
| provided to me just because I don't give this consent. Facebook
| and a bunch of other companies said "aha! We'll just create a
| paid alternative!" but this doesn't comply with the law. It
| just took a while to take this through the courts but if you
| read the law it's clear they just stalled for time on this one.
| mapcars wrote:
| Thanks for clarifying, it was confusing to figure that out
| from the article
| blitzar wrote:
| Pay or have your information harvested and sold. Its extortion.
| jdminhbg wrote:
| You're missing a third option there, which makes it not
| extortion.
| blitzar wrote:
| If the third way is "don't use the product" facebook have
| that covered too... they will harvest and sell your
| personal information.
| StewardMcOy wrote:
| I may be misreading it, but I believe the third option the
| EU is expects from Meta is non-targeted advertising.
| jobs_throwaway wrote:
| You must be either broke and/or paranoid. If it matters to
| you, pay up. If it doesn't, you get to use a service for
| free.
| Aloisius wrote:
| Who does Facebook sell data to?
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| "Harvested and processed to add cohort tags to include in
| advertisement real-time bidding contests so advertisers can
| know how much to bid", while more precise, isn't as punchy
| as "harvested and sold".
| Aloisius wrote:
| So it's not literally sold?
|
| I've been confused about this for a while. Given data is
| what allows them a unique advantage for their advertising
| product, it seemed odd that Facebook would sell that data
| to others.
|
| But to hear people talk, a company could literally buy
| personal information from Facebook.
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| Yeah, that makes sense. Facebook wants the data so they
| can provide more accurate advertising "cohorts". The
| accuracy is the value that other people see, hence
| "selling" the data even though they're really selling an
| ad view.
| overstay8930 wrote:
| Nobody was holding a gun up to my head forcing me to open
| Facebook or give them money
| zmgsabst wrote:
| YouTube allows you to disable personalized ads.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/intl/en_us/howyoutubeworks/user-sett...
| AndrewDucker wrote:
| They are saying that there should be the option where you don't
| get your data harvested and are shown ads without your privacy
| being violated.
| WhyNotHugo wrote:
| US officials and businessmen keep on repeating the same thing:
|
| > The European Commission is attempting to handicap successful
| American businesses while allowing Chinese and European companies
| to operate under different standards.
|
| But this is wildly untrue. The EU isn't hand-picking individual
| organisations and fining them because they're American, they're
| fining them because they're in breach of existing legislation.
| The same legislation applies to local companies.
|
| Ironically, it's the US who takes stances like the one they claim
| the EU is taken. E.g.: The US required that TikTok be sold,
| without actually proving that TikTok was in breach of any actual
| law.
|
| But repeating the same claims gets those claims out into the
| media, and that's what people hear. So we see a dissonance
| between what the media says (and many people believe) and what's
| really happening.
| paxys wrote:
| US corporations are too used to breaking laws as they see fit
| and getting away with a slap on the wrist, so being asked to
| follow the rules feels like an attack to them.
| skyyler wrote:
| >So we see a dissonance between what the media says (and many
| people believe) and what's really happening.
|
| This thing right here terrifies me. The entertainment-
| information media oligopoly has a tight grasp on public
| conversations. It feels like a hydra that can't be defeated.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| It can be defeated by talking to people about things. If you
| are known to be an expert in topic X, and you are saying
| something different to what the media says about topic X (and
| which makes more sense), people (who know you and your
| reputation) are inclined to believe you over the media.
|
| This only has a local impact, but global is made of local.
| skyyler wrote:
| I do this as much as I can. Between chatrooms and local
| meets, I spend a significant portion of my time attempting
| to politely dispel misinformation.
|
| It's exhausting, but it's worth it.
|
| I want to organise with other people that do this, but I'm
| not sure how to do that. It feels like our efforts would be
| multiplied if we started to publish or otherwise spread
| information.
| walkingthisquai wrote:
| Well... Though I agree with you in principle, the DMA does
| target specific gatekeeper companies and the criteria for these
| were set conveniently to ensure no EU company is regulated by
| it. So I can see their point a little
| jakob_endler wrote:
| thats only kinda right. The DMA does include booking.com as a
| gatekeeper, which is european. But most gatekeepers (except
| booking and tiktok) are US-based
| Aloisius wrote:
| Booking Holdings is American. They bought booking.com in
| 2005.
| bojan wrote:
| Booking.com was European, is not any more. It is now a
| subsidiary of Booking Holding (formerly Priceline), based
| in Connecticut.
| chgs wrote:
| That's of course the reason these types of companies are
| American - Americans are rich and can buy out foreign
| companies which are successful.
| johnmaguire wrote:
| Isn't the question whether they were set _because_ they were
| US companies, or because they are dominant gatekeepers on the
| Internet?
|
| 5/7 designated gatekeepers are US companies: https://digital-
| markets-act.ec.europa.eu/gatekeepers_en
| dwaite wrote:
| I thought Booking Holdings Inc was also American.
|
| There are zero European companies, including Spotify - the
| #1 music streaming marketplace in the world.
| Zopieux wrote:
| What exactly does Spotify gatekeep though?
| Aloisius wrote:
| They're a gatekeeper in the same way YouTube or TikTok
| is.
|
| They control access of businesses, in this case music
| labels, to the final customer.
| johnmaguire wrote:
| That's not really true. You can easily switch to Deezer,
| Apple Music, Tidal, Qobuz, YouTube Music, etc. You'll
| have access to just about the exact same library of
| music.
|
| You can't just ignore YouTube, TikTok, Facebook
| Marketplace and still have access to the content they
| gatekeep.
| Aloisius wrote:
| The DMA doesn't care how easy for final customers to
| switch. If it did, Chrome wouldn't be designated a
| gatekeeper given how easy it is to switch to Firefox or
| brave or a dozen other browsers.
|
| The DMA is about disintermediation of businesses from
| customers on large platforms with business and non-
| business users and durable user bases.
| johnmaguire wrote:
| The problem with Chrome and the DMA has to do with the
| fact that Alphabet does these "don'ts":
|
| - treat services and products offered by the gatekeeper
| itself more favourably in ranking than similar services
| or products offered by third parties on the gatekeeper's
| platform
|
| - prevent users from un-installing any pre-installed
| software or app if they wish so (Chrome on Android can be
| disabled but not uninstalled)
|
| - track end users outside of the gatekeepers' core
| platform service for the purpose of targeted advertising,
| without effective consent having been granted.
|
| https://digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu/about-
| dma_en#what-d...
| Aloisius wrote:
| None of that is used to determine who is a gatekeeper.
|
| The assessment for whether Chrome qualified as a
| gatekeeper is less than 3 pages long. All they care about
| is whether they qualify as a platform and that they are
| over the threshold for active non-business users, active
| business users, revenue in the EU for enough time.
|
| At no point did they concern themselves with potential
| anti-competitive practices in making the determination.
|
| It's only _after_ they 're designated a gatekeeper that
| they're required to avoid things like self-preferencing
| or negotiating MFN terms with business. This conveniently
| allows the EU to pick and choose who the restrictive
| rules apply to on a company by company and product by
| product basis.
|
| https://ec.europa.eu/competition/digital_markets_act/case
| s/2...
| johnmaguire wrote:
| I think the document you really want to look at is this
| one, which is the actual regulation the DMA is operating
| under: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2022/1925/oj/eng
|
| That regulation is very much concerned with anti-
| competitive practices. What we're seeing now is the
| application (or execution) of those regulations.
|
| When I look at Regulation (EU) 2022/1925, it's pretty
| clear to me that Spotify does not have, for example,
| "very strong network effects, an ability to connect many
| business users with many end users through the
| multisidedness of these services, a significant degree of
| dependence of both business users and end users, lock-in
| effects, a lack of multi-homing for the same purpose by
| end users, vertical integration, and data driven-
| advantages."
| Aloisius wrote:
| What?
|
| Spotify most certainly does have strong network effects
| (your friends are all on it, the party you go to with
| collaborative playlists uses it, etc), data driven-
| advantages (Spotify's personalized recommendations are
| built on vast historical playing data), lock-in effects
| (your playlist/history and all your friends' playlists
| are there), dependence of businesses users (Spotify is
| the go-to platform for music labels for promotion and
| only way to reach certain customers) and end users
| (because of network and lock-in effects).
| johnmaguire wrote:
| I think we might have a fundamental disagreement that
| we'll have to agree to disagree on.
|
| From a brief search, Facebook and Google are responsible
| for ~60-80% or more of digital advertising spend. This is
| because of their data-driven advantages that come from
| the multisidedness of their services, forcing a
| dependence of business users.
|
| While Spotify does have social features, I don't really
| know anyone who joined Spotify because that's "where
| their friends were." The social features consist
| primarily of playlists (which can be viewed without an
| account) and a feed showing what friends are listening
| to, if you connect to Facebook - which many don't.
| Additionally, Spotify has very open APIs that make it
| easy to move a playlist to another service:
| https://developer.spotify.com/documentation/web-
| api/referenc...
|
| Facebook requires an account to access Marketplace, even
| to view it (lock-in effects), and many communities and
| neighborhoods have made Facebook the sole source of
| online discussion / information sharing (strong network
| effects.) Eschewing Facebook means missing information
| you can't get any other way. And it's literally
| impossible to avoid Google online.
|
| Simply having a product and customers ("your friends are
| all on it, the party you go to with collaborative
| playlists uses") or an audience ("Spotify's personalized
| recommendations are built on vast historical playing
| data") is not the same as being a gatekeeper.
| johnmaguire wrote:
| My mistake. While Booking.com is HQ'd in Amsterdam,
| Booking Holdings is indeed a US company (also responsible
| for Priceline, Kayak, and OpenTable.)
|
| > There are zero European companies, including Spotify -
| the #1 music streaming marketplace in the world.
|
| This still doesn't answer the actual question of whether
| the gatekeepers were selected because they are US
| companies, or because they are are Internet gatekeepers.
| I don't find it surprising that the US's legal and
| economic culture resulted in more conglomerate
| gatekeepers than other nations.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| I'd argue this style of concentrating power under a single
| giant company is mostly American style.
|
| EU companies tend to keep group entities separate instead of
| running for absolute synergies. For instance the AOL-Time-
| Warner-Direct-Dish kind of merger is pretty much unheard of.
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| I think you make many good points. Slight tangent: Why isn't EU
| more concerned about TikTok? While it is very difficult to
| prove, various studies have demonstrated that TikTok pushes
| more content favoring the Chinese Government (CCP).
| staunton wrote:
| > TikTok pushes more content favoring the Chinese Government
| (CCP).
|
| Does that violate EU law? (Serious question, I really don't
| know)
| kome wrote:
| no, and as far I know it doesn't violate any US law either.
| the thing against tiktok is not based on law, but based on
| suspicions.
| pbiggar wrote:
| Actually, the problem the US had with Tiktok that was it did
| not censor people from talking about Palestine
|
| https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/us-tiktok-ban-linked-
| isra...
| Aloisius wrote:
| The timeline doesn't align for that at all. National
| security concerns were raised before the Pentagon banned in
| in 2019, then Trump ordered it to divest in 2020.
|
| No doubt that it became _an_ argument by some more
| recently, but it was just another straw on the already
| broken camel 's back.
| bojan wrote:
| In my anecdotal experience of one, American platforms are way
| faster in pushing far-right content on me even though it has
| to be clear to the algorithm that I don't want such content.
|
| TikTok never does that.
| fragmede wrote:
| it's not difficult to prove. In the wake of the tarrifs,
| everyone in the US got Chinese manufacturing videos pushed to
| their feed so customers can buy direct from factories and
| avoid huge markups by a middleman.
| Draiken wrote:
| Or, you know, Chinese businesses acted like businesses and
| capitalized on the orange man's stupidity and naturally
| went viral.
|
| The tinfoil hats come out pretty quickly when China is
| mentioned but Occam's razor still applies here.
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| Agreed with your first point. Regarding TikTok though the
| argument was never (AFAIK) that they were actively breaking the
| law but rather that their structure and ownership posed a
| threat to US interests. That's pretty reasonable and largely
| mirrors China's stance against the US.
|
| If anything the surprising thing is how lenient western
| governments tend to be towards foreign corporations. They seem
| to prioritize free trade above all else.
| sapphicsnail wrote:
| I find this so confusing. Rupert Murdoch and Elon Musk are
| foreigners who are both demonstrably influencing American
| politics through media they control. What makes Tiktok
| different?
| madeofpalk wrote:
| Rupert Murdoch has exclusively been a US citizen for 40
| years.
|
| But really, what makes Tiktok different is China.
| dybber wrote:
| TikTok probably didn't make friends and pay bribes to the
| right people.
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| The same thing that would make a platform with ties to
| Russia different. It falls under the influence of a
| sophisticated geopolitical adversary.
|
| Tesla is headquartered and has most operations based in the
| US. Murdoch's ventures are similar AFAIK.
|
| Given how much surveillance modern vehicles do I wouldn't
| be surprised if imports start being subjected to additional
| scrutiny at some point. But at least most vehicles can't be
| used to subtly and intentionally manipulate the owner's
| perception of the world so I guess the stakes are a bit
| lower.
| nozzlegear wrote:
| Rupert Murdoch and Elon Musk are both American citizens. In
| fact, one of Murdoch's primary reasons for becoming an
| American citizen in 1985 was to comply with the
| Communications Act of 1934, which prevented him (or any
| non-citizen) from owning more than 25% of a broadcasting
| company.
|
| Here's a piece of history from 1985 that talks about it:
| https://archive.ph/HlHrx
| baby wrote:
| The US is lying about tiktok, the only reason is to mirror
| China's strategy towards American app. After watching the
| tit-for-tat video of Veritasum[1] I agree with America's
| strategy of banning Chinese apps until China allows American
| apps. That being said, I wish the US was more transparent
| about why they're doing this instead of lying.
|
| I'm guessing the reason why they're lying is that they don't
| want to scare ALL Chinese companies.
|
| [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mScpHTIi-kM
| Herring wrote:
| That's called gaslighting, and it's a hostile act. Truth is the
| first casualty of war. If someone is trying to deceive you (or
| deceive others and ruin your reputation), they are actively
| exposing you to some kind of risk, usually for their own
| benefit, which is a hostile act. Recommend you act accordingly.
| jerf wrote:
| There is no irony. The EU is targeting US companies. The US is
| targeting Chinese companies. The US is or soon will be
| targeting EU companies. China is targeting US companies. China
| will probably soon be targeting EU companies if they aren't
| already, which is probably already debatable. And this is not a
| complete list, it's not even a complete list of the highlights.
|
| If they're doing it by legislation, well, the EU has been
| passing "legislation clearly designed for US companies to be in
| infringement of" for a while. Maybe you like that. Maybe it's a
| good thing; after all, the things they're passing laws about
| are basically just actions only US companies are capable of
| taking right now. Nevertheless it is clearly targeting. It's
| just targeting you like. The US has passed such legislation.
| China does it both with formal legislation and with _de facto_
| rules.
|
| Free trade is a dead letter. Whether you like that or not is
| not very relevant to whether or not it is dead. It's dead.
| Maybe it'll swing back around in a few decades but right now
| even that is a distant prospect, we're not even done
| accelerating into the current merchantalist phase of the cycle,
| let alone decelerating, let alone heading back.
|
| (Note "whataboutism" would be an inappropriate response to my
| point here; that's about "it's ok for us because they do it".
| My observation is not normative, merely descriptive... everyone
| is doing it, and they're doing it more rather than less right
| now.)
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| >The US is or soon will be targeting EU companies.
|
| They already do, lookup how many European banks have been
| fined by the US and by how much then compare that to US
| banks.
|
| Everybody plays these games.
| mfld wrote:
| Another irony is that the biggest (business) beneficiaries of
| applied DMA would be other US-based digital services companies
| like Netflix or Epic.
| paxys wrote:
| > "This isn't just about a fine; the Commission forcing us to
| change our business model effectively imposes a multi-billion-
| dollar tariff on Meta while requiring us to offer an inferior
| service."
|
| Meta complaining about getting tariff'd is objectively hilarious.
| disgruntledphd2 wrote:
| > the Commission forcing us to change our business model
|
| This is total, utter, complete 100% grade A organic nonsense.
|
| I worked at FB (but the same is true of basically all action
| driven advertising systems). Only a tiny proportion of users
| ever click, but they are incredibly lucrative for online
| advertising platforms.
|
| The whole subscription was a really transparent attempt to get
| people to accept the tracking and it's honestly profoundly
| depressing that this is what they're reduced to.
| josefritzishere wrote:
| These fines make sense. The EU is driving a pro-competition
| capitalist model. American companies will have to compete, and
| not just entrap users.
| samdung wrote:
| Breach. Get sued. Pay Fine. Rinse. Repeat.
|
| At this point it looks like governments want the money and
| companies are gleefully willing to pay.
| xandrius wrote:
| Damned if you do, damned if you don't. I get it that millions
| isn't much but it's something, and at least it sends a signal.
| squigz wrote:
| Frankly, the whole "it's pointless, so this is stupid"
| response to some things is more tiring to me than anything.
| What exactly is the end-game for these people? All or
| nothing? That is just delusional. It is simply not how
| progress is made. So let's be appreciative of what little is
| done, and push for more?
|
| Not to mention the amount of people in here just focusing on
| the fine - by the way, I don't know how people can square the
| belief that these companies are endlessly greedy and will do
| anything for more money, with the belief that half a billion
| euros lost profit will just sit well with them - while
| completely ignoring the bit where these companies either
| comply or face even more fines.
| switch007 wrote:
| All in agreement behind closed doors with the EU bureaucrats
| alexfromapex wrote:
| Millions is nothing for these companies. Just a cost of doing
| business.
| xandrius wrote:
| Starting somewhere. The US ain't even doing that.
| switch007 wrote:
| Not really. If citizens see "fines" and think "whew, they got
| their just deserts", it's almost worse than no fines.
|
| But the EU is frequently performative, so it doesn't surprise
| me. It wouldn't surprise me if they agreed in advance with
| the EU the fines, behind some closed doors.
|
| Nothing less than a billion these days even registers
| npc_anon wrote:
| The "EU over-regulation" argument is pathetic. The exact opposite
| is true, 2-3 decades of zero regulation has led to Big Tech
| empires that can get away with anything.
|
| It harms the free market, harms the freedom to compute, creates
| an asymmetrical extractive relation between mega-corp and average
| internet user, and omnipresent surveillance. It's anti-American
| if "American" still means a love of freedom, personal privacy and
| fair competition.
|
| But I do understand the "new" American perspective. These
| companies are money printers some of which produce as much as
| $30B of pure profit in a single quarter. If such companies are to
| exist, they best be American I guess.
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