Apple will try to talk its way out of a $40 billion fine on Tuesday

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Comments

  • Reply 21 of 63
    KTR said:
    The EU DOES NOT LIKE AMERICANS, they are using the legal system as a bullying tactic to gain the upper hand to gouge money.  If Steve Jobs was still alive, he would stop all operations in the EU, and every one in the EU will lose out.  They will have to find alternatives.  Shut down the EU App Store.   If it goes to trial.  I hope apple wins…..  there aren’t that many mobile OS’s out there.  With the exception of Linux.

    Most decidedly wrong. But the EU follows a different legal philosophy in areas like privacy (which is way more relevant in the EU) and antitrust regulation. EU antitrust cares about competition and fairnis between companies while US antitrust mostly cares about customer pricing.

    That's how e.g. Apple Books was victim of US antitrust ruling quite badly even though based on EU philosophy Apple Books was doing a lot of good for competition.

    ... and still the EU let a lot of things through the US did wrong: Like spying on political leaders as Edward Snowden proved to the world. The US Cloud Act, which essentially kills EU privacy rules for Cloud customers of US Cloud Services, like the recent Biden Inflation protection Act (ok that remains to be seen).
    dolfkecornchipspheric
  • Reply 22 of 63
    Let’s hope they will get a massive fine. They deserve it and they know it. 
    williamlondon
  • Reply 23 of 63
    nubusnubus Posts: 406member
    Microsoft did behave like this when it took a terrible browser (Internet Explorer), bundled with their ubiquitous Windows OS and told HP etc. that they couldn't bundle other browsers... so Microsoft used their position within OS to win browsers. US stopped that.

    Now Apple is trying to do like MS. Use the position in one area to block competition. Doing so with NFC access, app store, and demanding Webkit to be used. EU isn't blocking the use of Apple Pay - they just demand Apple to allow for competition. This is how things should be done. 
  • Reply 24 of 63
    avon b7avon b7 Posts: 7,739member
    The fines are to punish and deter, hence up to 10% of global turnover from the year prior to infringement.

    https://eur-lex.europa.eu/EN/legal-content/summary/guidelines-for-setting-fines.html

    This should surprise no one as multinational companies could simply pay regionally based fines and continue to infringe. 

    Apple chose to do something similar for a while not very long ago as a result of fines from Dutch authorities.

    In the case of NFC hardware access, there is no doubt that it was restricting access to its own services and not allowing competitors to use it (unless of course Apple got a cut of the business: Apple Pay). 

    My wife and I both use the same banking app. Mine is on Android and hers is on iOS. 

    I have always been able to choose BBVA Pay instead of Google Pay for my BBVA cards. I can choose both if I wish. 

    My wife has never had the option of BBVA Pay. Only Apple Pay. 
    edited February 2023 muthuk_vanalingam
  • Reply 25 of 63
    davidwdavidw Posts: 2,064member
    KTR said:
    The EU DOES NOT LIKE AMERICANS, they are using the legal system as a bullying tactic to gain the upper hand to gouge money.  If Steve Jobs was still alive, he would stop all operations in the EU, and every one in the EU will lose out.  They will have to find alternatives.  Shut down the EU App Store.   If it goes to trial.  I hope apple wins…..  there aren’t that many mobile OS’s out there.  With the exception of Linux.

    Most decidedly wrong. But the EU follows a different legal philosophy in areas like privacy (which is way more relevant in the EU) and antitrust regulation. EU antitrust cares about competition and fairnis between companies while US antitrust mostly cares about customer pricing.

    That's how e.g. Apple Books was victim of US antitrust ruling quite badly even though based on EU philosophy Apple Books was doing a lot of good for competition.

    ... and still the EU let a lot of things through the US did wrong: Like spying on political leaders as Edward Snowden proved to the world. The US Cloud Act, which essentially kills EU privacy rules for Cloud customers of US Cloud Services, like the recent Biden Inflation protection Act (ok that remains to be seen).
    If the EU care more about consumer privacy, then they would not be forcing CSAM scanning on EU companies. Which would put an end to End to End Encryption in the EU. Truthfully,  the EU only care more about consumers privacy when it pertains to a third party accessing consumers private data. They have a lot less concern about privacy when it's the government accessing consumers private data.  Here in the US, we have the 4th Amendment to prevent government from over reaching their authorities over its citizens.  

    https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/05/war-upon-end-to-end-encryption-eu-wants-big-tech-to-scan-private-messages/

    https://9to5mac.com/2022/05/12/eu-csam-scanning-law/

    As for competition, the EU don't get that in order to have "fair" competition, there's going to be "unfairness". The EU would rather a force a company that innovates, to share their innovations with its competitors, than for them to use it to compete and maybe eliminate their competitors. That how "fairness" works in the EU. 

    Back in 2013, there were 5 main mobile OSes. Symbian, BlackBerry, Windows, iOS and Android. With iOS and Android having the smaller market share. It was competition that led us to iOS and Android having over 90% of the mobile OS market share. That's because the consumers overwhelmingly chose the innovations they got from using iOS and Android. Should the EU back in 2013, had forced Apple and Google to share their innovations with its competitors, for the sake of "competition"?  If the EU forces every company to be "fair" when competing and don't allow them to have any competitive advantages, then there is no "competition".  And why would companies innovate to gain a competitive advantage, if in the end, they must give away their innovations to their competitors, because the EU thinks that its only "fair".  
    radarthekatdewmeaderutterkillroydanoxdolfkecornchipwatto_cobra
  • Reply 26 of 63
    I have created apps in the past that needed to utilise the NFC Capabilities , one of which was to turn the iPhone into a payment terminal.Apple would not provide access to the nfc capabilities of the phone for this purpose and instead, dumped the payload from any credit card. And just to be clear, we had the terminal kernel certified from the schemes and ready to go. So NO! You can’t use the NFC for your own purpose!
    williamlondon
  • Reply 27 of 63
    KTR said:
    The EU DOES NOT LIKE AMERICANS, they are using the legal system as a bullying tactic to gain the upper hand to gouge money.  If Steve Jobs was still alive, he would stop all operations in the EU, and every one in the EU will lose out.  They will have to find alternatives.  Shut down the EU App Store.   If it goes to trial.  I hope apple wins…..  there aren’t that many mobile OS’s out there.  With the exception of Linux.

    I think you need to broaden your horizons a little bit.  Most of the EU's behavior can best be described by Hanlon's Razor . If you look at many of the laws that the EU has passed in the last 10 years and the [self-created] problems that we have seen in the last few years (Corona, Energy crises, Immigration, Brexit, etc.) the main driver for such action is clear.

    The statement that SJ would leave the EU merits no further comment.

    jcc said:
    slurpy said:
    40 BILLION? That's fucking insane. How much money does Apple Pay even make Apple? I think it's almost negligent. It's more of a value added feature for their ecosystem. 

    Pure insanity. Meanwhile companies that engage in actual egregious shit get no punishments, or pathetic slaps on the wrist. 
    In return for Apple paying $40 billion, we should tell Europe to pay us $4 trillion for NATO or else we let Putin roll his tanks into Paris. 
    Equally short sighted and blindly 'Murica First as a bonus.

    dolfke said:
    So many companies have shameless copied the iPhone, now Apple is accused to setup a system for only themselves ???
    Irony, they name is Governments.
    Let's face it. Apple Pay is just an implementation of a common standard (Google pay ist Googles implementation of that same standard). So it's not really copying anything from Apple in that case.
    In this case it needs to use a piece of iPhone hardware that has been limited by Apple. There is merit in that complaint.

    Apple has implemented ApplePay in a way that dictates that NFC payment activity needs to go through it. Banks want to save a few percent by using their own payment systems with Apple's NFC chip. They want this chip to be agnostic. There is likely some merit as @humbug1873 writes.  How much and what changes will have to take place to lower the bar for competitors will have to be decided.  Likely this EU court will err on the side of letting local competition dance on a foreign company's IP, but this is again likely not malicious, just short sighted and poorly executed like many EU laws.

    In the end the fine likely won't be so large and Apple will agree to make some minor adjustments in the next 5 years. See the Apple involved Ireland v Commission from just a few years ago.


    edited February 2023 dewmekillroydolfkewilliamlondonspherickurai_kagewatto_cobra
  • Reply 28 of 63
    davidwdavidw Posts: 2,064member
    nubus said:
    Microsoft did behave like this when it took a terrible browser (Internet Explorer), bundled with their ubiquitous Windows OS and told HP etc. that they couldn't bundle other browsers... so Microsoft used their position within OS to win browsers. US stopped that.

    Now Apple is trying to do like MS. Use the position in one area to block competition. Doing so with NFC access, app store, and demanding Webkit to be used. EU isn't blocking the use of Apple Pay - they just demand Apple to allow for competition. This is how things should be done. 
    Do some homework before making nonsense comments. 

    This is not at all like the US vs Microsoft case. Or even the EU vs Microsoft case. In those cases, Microsoft was accused of abusing the monopoly they had with Windows. Microsoft Windows was on over a 95% of the World desktop computers. They both found Microsoft guilty because Microsoft had a monopoly and was abusing it. And a true monopoly under every country anti-trust laws. Not some made up BS like being a "gatekeeper".  

    By not having a monopoly, Apple has never been accused of violating any anti-trust laws, even though Apple has been bundling Safari with every Mac since 2003. Apple even canceled third party venders from selling Mac clones by no longer licensing out their OS, their new System 8 OS in 1998. This put venders like Power Computing out of business. No anti-trust violations there. Even though Apple eliminated all competition they had for the sale of Macs. Now there are some uninformed here that would claim Apple had a "monopoly" with their Mac OS and should had been charged with abusing a monopoly by no longer licensing it out, but that is not the case. Mac OS (System 8) is not a market under US anti-trust laws.  Not then, not now.    

    Microsoft was abusing a monopoly, Apple is not. It's laughable that you think Apple is doing the same now. When iOS is on 95% of the Worlds mobile devices, then we can talk about how Apple might abusing their position, like Microsoft was back in the 1990's. 

      
    edited February 2023 radarthekatdewmeaderutterkillroydolfkewilliamlondonwatto_cobra
  • Reply 29 of 63
    avon b7avon b7 Posts: 7,739member
    davidw said:
    KTR said:
    The EU DOES NOT LIKE AMERICANS, they are using the legal system as a bullying tactic to gain the upper hand to gouge money.  If Steve Jobs was still alive, he would stop all operations in the EU, and every one in the EU will lose out.  They will have to find alternatives.  Shut down the EU App Store.   If it goes to trial.  I hope apple wins…..  there aren’t that many mobile OS’s out there.  With the exception of Linux.

    Most decidedly wrong. But the EU follows a different legal philosophy in areas like privacy (which is way more relevant in the EU) and antitrust regulation. EU antitrust cares about competition and fairnis between companies while US antitrust mostly cares about customer pricing.

    That's how e.g. Apple Books was victim of US antitrust ruling quite badly even though based on EU philosophy Apple Books was doing a lot of good for competition.

    ... and still the EU let a lot of things through the US did wrong: Like spying on political leaders as Edward Snowden proved to the world. The US Cloud Act, which essentially kills EU privacy rules for Cloud customers of US Cloud Services, like the recent Biden Inflation protection Act (ok that remains to be seen).
    If the EU care more about consumer privacy, then they would not be forcing CSAM scanning on EU companies. Which would put an end to End to End Encryption in the EU. Truthfully,  the EU only care more about consumers privacy when it pertains to a third party accessing consumers private data. They have a lot less concern about privacy when it's the government accessing consumers private data.  Here in the US, we have the 4th Amendment to prevent government from over reaching their authorities over its citizens.  

    https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/05/war-upon-end-to-end-encryption-eu-wants-big-tech-to-scan-private-messages/

    https://9to5mac.com/2022/05/12/eu-csam-scanning-law/

    As for competition, the EU don't get that in order to have "fair" competition, there's going to be "unfairness". The EU would rather a force a company that innovates, to share their innovations with its competitors, than for them to use it to compete and maybe eliminate their competitors. That how "fairness" works in the EU. 

    Back in 2013, there were 5 main mobile OSes. Symbian, BlackBerry, Windows, iOS and Android. With iOS and Android having the smaller market share. It was competition that led us to iOS and Android having over 90% of the mobile OS market share. That's because the consumers overwhelmingly chose the innovations they got from using iOS and Android. Should the EU back in 2013, had forced Apple and Google to share their innovations with its competitors, for the sake of "competition"?  If the EU forces every company to be "fair" when competing and don't allow them to have any competitive advantages, then there is no "competition".  And why would companies innovate to gain a competitive advantage, if in the end, they must give away their innovations to their competitors, because the EU thinks that its only "fair".  
    Nothing from 2013 is remotely comparable to 2023 in digital lifestyle terms. The reason for that is the digital backbone infrastructure which makes truly digital lives possible today on a wide scale. 

    Back in 2013, devices were smaller, more mobile versions of our PCs and mostly single user setups. Infrastructure was key to moving more users online for more time and for more everyday tasks. 

    In 2023, mobile devices have substituted most of them (or made them unnecessary) for our 'digital' lives and the lack of OS competition has been accentuated by the 'gatekeeper' status of the two main OSs which serves to protect and perpetuate their interests. Those interests are what lead companies like Apple et al to try and limit competition and as digital services become an even greater part of our digital lifestyles, they also become a bigger target for legislation. 







    edited February 2023 muthuk_vanalingammbenz1962dolfkewatto_cobra
  • Reply 30 of 63
    danoxdanox Posts: 2,928member
    KTR said:
    The EU DOES NOT LIKE AMERICANS, they are using the legal system as a bullying tactic to gain the upper hand to gouge money.  If Steve Jobs was still alive, he would stop all operations in the EU, and every one in the EU will lose out.  They will have to find alternatives.  Shut down the EU App Store.   If it goes to trial.  I hope apple wins…..  there aren’t that many mobile OS’s out there.  With the exception of Linux.

    Apple Pay is a nice feature, but it isn’t central to the use of a phone in the EU take that functionality out, once again we are working towards a iPhone that’s fundamentally different from the one that is sold in the United States a regional smartphone made just for the EU is coming.
    dolfkewatto_cobra
  • Reply 31 of 63
    danoxdanox Posts: 2,928member
    avon b7 said:
    davidw said:
    KTR said:
    The EU DOES NOT LIKE AMERICANS, they are using the legal system as a bullying tactic to gain the upper hand to gouge money.  If Steve Jobs was still alive, he would stop all operations in the EU, and every one in the EU will lose out.  They will have to find alternatives.  Shut down the EU App Store.   If it goes to trial.  I hope apple wins…..  there aren’t that many mobile OS’s out there.  With the exception of Linux.

    Most decidedly wrong. But the EU follows a different legal philosophy in areas like privacy (which is way more relevant in the EU) and antitrust regulation. EU antitrust cares about competition and fairnis between companies while US antitrust mostly cares about customer pricing.

    That's how e.g. Apple Books was victim of US antitrust ruling quite badly even though based on EU philosophy Apple Books was doing a lot of good for competition.

    ... and still the EU let a lot of things through the US did wrong: Like spying on political leaders as Edward Snowden proved to the world. The US Cloud Act, which essentially kills EU privacy rules for Cloud customers of US Cloud Services, like the recent Biden Inflation protection Act (ok that remains to be seen).
    If the EU care more about consumer privacy, then they would not be forcing CSAM scanning on EU companies. Which would put an end to End to End Encryption in the EU. Truthfully,  the EU only care more about consumers privacy when it pertains to a third party accessing consumers private data. They have a lot less concern about privacy when it's the government accessing consumers private data.  Here in the US, we have the 4th Amendment to prevent government from over reaching their authorities over its citizens.  

    https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/05/war-upon-end-to-end-encryption-eu-wants-big-tech-to-scan-private-messages/

    https://9to5mac.com/2022/05/12/eu-csam-scanning-law/

    As for competition, the EU don't get that in order to have "fair" competition, there's going to be "unfairness". The EU would rather a force a company that innovates, to share their innovations with its competitors, than for them to use it to compete and maybe eliminate their competitors. That how "fairness" works in the EU. 

    Back in 2013, there were 5 main mobile OSes. Symbian, BlackBerry, Windows, iOS and Android. With iOS and Android having the smaller market share. It was competition that led us to iOS and Android having over 90% of the mobile OS market share. That's because the consumers overwhelmingly chose the innovations they got from using iOS and Android. Should the EU back in 2013, had forced Apple and Google to share their innovations with its competitors, for the sake of "competition"?  If the EU forces every company to be "fair" when competing and don't allow them to have any competitive advantages, then there is no "competition".  And why would companies innovate to gain a competitive advantage, if in the end, they must give away their innovations to their competitors, because the EU thinks that its only "fair".  
    Nothing from 2013 is remotely comparable to 2023 in digital lifestyle terms. The reason for that is the digital backbone infrastructure which makes truly digital lives possible today on a wide scale. 

    Back in 2013, devices were smaller, more mobile versions of our PCs and mostly single user setups. Infrastructure was key to moving more users online for more time and for more everyday tasks. 

    In 2023, mobile devices have substituted most of them (or made them unnecessary) for our 'digital' lives and the lack of OS competition has been accentuated by the 'gatekeeper' status of the two main OSs which serves to protect and perpetuate their interests. Those interests are what lead companies like Apple et al to try and limit competition and as digital services become an even greater part of our digital lifestyles, they also become a bigger target for legislation. 







    Once again, more EU baloney, there were five other companies in the smart phone world in 2013. It isn’t Apples or Googles fault that they were incompetent in recognizing that they were disrupted, and if they didn’t get their act together, they would not be around for another day in the world of smart phones.
    edited February 2023 killroydolfkecornchipwilliamlondon13485watto_cobra
  • Reply 32 of 63
    mike1mike1 Posts: 3,293member
    slurpy said:
    40 BILLION? That's fucking insane. How much money does Apple Pay even make Apple? I think it's almost negligent. It's more of a value added feature for their ecosystem. 

    Pure insanity. Meanwhile companies that engage in actual egregious shit get no punishments, or pathetic slaps on the wrist. 
    One solution would be for Apple to disable NFC on devices sold in the EU. Let's see how others do then.

    killroydolfkewatto_cobra
  • Reply 33 of 63
    danoxdanox Posts: 2,928member
    davidw said:
    nubus said:
    Microsoft did behave like this when it took a terrible browser (Internet Explorer), bundled with their ubiquitous Windows OS and told HP etc. that they couldn't bundle other browsers... so Microsoft used their position within OS to win browsers. US stopped that.

    Now Apple is trying to do like MS. Use the position in one area to block competition. Doing so with NFC access, app store, and demanding Webkit to be used. EU isn't blocking the use of Apple Pay - they just demand Apple to allow for competition. This is how things should be done. 
    Do some homework before making nonsense comments. 

    This is not at all like the US vs Microsoft case. Or even the EU vs Microsoft case. In those cases, Microsoft was accused of abusing the monopoly they had with Windows. Microsoft Windows was on over a 95% of the World desktop computers. They both found Microsoft guilty because Microsoft had a monopoly and was abusing it. And a true monopoly under every country anti-trust laws. Not some made up BS like being a "gatekeeper".  

    By not having a monopoly, Apple has never been accused of violating any anti-trust laws, even though Apple has been bundling Safari with every Mac since 2003. Apple even canceled third party venders from selling Mac clones by no longer licensing out their OS, their new System 8 OS in 1998. This put venders like Power Computing out of business. No anti-trust violations there. Even though Apple eliminated all competition they had for the sale of Macs. Now there are some uninformed here that would claim Apple had a "monopoly" with their Mac OS and should had been charged with abusing a monopoly by no longer licensing it out, but that is not the case. Mac OS (System 8) is not a market under US anti-trust laws.  Not then, not now.    

    Microsoft was abusing a monopoly, Apple is not. It's laughable that you think Apple is doing the same now. When iOS is on 95% of the Worlds mobile devices, then we can talk about how Apple might abusing their position, like Microsoft was back in the 1990's. 

      

    When you are not a monopoly in any market, you are always faced with designing something to keep up with the competition. Apple over the years hasn’t run to the government crying to solve their problems. When you are not a monopoly the greater market will not support the Apple platform, currently that greater market is not supporting the Apple platform when it comes to AAA games should Apple complain to the EU or the United States government to get everybody else to play fair?

    Safari was created because if they had not, Apple would have been relegated to the back end of the computing age, the same thing applies to the Apple retail store, Apple Maps, iMessage, Apple Pay and the Apple Watch. It also extends to the M series SOC/CPU they designed, when you’re not a monopoly in any market and you’re a vertical computer company, you can’t sit back and allow other companies to determine your future or or wait for them to support you. Apple strategy is the build a better product they do not whine for government support like their competition.

    Notice that when each one of those Apple products became successful, the crying ensued. It’s not fair it’s not fair, but at the time of their introduction, the financial analyst’s and the tech analyst’s made fun of it, but they’re not laughing anymore. The tech one percent, want a deck reshuffle because their first strategy is to lobby for government help and not roll up their sleeves and try to innovate.

    killroydolfkecornchipwatto_cobra
  • Reply 34 of 63
    avon b7avon b7 Posts: 7,739member
    mike1 said:
    slurpy said:
    40 BILLION? That's fucking insane. How much money does Apple Pay even make Apple? I think it's almost negligent. It's more of a value added feature for their ecosystem. 

    Pure insanity. Meanwhile companies that engage in actual egregious shit get no punishments, or pathetic slaps on the wrist. 
    One solution would be for Apple to disable NFC on devices sold in the EU. Let's see how others do then.

    This would be a perfect example of biting your nose off to spite your face. 

    Disabling NFC on EU iPhones would inevitably lead to lost sales from precisely the members of the generation that make most use of the technology. 

    What should Apple do? Lose iPhone sales and irritate its users or simply give those same users more choice? 
    dolfkemuthuk_vanalingamspheric
  • Reply 35 of 63
    avon b7avon b7 Posts: 7,739member
    danox said:
    avon b7 said:
    davidw said:
    KTR said:
    The EU DOES NOT LIKE AMERICANS, they are using the legal system as a bullying tactic to gain the upper hand to gouge money.  If Steve Jobs was still alive, he would stop all operations in the EU, and every one in the EU will lose out.  They will have to find alternatives.  Shut down the EU App Store.   If it goes to trial.  I hope apple wins…..  there aren’t that many mobile OS’s out there.  With the exception of Linux.

    Most decidedly wrong. But the EU follows a different legal philosophy in areas like privacy (which is way more relevant in the EU) and antitrust regulation. EU antitrust cares about competition and fairnis between companies while US antitrust mostly cares about customer pricing.

    That's how e.g. Apple Books was victim of US antitrust ruling quite badly even though based on EU philosophy Apple Books was doing a lot of good for competition.

    ... and still the EU let a lot of things through the US did wrong: Like spying on political leaders as Edward Snowden proved to the world. The US Cloud Act, which essentially kills EU privacy rules for Cloud customers of US Cloud Services, like the recent Biden Inflation protection Act (ok that remains to be seen).
    If the EU care more about consumer privacy, then they would not be forcing CSAM scanning on EU companies. Which would put an end to End to End Encryption in the EU. Truthfully,  the EU only care more about consumers privacy when it pertains to a third party accessing consumers private data. They have a lot less concern about privacy when it's the government accessing consumers private data.  Here in the US, we have the 4th Amendment to prevent government from over reaching their authorities over its citizens.  

    https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/05/war-upon-end-to-end-encryption-eu-wants-big-tech-to-scan-private-messages/

    https://9to5mac.com/2022/05/12/eu-csam-scanning-law/

    As for competition, the EU don't get that in order to have "fair" competition, there's going to be "unfairness". The EU would rather a force a company that innovates, to share their innovations with its competitors, than for them to use it to compete and maybe eliminate their competitors. That how "fairness" works in the EU. 

    Back in 2013, there were 5 main mobile OSes. Symbian, BlackBerry, Windows, iOS and Android. With iOS and Android having the smaller market share. It was competition that led us to iOS and Android having over 90% of the mobile OS market share. That's because the consumers overwhelmingly chose the innovations they got from using iOS and Android. Should the EU back in 2013, had forced Apple and Google to share their innovations with its competitors, for the sake of "competition"?  If the EU forces every company to be "fair" when competing and don't allow them to have any competitive advantages, then there is no "competition".  And why would companies innovate to gain a competitive advantage, if in the end, they must give away their innovations to their competitors, because the EU thinks that its only "fair".  
    Nothing from 2013 is remotely comparable to 2023 in digital lifestyle terms. The reason for that is the digital backbone infrastructure which makes truly digital lives possible today on a wide scale. 

    Back in 2013, devices were smaller, more mobile versions of our PCs and mostly single user setups. Infrastructure was key to moving more users online for more time and for more everyday tasks. 

    In 2023, mobile devices have substituted most of them (or made them unnecessary) for our 'digital' lives and the lack of OS competition has been accentuated by the 'gatekeeper' status of the two main OSs which serves to protect and perpetuate their interests. Those interests are what lead companies like Apple et al to try and limit competition and as digital services become an even greater part of our digital lifestyles, they also become a bigger target for legislation. 







    Once again, more EU baloney, there were five other companies in the smart phone world in 2013. It isn’t Apples or Googles fault that they were incompetent in recognizing that they were disrupted, and if they didn’t get their act together, they would not be around for another day in the world of smart phones.
    I think you may well see that same 'baloney' across the globe and inside the US if Apple doesn't stop trying to hinder competition. 
    muthuk_vanalingam
  • Reply 36 of 63
    danoxdanox Posts: 2,928member
    avon b7 said:
    davidw said:
    KTR said:
    The EU DOES NOT LIKE AMERICANS, they are using the legal system as a bullying tactic to gain the upper hand to gouge money.  If Steve Jobs was still alive, he would stop all operations in the EU, and every one in the EU will lose out.  They will have to find alternatives.  Shut down the EU App Store.   If it goes to trial.  I hope apple wins…..  there aren’t that many mobile OS’s out there.  With the exception of Linux.

    Most decidedly wrong. But the EU follows a different legal philosophy in areas like privacy (which is way more relevant in the EU) and antitrust regulation. EU antitrust cares about competition and fairnis between companies while US antitrust mostly cares about customer pricing.

    That's how e.g. Apple Books was victim of US antitrust ruling quite badly even though based on EU philosophy Apple Books was doing a lot of good for competition.

    ... and still the EU let a lot of things through the US did wrong: Like spying on political leaders as Edward Snowden proved to the world. The US Cloud Act, which essentially kills EU privacy rules for Cloud customers of US Cloud Services, like the recent Biden Inflation protection Act (ok that remains to be seen).
    If the EU care more about consumer privacy, then they would not be forcing CSAM scanning on EU companies. Which would put an end to End to End Encryption in the EU. Truthfully,  the EU only care more about consumers privacy when it pertains to a third party accessing consumers private data. They have a lot less concern about privacy when it's the government accessing consumers private data.  Here in the US, we have the 4th Amendment to prevent government from over reaching their authorities over its citizens.  

    https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/05/war-upon-end-to-end-encryption-eu-wants-big-tech-to-scan-private-messages/

    https://9to5mac.com/2022/05/12/eu-csam-scanning-law/

    As for competition, the EU don't get that in order to have "fair" competition, there's going to be "unfairness". The EU would rather a force a company that innovates, to share their innovations with its competitors, than for them to use it to compete and maybe eliminate their competitors. That how "fairness" works in the EU. 

    Back in 2013, there were 5 main mobile OSes. Symbian, BlackBerry, Windows, iOS and Android. With iOS and Android having the smaller market share. It was competition that led us to iOS and Android having over 90% of the mobile OS market share. That's because the consumers overwhelmingly chose the innovations they got from using iOS and Android. Should the EU back in 2013, had forced Apple and Google to share their innovations with its competitors, for the sake of "competition"?  If the EU forces every company to be "fair" when competing and don't allow them to have any competitive advantages, then there is no "competition".  And why would companies innovate to gain a competitive advantage, if in the end, they must give away their innovations to their competitors, because the EU thinks that its only "fair".  
    Nothing from 2013 is remotely comparable to 2023 in digital lifestyle terms. The reason for that is the digital backbone infrastructure which makes truly digital lives possible today on a wide scale. 

    Back in 2013, devices were smaller, more mobile versions of our PCs and mostly single user setups. Infrastructure was key to moving more users online for more time and for more everyday tasks. 

    In 2023, mobile devices have substituted most of them (or made them unnecessary) for our 'digital' lives and the lack of OS competition has been accentuated by the 'gatekeeper' status of the two main OSs which serves to protect and perpetuate their interests. Those interests are what lead companies like Apple et al to try and limit competition and as digital services become an even greater part of our digital lifestyles, they also become a bigger target for legislation. 







    The response is the same:

    When you are not a monopoly in any market, you are always faced with designing something to keep up with the competition. Apple over the years hasn’t run to the government crying to solve their problems. When you are not a monopoly the greater market will not support the Apple platform, currently that greater market is not supporting the Apple platform when it comes to AAA games should Apple complain to the EU or the United States government to get everybody else to play fair?

    Safari was created because if they had not, Apple would have been relegated to the back end of the computing age, the same thing applies to the Apple retail store, Apple Maps, iMessage, Apple Pay and the Apple Watch. It also extends to the M series SOC/CPU they designed, when you’re not a monopoly in any market and you’re a vertical computer company, you can’t sit back and allow other companies to determine your future or or wait for them to support you. Apple strategy is the build a better product they do not whine for government support like their competition.

    Notice that when each one of those Apple products became successful, the crying ensued. It’s not fair it’s not fair, but at the time of their introduction, the financial analyst’s and the tech analyst’s made fun of it, but they’re not laughing anymore. The tech one percent, want a deck reshuffle because their first strategy is to lobby for government help and not roll up their sleeves and try to innovate.

    dolfke
  • Reply 37 of 63
    danoxdanox Posts: 2,928member
    avon b7 said:
    The fines are to punish and deter, hence up to 10% of global turnover from the year prior to infringement.

    https://eur-lex.europa.eu/EN/legal-content/summary/guidelines-for-setting-fines.html

    This should surprise no one as multinational companies could simply pay regionally based fines and continue to infringe. 

    Apple chose to do something similar for a while not very long ago as a result of fines from Dutch authorities.

    In the case of NFC hardware access, there is no doubt that it was restricting access to its own services and not allowing competitors to use it (unless of course Apple got a cut of the business: Apple Pay). 

    My wife and I both use the same banking app. Mine is on Android and hers is on iOS. 

    I have always been able to choose BBVA Pay instead of Google Pay for my BBVA cards. I can choose both if I wish. 

    My wife has never had the option of BBVA Pay. Only Apple Pay. 
    Apple made the rounds around the world to each one of those banking monopolies to sign up for Apple Pay they refused.
    dolfkewilliamlondonwatto_cobra
  • Reply 38 of 63
    danoxdanox Posts: 2,928member
    mbenz1962 said:
    KTR said:
    The EU DOES NOT LIKE AMERICANS, they are using the legal system as a bullying tactic to gain the upper hand to gouge money.  If Steve Jobs was still alive, he would stop all operations in the EU, and every one in the EU will lose out.  They will have to find alternatives.  Shut down the EU App Store.   If it goes to trial.  I hope apple wins…..  there aren’t that many mobile OS’s out there.  With the exception of Linux.

    I think you need to broaden your horizons a little bit.  Most of the EU's behavior can best be described by Hanlon's Razor . If you look at many of the laws that the EU has passed in the last 10 years and the [self-created] problems that we have seen in the last few years (Corona, Energy crises, Immigration, Brexit, etc.) the main driver for such action is clear.

    The statement that SJ would leave the EU merits no further comment.

    jcc said:
    slurpy said:
    40 BILLION? That's fucking insane. How much money does Apple Pay even make Apple? I think it's almost negligent. It's more of a value added feature for their ecosystem. 

    Pure insanity. Meanwhile companies that engage in actual egregious shit get no punishments, or pathetic slaps on the wrist. 
    In return for Apple paying $40 billion, we should tell Europe to pay us $4 trillion for NATO or else we let Putin roll his tanks into Paris. 
    Equally short sighted and blindly 'Murica First as a bonus.

    dolfke said:
    So many companies have shameless copied the iPhone, now Apple is accused to setup a system for only themselves ???
    Irony, they name is Governments.
    Let's face it. Apple Pay is just an implementation of a common standard (Google pay ist Googles implementation of that same standard). So it's not really copying anything from Apple in that case.
    In this case it needs to use a piece of iPhone hardware that has been limited by Apple. There is merit in that complaint.

    Apple has implemented ApplePay in a way that dictates that NFC payment activity needs to go through it. Banks want to save a few percent by using their own payment systems with Apple's NFC chip. They want this chip to be agnostic. There is likely some merit as @humbug1873 writes.  How much and what changes will have to take place to lower the bar for competitors will have to be decided.  Likely this EU court will err on the side of letting local competition dance on a foreign company's IP, but this is again likely not malicious, just short sighted and poorly executed like many EU laws.

    In the end the fine likely won't be so large and Apple will agree to make some minor adjustments in the next 5 years. See the Apple involved Ireland v Commission from just a few years ago.



    Or they’ll just get rid of it.
    dolfkewatto_cobra
  • Reply 39 of 63
    davidwdavidw Posts: 2,064member
    mbenz1962 said:
    KTR said:
    The EU DOES NOT LIKE AMERICANS, they are using the legal system as a bullying tactic to gain the upper hand to gouge money.  If Steve Jobs was still alive, he would stop all operations in the EU, and every one in the EU will lose out.  They will have to find alternatives.  Shut down the EU App Store.   If it goes to trial.  I hope apple wins…..  there aren’t that many mobile OS’s out there.  With the exception of Linux.

    I think you need to broaden your horizons a little bit.  Most of the EU's behavior can best be described by Hanlon's Razor . If you look at many of the laws that the EU has passed in the last 10 years and the [self-created] problems that we have seen in the last few years (Corona, Energy crises, Immigration, Brexit, etc.) the main driver for such action is clear.

    The statement that SJ would leave the EU merits no further comment.

    jcc said:
    slurpy said:
    40 BILLION? That's fucking insane. How much money does Apple Pay even make Apple? I think it's almost negligent. It's more of a value added feature for their ecosystem. 

    Pure insanity. Meanwhile companies that engage in actual egregious shit get no punishments, or pathetic slaps on the wrist. 
    In return for Apple paying $40 billion, we should tell Europe to pay us $4 trillion for NATO or else we let Putin roll his tanks into Paris. 
    Equally short sighted and blindly 'Murica First as a bonus.

    dolfke said:
    So many companies have shameless copied the iPhone, now Apple is accused to setup a system for only themselves ???
    Irony, they name is Governments.
    Let's face it. Apple Pay is just an implementation of a common standard (Google pay ist Googles implementation of that same standard). So it's not really copying anything from Apple in that case.
    In this case it needs to use a piece of iPhone hardware that has been limited by Apple. There is merit in that complaint.

    Apple has implemented ApplePay in a way that dictates that NFC payment activity needs to go through it. Banks want to save a few percent by using their own payment systems with Apple's NFC chip. They want this chip to be agnostic. There is likely some merit as @humbug1873 writes.  How much and what changes will have to take place to lower the bar for competitors will have to be decided.  Likely this EU court will err on the side of letting local competition dance on a foreign company's IP, but this is again likely not malicious, just short sighted and poorly executed like many EU laws.

    In the end the fine likely won't be so large and Apple will agree to make some minor adjustments in the next 5 years. See the Apple involved Ireland v Commission from just a few years ago.



    Want to save a few percent? Apple only charges .15% for a bank to have their CC in Apple Pay. That's 1.5 cents for a $10 dollars of transaction. A $10 transaction that the bank charges the merchant .30 cents ( 3%) for. 

    For anyone wanting to use the NFC chip on an iPhone, they would still need to use iOS. iOS is not open source and is Apple IP. Banks should have to pay something for the use of iOS to access Apple NFC chip. Even if the NFC protocol might be Open Source and free to use, it cost Apple something to purchase the chip, integrate it into an iPhone and maintain ts function with each iOS upgrade. And what about Google Pay and Samsung Pay? Will the EU force Apple to allow Google and Samsung to use Apple NFC chip for their mobile pay? That would be like the government forcing Walmart to allow Costco to sell competing Kirkland brand products in Walmart stores, without Costco having to pay for using Walmart shelve space.
    danoxkillroywilliamlondonwatto_cobra
  • Reply 40 of 63
    The EU fine is primarily based on the EU believing Apple has a "dominant" position in mobile wallets. I've tried to find an article that explains WHY the EU believes Apple has a "dominant" position in mobile wallets and haven't been able to find anything beyond general statements about Apple Pay being the only wallet that can access NFC on the iPhone. IMO, the means Apple Pay is "dominant" on iOS but not within the overall market for mobile wallets.

    As others have pointed out, iOS is only slightly above a 1/4 share of the total mobile OS market in the EU. If you break it down by hardware manufacturer and not OS, then Apple is around a 1/3 share of the total market. If you break it down to Apple Pay specifically, Apple has around 1/5 of the market...so an even lower share than for OS or hardware. That means the 3/4 of the OS market does not involve iOS, 2/3 of the hardware market does not involve the Apple as a manufacturer, and 4/5 of the market does not involve Apple Pay for a mobile wallet. 
    killroywilliamlondonwatto_cobra
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