cropr

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cropr
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  • DOJ announces massive antitrust review examining Apple, Google & others

    croprcropr
    JWSC said:

    The evidence that Apple is not a monopoly is overwhelming.

    Legally, there is no such thing as "an overwhelming evidence not being guilty". Either there is evidence being guilty, either there is no evidence. The latter is sufficient to be declared not guilty by the judge.

    From a end user perspective Apple is indeed not a monopoly. The end user has a choice between a lot of smartphones.

    But from an app developer perspective (and I own an app developing company), the app store is definitely a monopoly. I am forced to use the App Store to distribute my iOS apps. As such this is not an issue if the monopoly is not abused. But Apple is abusing its monopoly by imposing  very unfavorable conditions to the app developer. Not being allowed to make a link to the website of the app developer, is perhaps the most known rule, but there are others that are also impacting: no cross selling, no temporary discounts, ...

    elijahgmuthuk_vanalingamcat52

  • New House bill aims to make US more prominent in 5G space, combat China

    croprcropr
    ZooNet said:
    Pretty sure you have to have a product in order to be leader in any market -
    Indeed.  And the suppliers of 5G are Huawei, Ericsson and Nokia: 2 European and 1 Chinese company
    GeorgeBMac

  • Google Assistant voice recordings reviewed by humans include private conversations

    croprcropr
    gatorguy said:
    Google doesn't need defending in this case from what I can tell.

    I've read original Dutch article which has a lot more comments and references than the translated English article and if this is correct then Google clearly violated the GDPR regulations.    The Belgian privacy commission has already opened an inquiry and let people make a formal complaint if they feel that Google has violated their privacy. 

    If you think that Google does not need to defend itself, you are naive.  The fines in GDPR violations are huge.
    muthuk_vanalingamlolliverwatto_cobra

  • U.S. to investigate planned French tax on Apple, other tech giants [u]

    croprcropr
    rotateleftbyte said:
    Google is a great target because of the way that they are structured in Europe. Despite having sales people in each country, invoices are issued from Ireland. That allows them to say that they make NO profit in that country and their costs are used to write of any tax liability in that country.

    Then the Licensing (cough cough) agreements that Starbucks use to ensure that they pay next to no corporation taxes anywhere but in Luxembourg.

    These are legal but ethically they suck big time.

    Apple is a different case because they have to pay VAT to the local governments where they have shops. That Tax can't be hidden/moved.deferred unlike Google and their Irish Invoices.

    It is all a mess and clearly needs sorting out. AFAIK Europe in general exports more to the USA.
    Your statement is pretty correct, except for the VAT part.  VAT is paid by the end customer but is collected by the selling company.  So Apple does not pay VAT, it collects the VAT on behalf of the government.   And if you are an end customer you do pay VAT on the product/services you buy from Google Ireland. 

    The goal of newly proposed tax is to make corporations to pay taxes for digital goods in the country of the end customer and not in the country where the corporate is "selling".  While I can agree with this goal, I don't agree with the way it is implemented: taxing companies on turn over iso. profit is a shitty idea.
     
    Carnage

  • 16-inch MacBook Pro release, MacBook Air updates predicted for September

    croprcropr
    macxpress said:
    Meaning, you just replace the existing cable you own with a USB-C/Thunderbolt to whatever you need cable. If you need to carry around USB 3.0 (USB A) cables with your laptop then something isn't right anyways. You shouldn't need to be taking your office desk with you in your bag everywhere you go these days. Get with the times! Replacing a cable that will most likely be the future connector of products going forward will be a hell of a lot easier and cheaper than getting a bunch of more expensive dongles. For example, you can get a USB-C to HDMI cable for $20 or you can buy the Apple USB-C to HDMI dongle for $80. USB-C/Thunderbolt is the most versatile port Apple has ever put in a Mac, period! You can pretty much get everything you want through 1 port instead of needing to have 10 different ports scattered along the side of a laptop. Plus, you can plug it into either side versus before it was almost always on the left side only (including charging). 
    I am working in 4 different working locations  (2 co-working locations, my official office and my home).  I have 1 external monitor that accepts USB-C,  but 100% of external monitors and projectors I need to connect to have a HDMI cable attached, so I don't need a cable or dongle if my portable has a HDMI port available.   You story simply does not fly in a real professional environment.   One of the reasons why I bought a Dell XPS 15 and not a Macbook Pro was exactly the HDMI port

    If the maximum resolution of the monitor is supported by HDMI (as in 99% of the use cases), USB-C connectivity does not give any technical advantage, it only increases the price.  So in most environments people don't have a compelling reason to replace their existing monitors with a USB-C compatible one.

    GeorgeBMac