franklinjackcon

urahara said:

We as (French) individuals would have to pay those taxes. Especially for products/services provided by such companies like Apple or Amazon, who focus on providing value to a private person. Why should those companies pay more than French companies?
This is such a BS.

One of the original problems that prompted this was Google, selling a digital service like advertising. They would sell advertising to French companies to advertise to French viewers on French websites but because they sold the service from another country (I think it was Ireland), the French companies paid VAT to Google but it went to that other country. They also recognised no revenue in France as a result and paid no tax on the profit. A French company performing the same service as Google would be contributing to the local economy that they are benefitting from by paying both VAT and tax on their earnings. You are fortunate that France has a large domestic economy and many local corporations. In smaller countries with many more foreign companies, it's even harder for the government to collect tax.  

This is so blatant that you'd have to hope it was a mistake. Perhaps someone put the icon in as a placeholder then quit and no one else picked up on it, not being iPhone users. If they didn't quit, they probably should now.

DAalseth said:

seanismorris said:

Wrist slap.

Yes as it should be. It was a minor infraction due to a typo. Apple reported it to officials as soon as they discovered that it had happened. They admitted it, they owned it, they have taken steps to keep it from happening again.

It's more than a typo, it's a poorly designed system that would fail to identify obvious attempts to get around the sanctions list. This is exactly what HSBC was fined $2B for when they were used as an intermediary for terrorist and other criminal groups. Illegal organisations just put random dots in their names, knowing it wouldn't get flagged. HSBC was almost complicit though as they knew it was happening.

I'd probably argue that half a billion dollars is more than a wrist slap and probably an overreaction unless Apple had been warned or was doing this intentionally. I'm sure they'll now spend a few thousand dollars designing a system that better flags these companies.

payeco said:

Even if they do open it up, no one is going to use the banks own wallet because it’s no going to be as seamless as it is now with Apple Pay, where you just hold your phone up to the NFC terminal, without even having to unlock your phone, and then authenticating with Touch ID or Face ID. You’ll have to unlock your phone and open the banks app. Might as well just use a QR code in your app at that point.

Why would you need to unlock and open up the bank's app? Isn't the point of the regulation to force Apple to provide the same access to third-party providers as it does to its own app?

MacPro said:

I guess we can see who all the Fox Faux News aficionados are.

You don't need to consume Faux News to know that CNN has a lot of work to do to convince people that their service is worth paying for.