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Thierry Breton: Under DMA, there is no room for threats by gatekeepers
- zx8080 3y agoSounds like the eu-us trade war 2.0 (?).
- ginko 3y agoWhy do (mostly Americans) always make this out to be an EU vs. US thing? This is about getting large companies to stop abusing their market dominance. If anything people in the US should be glad the EU is doing this, since it might also benefit them in the long term.
- cryptonym 3y agoAgree. That rhetoric is mostly used to defend multi-bilions companies, even when that's against consumer and market interest.
- soco 3y agoWhy do people criticize the idea of unionizing? Why do people defend any action of big companies? Why do dictators have followers? Why do people act against their own interest? There are entire sciences dedicated to answering this...
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- bryanrasmussen 3y agoWell relatively a lot of people on HN have worked at big tech companies, hope to work there in the future, or are currently working there - anyone matching one of those criteria might be more inclined to view it as an EU vs. U.S thing and arguing that it is the EU being mad because they can't make any of that U.S big tech magic happen in their area.
- gpderetta 3y agoWait, are you saying that all HN readers are temporarily embarrassed FAANG employees? ... that actually tracks pretty well.
- bryanrasmussen 3y agoNo not all, but if say 10% were that would still explain a lot.
- nottorp 3y agoThere's a strong "large" fetish which I think is mostly an US cultural problem. It probably started with public companies not paying dividends and instead rewarding the shareholders by share price increases. This means they have to grow indefinitely. The logical outcome is having one all-encompassing monopoly that handles everything. Kinda like a state economy, but they don't get the irony.
- dns_snek 3y agoPart of the reason seems to be that a significant chunk of them have apparently forgotten that antitrust laws and enforcement are hard requirements for capitalism to actually work and deliver on any of its touted benefits. Unregulated free market capitalism that so many people seem to root for (knowingly or unknowingly) is just a degenerate version of the system that invariably results in cartels, price-fixing, rent seeking, thought policing, human exploitation and suffering, which is really just a different version of the "communist" boogeyman that they fear for the same reasons.
- nickpp 3y agoIs that why in the free market capitalism the shelves were overflowing were people are spoiled for choice while in communist countries people were starving and being killed while trying to leave?
- RandomLensman 3y agoWhere in the world is it anywhere close to "free market capitalism" at scale? Most economies have a vast number of regulations on markets, products, capital, labor, ... Heck, limited liability corporations can only exist because laws make them possible.
- hx833001 3y agoMany Americans do not like foreign governments attempting to take control of American corporations by government fiat. For instance, the EU insisting they can steal money from Apple based on its global revenue, rather than EU revenue, is obscene.
- seszett 3y ago> the EU insisting they can steal money from Apple based on its global revenue, rather than EU revenue, is obscene. To be clear, fining is not stealing except in some kind of liberal dystopian fantasy. And fining based on global revenue is necessary because it's all too easy otherwise to artificially shift revenue between various places to evade these kind of fines. The fine is limited by law to 10% of global revenue, and the EU market is more than 10% of Apple's revenue, so there's nothing particularly egregious here. Also, obviously Apple is not forced to do business in the EU if they don't like the rules.
- rblatz 3y agoProfit and expenses can be shifted. I’m not aware of how they can shift revenue.
- hx833001 3y agoYou can attempt to justify this bureaucratic overreach to yourself if you wish, but an American company should not have its global revenue taxed by foreign governments. Future American administrations more interested in protecting American profits will ensure this is the case.
- ginko 3y agoThis is not a tax it's a fine. Many countries have fines relative to the income of the perpetrator. If you get caught speeding as a tourist in Norway do you expect to get away without having to pay anything since you don't have an income in Norway?
- madsbuch 3y agoThis has nothing to do with the US. This has something to do with a small set of companies (less than 10) and how they act in the EU. Apple is free to do whatever they want that is legal in the US.
- raverbashing 3y ago> Apple is free to do whatever they want that is legal in the US. Yes but if Apple thinks nobody in the US will look at what's happening to Epic games from a competition point of view, they're wrong
- CogitoCogito 3y agoThis applies equally to the US and EU companies operating in the EU.
- rsynnott 3y ago> Apple could soon be the subject of a federal antitrust lawsuit, according to a report from The New York Times. The publication says that the US Department of Justice (DOJ) is in the “late stages” of an investigation into Apple and its moves to keep customers locked into its ecosystem. Is it a US/US trade war, too? Not everything is a trade war; sometimes a naughty company is just a naughty company.
- rvense 3y agoThis is not a trade war, it's about the power balance between consumers, corporations and governments.
- nonrandomstring 3y agoCan't give upvotes, but +1 for this insightful framing. The "Police and thieves in the street" problem as I call it, is that in most discussions we hear about the two big noisy players duking it out for control. In reality it's a three way struggle. By far the largest and most powerful group is often completely silent and omitted from the analysis. "Consumers" or "Voters" (although I would prefer the term "people") are subsumed into the other camps, each claiming to "represent" the people. Yet the silent, overwhelming majority are starting to reclaim a voice of their own. This is a worrying sign. Not because people shouldn't have a voice, but because it shows clearly that at best, governments and commercial markets are failing to represent the actual interests of people. Perhaps we've become complacent allowing plurality of power structures, unions, assemblies, societies etc to weaken?
- bryanrasmussen 3y ago>"Consumers" or "Voters" (although I would prefer the term "people") are subsumed into the other camps, each claiming to "represent" the people. Citizens?
- nonrandomstring 3y agoYes "citizens" is good - hence "civic cybersecurity" as a placeholder for what I believe in [0]. But many countries do not officially recognise "citizenship". For example, in Britain (UK) we remain "subjects" although "citizen" is used in official documents. Maybe splitting hairs; but I don't want to assume that everyone in the world enjoys such a privileged status. [0] http://www.icicte.org/assets/icicte2019_5.4_farnell.pdf http://www.icicte.org/assets/icicte2019_5.4_farnell.pdf
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- input_sh 3y agoDupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39627240 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39627240
- Kuinox 3y agoThis is not a dupe. The post you linked is an article based on another paywalled article about EU starting an investigation. Here it's an EU official making a statement about Apple actions.
- baq 3y agoIOW if you're a developer in EU you can now voice your stance (whatever it might be) about whether companies have only duties to their shareholders (not an easy sell in this case anyway) or perhaps they have some duties to the society they provide services to and benefit from. I have no opinion whether Epic was a good customer or not. 'They were asking for it' sometimes isn't enough... maybe?
- madsbuch 3y agoThere is also this one: https://digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu/events-poolpage/apple-dma-compliance-workshop-2024-03-18_en https://digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu/events-poolpage/app...
- mjburgess 3y agoPretty much every gov in the world regards there being a collective duty on markets to benefit society, and some duties on some companies. The shareholder models isnt about de facto or de jure duties, it's about the practice of governance. Should boards regard shareholder interests as the primary setters of company goals (assuming all other required obligations are met). This was tried, but wen't terribly, as customer interests dont align with shareholder interests-- and customers were lost. This is, another lens on enshittification -- a switch back from customer to shareholder alignment
- soco 3y agoThe reason/pretext/excuse for governments to benefit companies is also the society - like providing jobs, trickle down, all that, of course with various degrees of efficiency and believability.
- mjburgess 3y agoI don't find believability difficult. Leftwing marxist analysis seems to live in a pre-20th c. non-empirical environment where we havent learnt anything about markets, and should just engage in speculation. We know that the system of collectivisation called "businesses" produces incredible levels of cooperation between people at massive scales; we know that making businesses in the same market compete on a level playing field reduces the power of owners, increases the power of labour, and delivers what customers want. We know that when the playing field isnt level, ie., competitive, then all those benefits disappear. What's remarkable about much far-left analysis of markets is their arguments are usually to make markets less competitive, and the markets they choose to demonstrate problems (eg., of wage-setting, of unfair practices, etc.) are always those with a massive lack of compeition. One great irony of what the left most decry (monopoly, wage-setting, wage-deprivation, top-down control, etc. etc.) is that these are found most extremely in the state. As ever, the far left project all the problems with the state on to the market; and the far right, all the problems of the market on to the state. The most useful approach is profoundly empirical: you actually have to spend years of study and research on a case-by-case basis to know what the answer is. Of course, no ideologue wants to hear that.
- MrScruff 3y agoI have to say, speaking as someone that is generally very happy to live in Apple's walled garden for my phone and couldn't really give a toss about Tim Sweeney's crusade, this most recent continuation of the Epic spat seems like a pretty spectacular own goal from Apple. I can't think of any non-emotive motivation for their actions, and I can see plenty of large downsides.
- classified 3y agoMy guess would be greed and totalitarian power fantasies as motivations.
- johnnyanmac 3y ago>I can't think of any non-emotive motivation for their actions, and I can see plenty of large downsides. Epic wants to play the long game. They want the Epic Games store on PC and mobile and Apple is half of mobile. Having an opportunity to become the Steam of mobile is a very valuable proposition, especially given that IOS was apparently less than 10% of Fortnite income. I see it as the opposeite of emotive; it's a cold calculation playing a very long game with hopes of market capture in a scene where no one else seems to care about premium games (including Epic. But who knows how that will turn out over the decade).
- aeurielesn 3y agoI always thought Epic wanted to push Apple's button until they showed their true face which, by the way, it seems to have worked wonders on EU upon DMA.
- pavlov 3y agoWe should be thankful that somebody stuck out their neck and paid the price to challenge the world’s richest corporation this way, regardless of Epic’s motivations. Like Google in its past “don’t do evil” life, Apple still strongly believes that they are the good guys by default, simply by existing. That kind of culture can make a corporation oblivious to the influence they’re actually having.
- reissbaker 3y agoThis is a good start, but they'll need to lay a pretty hefty fine on Apple if they want a result different from another malicious compliance shell game. As long as it's profitable for Apple to continue doing this kind of stuff, Apple's shown they'll keep doing it.
- andersa 3y agoIn this case, the DMA theoretically allows a $38 billion fine for every year in which Apple shows any non-compliance (10% of global revenue, assuming it does not change from 2023 numbers) Given this legislation was specifically created to tackle the Apple problem, and Apple is clearly intentionally failing to comply, they may want to make an example out of them and go straight for the maximum.
- map222 3y agoIt can even go up to 20% for repeated infringement: https://www.eu-digital-markets-act.com/#:~:text=The%20Commission%20will%20monitor%20the,in%20case%20of%20repeated%20infringement https://www.eu-digital-markets-act.com/#:~:text=The%20Commis....
- noirscape 3y agoThe Epic case is a textbook example as to why the DMA is needed. Especially since Apple has given one of the easiest examples of gatekeeper abuse just by doing this; I kinda expected them to not be this boneheaded but they're really just going "we personally don't trust you, so piss off" because of the US lawsuit. Like, that doesn't fly anymore in the EU. Legally speaking, Apple has reached the size where regulators are recognizing that their gatekeeping has the potential to ruin the EUs free market and here we see that in action. And mind - I don't like Epic Games in the slightest. They still shouldn't be gatekept from iOS because Apple personally dislikes them over the lawsuits.
- bjornsing 3y ago> EUs free market You mean single market. It’s very far from free.
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- Jensson 3y agoAbout as free as USA.
- eastbound 3y agoI can’t suppose the US, lead by Apple and Google, aren’t preparing a counter-attack on us (the EU). There are many ways to weaken them using lobbying, or manipulate the laws by threatening MPs with the help of the CIA… The USA has a legendary set of tools for this, and why wouldn’t they use them — Europe is threatening the US corporate hegemony on European soil. Which means soon those benevolent laws that we’re cheering as EU citizen will turn back upon us, and we’ll once again enjoy the same fate as our other public sectors.
- RandomLensman 3y ago
- aargh_aargh 3y agoDMA = Digital Markets Act https://digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu/about-dma_en https://digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu/about-dma_en
- m000 3y agoWell, that escalated quickly.
- sylware 3y agoThis is only a small part of the pb. The stuff happens on technical interop, client and server alike. Namely simple but able to do a good enough job, stable in time open protocols. (smtp/irc/noscript&basic (x)html/etc) Only regulation and legal can do things here as technically, eveything has always been there.
- nickpp 3y ago[flagged]
- nulld3v 3y agoRegulators don't have a monopoly, they only have control over their own countries. For example, you don't like Apple so you leave and join Google's platform. Regulation is the same, you don't like the EU so you leave to the US. Moreover, DMA does exactly what you say. It keeps competition free. It protects startups from "regulation" by the platforms they sell on.
- nickpp 3y agoChanging your country is kinda harder than changing your phone. The competition was free. Now startups have regulation to contend with. This logically results fewer startups. You can plainly see that too, comparing the EU startup scene with the US one. Just take a look at all the European platforms the DMA is regulating: ...?
- arlcode 3y agoFundamentally the DMA only applies to companies with revenue in the billions and at least 45 million end users (or 10k business users) in the EU. Startups have lots of room to grow before they hit those limits. (Whether other regulations are perhaps overly restrictive doesn't matter for the discussion at hand)
- nickpp 3y agoBut startups are created with big dreams. Almost zero chance of success, of course, but that is the nature of the startup founder. When those dreams are illegal, startups don't get created and the founders simply choose to get a cushy job at some FAANG. Just compare how few talented people in EU choose to build startups instead of working for the bureaucracy. The more regulation we have, the more founders-to-be say "why bother?!"
- nulld3v 3y ago
- bjornsing 3y agoMaybe Thierry Breton has picked a good fight this time… That would certainly be a first.
- dagmx 3y agoGenuine question, and I’m not trying to sealion: Can the EU compel two companies to do business with each other under the DMA? Like let’s forget about this preemptive block, and say that hypothetically either: 1. An app from a third party store does something malicious 2. A third party store does something against the system terms of use Does the DMA compel the gatekeeper to continue enabling them? Or does it have some provisions for blocking them and under what terms those might be? Edit to clarify: Put another way, Does the DMA allow for terms of service in the first place? If it doesn’t explicitly allow for it, does it explicitly disallow it. And please, I am not asking for opinions on this, of which there are many I could have just read. I am legitimately asking for what the law says with regards to this specific point. I can’t find it myself so I asked here.
- KptMarchewa 3y ago"Malicious" is debatable, "against the terms" is meaningless since laws > TOSes.
- dagmx 3y agoYou’re not really answering the question I’m asking though. I am not asking whether TOS <> Laws or not. That is perhaps one step beyond what I’m asking. I’m asking whether the Laws under the DMA have any mention in either direction on whether the gatekeepers have the ability to set (reasonable) terms and act against violation of those terms. Or is that undefined?
- marcosdumay 3y agoThe GP is answering your question. It seems that you don't like the answer. I guess the malicious part will have to be decided by judges. The TOS are absolutely irrelevant. If Apple goes to a government body saying "we have to remove consumer choice, those people are breaking our terms!" they will be laughed out of room.
- dagmx 3y ago