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EU rejects Apple's changes: Company could be fined 10% of global turnover
- geek_at 3y agowow, 38B could really impact them. Maybe they'll stop the malicious compliance scheme then
- usernamed7 3y agoI could see some apple investors being very unhappy that apple leadership brought this on instead of complying with the EU. $38B in fines (or up to $72B) is not going to be well received by the markets.
- PlutoIsAPlanet 3y agoI wonder what lawyer at Apple thought that the EU would not investigate Apple's malicious compliance, or Apple has done this to see how far the EU will go. This isn't US legislation where you can find loopholes, EU legislation prohibits malicious compliance and not following "the spirit" of the law, the latter Apple has publicly admitted to doing.
- latexr 3y ago> not following "the spirit" of the law, the latter Apple has publicly admitted to doing. Mind sharing a source? I’d like to see how far the admission goes.
- rasz 3y ago>This isn't US legislation where you can find loopholes https://www.businessinsurance.com/article/20240119/STORY/912362204/Intel-gets-new-boost-in-fight-over-$12-billion-EU-antitrust-fine https://www.businessinsurance.com/article/20240119/STORY/912...
- helpmefindpurp 3y agowhat a clickbait site. There are no sources that say Apple will be fined anywhere close to that. The journalist has just read the maximum punishment of the crime... You can also go to jail for speeding
- diggan 3y agoThere are tons of sources that help you understand what the punishment is for not following the DMA: > The DMA would constrain gatekeepers’ behaviour while forcing them to proactively open up to more competition. Those in breach of the rules face penalties of up to 10% of their yearly turnover and repeat offenders face being broken-up. https://www.bruegel.org/blog-post/regulating-big-tech-digital-markets-act https://www.bruegel.org/blog-post/regulating-big-tech-digita... More info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Markets_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Markets_Act
- Almondsetat 3y agoOf course there are no sources that say Apple will be fined close to that. That's because the title states that Apple could be fined close to that
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- helpmefindpurp 3y ago"Could" is insanely sensationalist. Just beause HN got a boner against Apple's consumer-friendly ecosystem does not make it reasonable to think this will happen.
- notamy 3y ago> could be fined up to 10% of its worldwide turnover That "up to" makes me nervous that 10% won't happen, but I love the idea of smacking companies with real fines for not complying / maliciously complying with laws.
- bromuro 3y agoDo we know where does the money from these fines go?
- supermatt 3y agoIt wont happen immediately. Fines will likely happen in the same way that they have for the GDPR violations, which are effectively doubling for every major offence, and are now up to 1.2bn EUR in the case of Meta, for example.
- SigmundurM 3y agoThe first offence has a max fine of 10%. Second offence has a max fine of 20%, as the article says: "If that investigation confirms that Apple failed to comply with the antitrust law, then the iPhone maker could be fined up to 10% of its worldwide turnover – increasing to 20% for repeat infringements …"
- supermatt 3y agothats the maximum. its highly unlikely they will start there, just as they havent with major GDPR violations.
- inglor_cz 3y agoFrankly even 1 % of their worldwide turnover would be a huge slap in the face.
- seanmcdirmid 3y agoIf they did 10% of global turnover, I'm pretty sure the US government would get involved, so I don't think Europe will go there. They would basically be starting a trade war. > but I love the idea of smacking companies with real fines for not complying / maliciously complying with laws. A lot of people don't, or to say, when you have extra-territorial penalties (we are going to fine you on all the money you spend), things get messy really quickly. Apple can also always just exit the European market. At some point it makes no sense to be in it, and Europeans will simply buy their iPhones on overseas trips.
- iSnow 3y agoDon't understand Apple here. This was a clear cut case of malicious compliance, what did they expect? That they just get away with it? Of course the EU would see the provocation and will take the opportunity. Yes, they might gain a couple years till this is settled, but they can't use the time to crush a competing app store in between, as there is currently none. I am sure I am dumb, but IMO the smart move would have been to work with the law and a couple of years down the road point out that alternative app stores never caught on (which is very likely, IMO)
- eigenspace 3y agoIt wasn’t even malicious compliance, because they didnt even come close to complying. The Core Technology Fee is such a clear violation violation of the DMA rules.
- Jensson 3y agoI wonder how that meeting went? Exec: So, how can we enforce a fee while complying with DMA? Lawyer: We can't, DMA requires it to be open. Exec: Are you sure? If you can't find a way around this you are fired! Lawyer: Erm, of course there is a way!!!!
- eigenspace 3y ago“Maybe if we insist loudly enough that we complied, they wont bother checking?”
- aaomidi 3y agoThe EU has said they’re going to fast track the enforcement of these. Apple lawyers, simply, fucked up. They lost so much good will with developers over this, have lost any goodwill with negotiations with EU, and are now going to have to speedrun compliance. I’ve dealt with lawyers like this before in various company situations. They are sometimes really, really stupid. Not always, but it happened often enough to be terrifying.
- 3y ago
- InsomniacL 3y agoThe question is if Apple think maintaining their monopoly is worth more than 'up-to' 10%. I guess 10% would be reserved for absolute refusal of compliance and malicious compliance might attract a smaller fine?
- lock-the-spock 3y agoEU legislation generally sets a maximum, but then you also have to prove proportionality to determine the actual amount (damage done + fine). Any such amount will certainly get challenged in the courts, so the Commission will get its ducks in a row before actually settling on a number.
- FredPret 3y agoApple’s revenue was over 100B last quarter (https://valustox.com/AAPL https://valustox.com/AAPL) and about 380B over the past four quarters. Looks like they make about 30% of that in Europe. Sounds like about 80% of their headaches come from Europe. If they get fined 10% of 380B, and the EU becomes ever more fine-happy, it will at one point make sense to simply shut down in Europe. As an aside, it’s baffling to me why an aging continent with a sluggish economy would want to start a trade war with its only friend.
- gambiting 3y ago>>it will at one point make sense to simply shut down in Europe If the alternative is breaking EU rules - great. Let's see that happen. >>As an aside, it’s baffling to me why an aging continent with a sluggish economy would want to start a trade war with its only friend. It's hard to see why a country(well in this case a group of countries) would want to do good for their own citizens? I guess in some places of the world that is indeed a very novel and unexpected thing.
- FredPret 3y agoEconomic and technological isolation is what's best for the people of the EU? Because that's the downside here.
- gambiting 3y agoI don't understand - using apple products is some kind of blessing from the gods and without them Europe is now going to be in "technological isolation"? Get real for a second - apple devices are luxury and if Apple pulled out of EU tomorrow the only losing side in that equation would be apple. No idea why we'd be in economic isolation because of that either. Is our trading of general goods with US reliant on Europeans buying iPhones?
- FredPret 3y agoEach little anti-business decision is a multiplier on the previous one. For a long time, nothing happens. Next thing you know, your economy is half the size it could have been. About 15 years ago, the US and EU economies were actually the same size. Since then, the US almost doubled, and the EU is literally stuck at the same size. Why should Europeans be so much worse off? Surely they deserve better - more money, more options? Furthermore, this is clearly part of a larger pattern of targeting big US tech companies. This isn't endearing the EU to business and political leaders in the US.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- mdavid626 3y ago[flagged]
- zooq_ai 3y ago[flagged]
- gambiting 3y ago>>This is why I like Trump to win so that he can tell these EU blood suckers to back off American Companies and stop using them as a piggy bank because their sad, pathetic regulations are literally kneecapping an entire industry. If Americans don't want to play by European rules, they are absolutely free to stop doing business here. No one is forcing them. Also how do you imagine it working? Trump becomes president and just tells EU to back off? And will be met with anything other than laughter? >>EU GDP / innovation has been a disaster ever since these monstrous regulations were put in place. Well I guess for an American the idea of the government protecting its citizens with regulations must be completely wild - so I kinda understand why you wouldn't see that point of view. >> but this is the time for Americans to show strong leadership and put these bureaucrats in place. Like they do at home, where corporations do basically whatever they want? Maybe start in your own home before you start telling other countries to "back off"?
- zooq_ai 3y ago[flagged]
- gambiting 3y ago>>Yes, if we want to protect their sorry assess from Putin or something, they better come to the table with compromises. Is this what you think this is about? >>Like I said, this is what great leadership is working to the benefit of both countries. What do you mean? What leadership exactly are you talking about? Right now you have a senile grandpa in charge, and you're advocating replacing it with another senile grandpa - both of them belong in a nursing home. Neither one should be deciding anything about economy, not even because of their age but because that's not what presidents do. >>while sad / pathetic EU is still mired in one. In one what? Recession? No country in the EU is in one. >>10 years from now where EU is behind everything where even Saudi Arabia / UAE / CHina have leapfrogged EU in terms of innovations and GDP, it will start becoming more and more irrelevant. Do you sell crystal balls, and if yes can I buy one?
- binary132 3y agoGod please yes.
- kutenai 3y ago[flagged]
- vfclists 3y agoThe patent and rights monopolies of corporations are maintained and defended by the state. Corporations cannot profit from IP rights guaranteed and defended by the state then turn round and insult the state. The state giveth and the state taketh.
- Alifatisk 3y agoDid you really provide statistics from perplexity.ai? An LLM?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- kutenai 3y agoI did. Perplexity updates daily. Better than "googling" these days. At least I attributed it. Don't like the stats, find better ones, or contradicting ones.
- Alifatisk 3y agoI am not against the statistics, it's well known that the Android ecosystem has more malware than iOS. I was more faschinated by you using LLM as source. I hope I didn't sound condescending, I was asking out of curiosity. The way you attributed it wasn't properly done though, it's like me saying "According to Google, Android has X times more malware...".
- kutenai 3y agoIs there a "proper way" to attribute information on the internet? And, in a comment forum? I clearly stated the source as perplextity.ai. In fact, perplexity includes actual sources (via links). I couuld have posted the 8 sources that perplexity.ai cited.. I did not want to take the time. Perplexity does have a sharelink, so, if you are really curious, here is the search and results https://www.perplexity.ai/search/What-percentage-of-VTOCreO8RayPLYERdsmk1g#0 https://www.perplexity.ai/search/What-percentage-of-VTOCreO8...
- kutenai 3y ago[flagged]
- jiriro 3y agoExactly! I hope Apple will make it absolutely impossible to get an app from a 3rd party store by an accident.
- kutenai 3y agoEstimated annual sales of iPhones in EU are about 12.4M phones in Q4 2023. If you just do quick math, that is 49.6M phones/year. If you pick an ASP of $800 (??) then that would be about $39.7B annual Gross sales. If EU actually tried to get that money, Apple would have to just halt all sales of iPhones in EU. Now, maybe that's what the EU really wants. Are there some bitter former Nokia execs on the EU panel?????
- RetroTechie 3y agoThis conflict is with EU regulators. But fines are set as a % of worldwide (not just EU) turnover. It's in the headline...
- kutenai 3y agoI did read that, and I think it is OUTRAGEOUS. I'd call it criminal, but these thugs in the EU have no moral character.
- lock-the-spock 3y agoI'm sorry that you have such an emotional reaction about a company being threatened with a fine (not even penalised yet) for harmful behaviour which they could immediately choose to stop if they'd want to. * Two scenarios: Company A violates consumer rights. Government does nothing, consumers continue to get ripped off. Company B violates consumer rights. Government threatens fines. Company either fixes the problem (consumer hsrm reduced) or eats the fine (and the money can be used to pay for useful stuff). Either way, they can no longer gain by tipping off consumers and have every reason to stop if the fine may be repeated for a repeat offender. * Calculating on global profits is standard practice and is done the same theme the US calculates fines (depending on what the fine is about - you might have different reference points for different harm). This is the only solution as otherwise companies will play the usual whack-a-mole where they create an "affiliate Europe" that is legally separate but pays 100% of its net profits as a licensing fee for the brand name to the parent company, thus making 0€ (more difficult to play this game with gross sales, but there are still plenty of ways to fudge those numbers).