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> It's not as if Apple doesn't have the money to dedicate a team to matching the EU's requirements on a deadline. They just choose not to. Exactly, that's actu
by burnte 4mo ago
> It's not as if Apple doesn't have the money to dedicate a team to matching the EU's requirements on a deadline. They just choose not to.
Exactly, that's actually why I LIKE this decision so much. I'm not on Apple's side, but I REALLY like the idea that a company just says, "Fine, we'll comply by not even offering this product." It's a perfectly legitimate choice, and it FORCED Apple to evaluate the pros and cons.
I want more companies to not get exemptions and thus not offer law-breaking products. I LIKE that the government is saying, "fix it or don't bring it here" and Apple just has to live with it. I like that Apple also is refusing to just bend over to the EU. We need more of these types of conflicts so we can work out good regulations, and not just always bend over and take it from whatever party won.
While I like a lot of Euro regulations, some of the privacy ones go too far with the whole "we're going to enforce this on the whole world" crap. I like California's method of "to sell it here you have to have this but we're not going to sue you for selling a noncompliant product elsewhere."
- Nifty3929 4mo agoYes, exactly! Also forced EU voters to consider how much they value these services, and whether the regulations are worth it not to have them, or to have watered down versions of them. I say this without judgment - I see it as a legitimate area of consideration. I think the worst is hugely impactful laws for which exceptions are constantly carved out so nobody can truly evaluate whether the law/reg is a good one or not.
- slekker 4mo agoI value them a lot, happy that the EU didnt bend down to Apple. If it werent for the EU, the companies would get away with all sorts of shit. Is as if people forget companies are evil by nature and will fuck you any chance they get.
- thesmtsolver2 4mo agoMeanwhile: EU pushing to snoop on private chats and US companies are pushing back.
- junto 4mo agoWhere do you think that lobbying money is coming from?
- viktorcode 4mo agoI'm curios what kind of shit specifically DMCA protects you from?
- wtb04 4mo agoI think you mean DMA, not DMCA. DMCA mostly protects copyright holders. DMA is about protecting users and competitors from platform lock-in. Bending for Apple would just make that lock-in harder to challenge.
- duskwuff 4mo agoDMCA provides some rather important protection for service providers (including small-scale services like web forums, not just ISPs and web hosts) - it makes them not liable for copyright violations by their users, so long as they take down infringing content upon receipt of a DMCA notice. But I agree, that's probably not what OP meant.
- krzyk 4mo agoDoesn't "DMCA", make, well, the DMCA notice a thing?
- duskwuff 4mo agoPrecisely. What it replaced was rightsholders suing web services (like a forum or web host) as a first resort, which was a much more cumbersome and painful process for all parties.
- krzyk 4mo agoIf it was more painful for the suing party, it was a good thing. Now all it needs is send some letter to github and they take down content, no questions asked, how is that better? It is for court to decide.
- 4mo ago
- Andrew_nenakhov 4mo ago[flagged]
- customguy 4mo agohttps://block81.com/blog/why-most-websites-dont-actually-need-cookie-consent-banners https://block81.com/blog/why-most-websites-dont-actually-nee... That's been true from day one. So the question is, did you come up with the FUD yourself, or did you believe someone else?
- Andrew_nenakhov 4mo ago[flagged]
- remus 4mo agoI totally agree cookie banners are awful, but you could equally lay the blame at the foot of website owners who are so keen to track your movements across the web that they'll layer this awful UX on their users. No tracking cookies => no cookie banners.
- Andrew_nenakhov 4mo agoIn reality, website who don't have any tracking cookies, still hang this banner just in case someone would start harrassing them.
- troupo 4mo ago"Let's discuss how countries should bend their knee before supranational corporations"
- burnte 4mo agoGovernment and corporations are natural enemies, they are two halves of an ecosystem that must be maintained in balance. This is a good thing.
- shykes 4mo ago> Also forced EU voters to consider how much they value these services It's been a while since I left Europe, and I'm rusty on that particular layer of civics. Do EU voters actually have a say in this kind of regulation? Or is it all decided on the executive side which is only accountable to member states and not to individual citizens?
- christkv 4mo agoNone. The EU is getting more and more un democratic by the year. More power centralized in the bureaucracy vis regulations and other mechanisms.
- solid_fuel 4mo agoYou have anything to back up that claim, or is it just knee-jerk drivel with no evidence based on your feelings and distrust of scary government bureaucrats?
- Saline9515 4mo agoWhy is chatcontrol being pushed every year by the european commission, while people and their representatives are in majority against it? Besides given the amount of lobbying in the EU institutions, it's obvious that citizens don't have a chance against corpos with infinite money.
- Muromec 4mo agoBecause puritans gonna puritan and security services want to read your comms. That's like any day of the week everywhere since forever.
- jyounker 4mo agoAnd how is that different from any other governmental level? Seriously, we in Berlin got a freeway that nobody I know wanted or wants. It's not the EU's fault.
- redviperpt 4mo agoEU "voters" don't get a say in any of this.
- yxhuvud 4mo agoWhat are you talking about, DMA has passed in the parliament.
- Saline9515 4mo agoThe parliament doesn't get to choose the laws it has to vote. The parliament can't repell a law, and doesn't hold the pen during negociations.
- burnte 4mo agoSo the laws that Parliament votes on just appear in session magically? They're not written by EU citizens and politicians?
- Muromec 4mo agoIt's a bit complicated to feed more stability into the system, but then this gets hijacked by national governments as an excuse to never take any blame for any shit that follows. Everything good is us, sovereign entities and all that is bad is always the other people in Brussels. Even zo the people in Brussels are mostly deputies of the same people or just themselves, but 26x.
- Saline9515 4mo agoIt's not true, the Parliament can't choose the laws it has to vote on. All negotiations are done behind closed doors, in a truly democratic and transparent manner, that allows us to lecture the rest of the world on how to govern.
- Muromec 4mo ago
- pjmlp 4mo agoAs EU voter, I couldn't care less that Apple behaves like a spoiled brat when it comes to following laws it doesn't like, it is one customer they will never get. I only use Apple hardware that is project assigned to me, my household is Apple free. In fact, this applies to every single company that thinks they should control governments and not the other way around.
- mbowcut2 4mo agoTotally agree. Granting exemptions feels like trying to have their cake and eat it too. If regulations mean anything they need to be enforced so we can see the real downstream effects.
- viktorcode 4mo agoYou should remember that according to a court testimony the whole European area (which goes beyond EU) gives Apple 7% of their revenue, whereas breaking DMCA may incur penalties of ups to 10% of global turnover. Those numbers make withholding "risky" products a no-brainer strategy. Also, those numbers put a hard limit of how much Apple will want reevaluate their general strategy of tightly integrated first-party software.
- t-sauer 4mo agoWhich court testimony are you talking about? A quick google search suggests that Europe is responsible for roughly 25% of their revenue. Edit: 26% of their net sales comes from Europe for Q1: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/pdfs/fy2026-q1/FY26_Q1_Consolidated_Financial_Statements.pdf https://www.apple.com/newsroom/pdfs/fy2026-q1/FY26_Q1_Consol...
- bryanrasmussen 4mo agothere's a difficulty in evaluating how much goes into Apple revenue because Apple mixes Europe (not just EU) and Middle East. The 7% probably comes from a Daring Fireball article, based on misunderstanding some Apple communications, and which Gruber later had to backtrack https://medium.com/luminasticity/when-smart-people-cant-reason-0be659bc52ef https://medium.com/luminasticity/when-smart-people-cant-reas...
- viktorcode 4mo agoYes, I was coming from Gruber's article, thank you for correcting me!
- solid_fuel 4mo agoWhy do you keep bringing up DMCA? > The Digital Millennium Copyright Act is a 1998 United States copyright law The DMCA is a law in the United States, it's not related in any way to Apple's decision to not roll out Siri in the EU.
- ChrisClark 4mo ago
- chrisandchris 4mo agoAnd as a consumer, I am somewhat happy that a company says "well, then not" if it cannot comply with the law. If the law makes sense, that I cannot judge in this case.
- kergonath 4mo ago> And as a consumer, I am somewhat happy that a company says "well, then not" if it cannot comply with the law. As a citizen, I find it both fascinating and disturbing that this is even a thing. Of course companies have to follow the law. Why is this even a thing? If the product fills a real need and the externalities are acceptable, that will be a demonstration that the law needs an update.
- ghaff 4mo agoYes. If a company in another country elects not to deliver a product or feature because of local regulations, consumers should take that up with their local legislators. That company has no obligation to sell something just because local consumers want it. And if those consumers want to bypass local regulations in some manner, that's their business.
- browningstreet 4mo agoThat's not exactly how I would summarize the current moment in time. This OP article doesn't really go into it, but they did actually propose a solution to the divide, they just needed more time to develop it. The Reuters article is reporting on one person's response to the proceedings, which involve more details than this particular article covers. For instance: > To address those concerns, Apple designed a system called Trusted System Agent, an intermediary that would let competing virtual assistants safely access the same features and capabilities as Siri AI on EU devices. Apple also proposed launching Siri AI in Europe while rolling out the Trusted System Agent gradually over 18 months. The European Commission rejected both proposals, and according to Apple, did not agree to any alternative. https://thenextweb.com/news/apple-siri-ai-eu-dma-delay-ios-27 https://thenextweb.com/news/apple-siri-ai-eu-dma-delay-ios-2...
- burnte 4mo agoThat only reinforces my argument. Apple could have waited, but they decided to go ahead now and bring it to the EU later when they can address the concerns. That's great, that's the law working.
- rambambram 4mo ago> While I like a lot of Euro regulations, some of the privacy ones go too far with the whole "we're going to enforce this on the whole world" crap. Care to explain? EU is also a jurisdiction, so why would EU law be legal in other areas than EU?
- Muromec 4mo agoJurisdiction concept is not strictly bound by territory. Classic example is two parties based in two jurisdiction dealing with each other somehow. Imagine there is a law in your jurisdiction saying if you hire a person there are rules A, B, C which are a bit inconvenient to you, the employer. What if you incorporate in a different jurisdiction where the salaries are higher but there are no rules B and C, but there are rules B and D. Then this incorporated entity offers to hire people in your jurisdiction, but not offer the higher salaries of the other one. Which rules should apply? The answer, as usual, is -- "it depends".
- rambambram 4mo agoI'm not talking about incorporated bodies, I'm talking EU law. EU decides what it wants in EU, not outside EU. Or am I missing something?
- Ravus 4mo agoGDPR also applies to companies that provide services to EU citizens, no matter where the company is based. This makes a lot of sense, because otherwise you'd get situations where Multi Corp X could claim, "Oh, but our Berlin office is actually offering this service hosted in Kiribati. We just happen to have German users" and not offer access to personal data. Seen as enforcement is through fines, companies that do not have an EU presence are completely unaffected. So even if technically true, in practice claiming that there's global reach is false. Concretely, no one is going after a hypothetical Baton Rouge Herald for not providing an opt-out of data harvesting on their news website.
- 4mo ago
- sneak 4mo ago> I want more companies to not get exemptions and thus not offer law-breaking products. I LIKE that the government is saying, "fix it or don't bring it here" and Apple just has to live with it. The idea that there is such a thing as "law-breaking products" when consumers ACTIVELY CHOOSE TO SPEND THEIR MONEY ON THEM is insane to me. This is authoritarian nonsense. It is not the state's place to tell people what they should or should not be allowed to buy.
- kergonath 4mo ago> It is not the state's place to tell people what they should or should not be allowed to buy. You will always find people willing to spend money on anything. The whole point of politics is that we have to draw a line between what people want to do and the effect that it can have on other people. To put it simply, if your freedom affects mine, then someone needs to decide how far you can go and how much I have to accept. We commonly accept that scams are bad, even though someone might participate willingly, just because it is much more likely that someone is taken advantage of in a way that most people find immoral, for example. Even in bastions of free speech such as the US. That someone somewhere knowingly gave money to someone else is neither here nor there.
- mocamoca 4mo agoThat is quite a libertarian point of view, and Europeans tend to disagree with it. The most extreme example could be the legislation on weapons. A less extreme example could be legislation on food additives or PFAS.