Is this a fine the companies can appeal, or is this a final decision?
Apple and Meta fined millions for breaching EU law
51–60 of 635 posts
Re: Apple and Meta fined millions for breaching EU law
#52[flagged]
Do you realize that the smartphone revolution started here with Nokia?
Re: Apple and Meta fined millions for breaching EU law
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would not hold my breath. They are adept at malicious compliance. Cook will do a cost/benefit assessment and will come up with another workaround.
The EU should instead set targets. Ie. "More than half of users have installed at least one app from a non-apple affiliated store by Jan 2026 or you shall pay a fine of $10 per month per iPhone in use in the EU".
That’s a terrible idea. How would they have any control over that. I think you are way overestimating the amount of iOS users that want to use software from outside the App Store.
Re: Apple and Meta fined millions for breaching EU law
#54Would looove to distribute an app without it having to be in the App Store, and not paying the App Store fee (direct download of signed binary). Happy to pay a yearly fee or fee per update to cover code review if it’s crucial. But 30% of revenue for doing bugger all… cmon, they’re squeezing the lemon a bit too hard.
Personally I wouldn’t install software unless it were from a really trusted person doing something extremely unique and useful that doesn’t have an alternative on the Apple Store (think UTM with JIT for iPad).
Please don’t take that as a negative comment but I suspect most people source their software from conveniently centralized repos whether it be App Store, Steam or even the main package manager on a Linux distribution.
Re: Apple and Meta fined millions for breaching EU law
#55> The EU fines could stoke tensions with U.S President Donald Trump who has threatened to levy tariffs against countries that penalise U.S. companies. Mark Zuckerberg, in his appearance on Joe Rogan's podcast, specifically noted this as his goal for falling in behind Trump. That Trump would be the big-stick man that would protect Meta and other cos from foreign interference. Where "interference" is anything restricti…
Someone here hazarded the hypothesis that Trump's tariffs are a stick aimed not towards other countries, but towards American corporations, who have to pledge fealty (and resources) to Trump in exchange for relief. I think it makes a lot of sense, if any of this is rational, which I'm not entirely sold on.
Re: Apple and Meta fined millions for breaching EU law
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because in a case of monopoly, the people can not vote with their wallet.
Except the smartphone market isn't a monopoly. 20 years ago Europe had a thriving phone industry. Now it's just gone, and they want to blame everyone else for this, and fail to reflect on why it happened.
Except this has nothing to do with some monopoly on the smartphone market, but with Apple not allowing application developers to enable their users to vote with their wallets on payment methods. From the press release:
> Under the DMA, app developers distributing their apps via Apple's App Store should be able to inform customers, free of charge, of alternative offers outside the App Store, steer them to those offers and allow them to make purchases. > > The Commission found that Apple fails to comply with this obligation. Due to a number of restrictions imposed by Apple, app developers cannot fully benefit from the advantages of alternative distribution channels outside the App Store. Similarly, consumers cannot fully benefit from alternative and cheaper offers as Apple prevents app developers from directly informing consumers of such offers. The company has failed to demonstrate that these restrictions are objectively necessary and proportionate.
This has nothing to do with smartphones specifically, it applies equally well to anything in the AppStore ecosystem.
Re: Apple and Meta fined millions for breaching EU law
#57A good start, but far from enough regarding the societal damage (anti-competitive, anti-user, psychological harm especially of minors, proliferation of radicalisation) they did.
*insert Mike Myers One Million Dollars meme
they made more than the fine, so it's just reduced profit a little. mere higher cost of business and continue as usual.
Re: Apple and Meta fined millions for breaching EU law
#58[flagged]
I'll be generous and assume you're being disingenuous by accident: This isn't about the ads, it's about the tracking. Meta is free to put ads wherever it wants, but it's not free to track people who don't want to be tracked.
In the end, a population has the right to govern itself how it wants. There's absolutely NOTHING wrong with that - Meta is free to simply not operate in the EU.
Re: Apple and Meta fined millions for breaching EU law
#59[flagged]
The irony is that smaller American companies stand the most to benefit from EU DMA, including startups. Stripe could offer deeper payment integration without the Apple cut. You could start an indie game store. And Garmin can make better sport watches with better integration.
The first beneficiary is likely to be Epic, since this is basically what they were asking for in the Fortnite lawsuit.
Re: Apple and Meta fined millions for breaching EU law
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
Except the smartphone market isn't a monopoly. 20 years ago Europe had a thriving phone industry. Now it's just gone, and they want to blame everyone else for this, and fail to reflect on why it happened.
30 years ago maybe. 20 years ago there was a European monopolist which was killed off by Microsoft alumni who sold it to Microsoft.
No, Sony Ericsson was way more successful than the attempts to revise history like to portray.
The vision of what to do with the more powerful technology was also better than Nokia, though still not as good as Apple. The whole direction Nokia kept dragging Series 60 in was a dead end, almost from the very start.
Edit to add: example of what I'm referring to with S60 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_3650 . Just complete madness. Who would waste time on this?