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Apple and Meta fined millions for breaching EU law

ca.finance.yahoo.com

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Re: Apple and Meta fined millions for breaching EU law

#481

Post by makeitdouble »

dmitrygr wrote: post #315
Sloowms wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what society you are referring to but contracts have to adhere to laws in the EU. This is also about software that is being updated. So the transaction is not completed yet. Apple could probably go the route of not providing the update to phones that were sold before the law was voted on/in place. I would guess that would lead to other legal battles.

And is it reasonable that the laws are created after the contract was already agreed to and still apply to it? At least here in the United States, laws are not allowed to make things illegal that happened before the laws were written.

Laws can definitively be retroactive or affect existing contracts. Imagine a world where governments have no power to stop anti-social behavior if it was ever baked into private contracts ?

Also the DMA didn't fall from the sky one day and enforced the next. Every business impacted had years to do something about it, and they preferred to play chicken race instead.

Re: Apple and Meta fined millions for breaching EU law

#482

Post by xvector »

jobs_throwaway wrote: post #295
jdlshore wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Under the GDPR, it’s illegal to treat PII like currency. You can’t gate a service behind PII consent.

Whack. Let consumers and sellers decide what to do with their own data

This is a totally foreign idea to the EU. Offensive and crass, even.

There's something I've learnt from some time in the EU. There is not an innovative, risk-taking, freedom-loving bone in the EU culture -- they exported all those folks to the US. Their homegrown risk takers and innovators inevitably leave because of their suffocating culture around innovation, entrepreneurship, and progress. This is one of the reasons for the staggering amount of brain drain in the EU.

Most ironically, they sneer on our concept of entrepreneurship/innovation while they lag development by decades and having total and complete dependence on our technology. It is this weird moral high-horse position that amounts to a tactical foot-gun.

Re: Apple and Meta fined millions for breaching EU law

#484

Post by xvector »

npc_anon wrote: post #451

The "EU over-regulation" argument is pathetic. The exact opposite is true, 2-3 decades of zero regulation has led to Big Tech empires that can get away with anything. It harms the free market, harms the freedom to compute, creates an asymmetrical extractive relation between mega-corp and average internet user, and omnipresent surveillance. It's anti-American if "American" still means a love of freedom, personal priva…

> The "EU over-regulation" argument is pathetic ... It's anti-American ... I do understand the "new" American perspective.

"American" means being able to make your own decisions without government overreach in every aspect of your life.

"American" means being able to decide if you want to engage with a business or not, without getting the government involved.

"American" means being able to reach the highest highs or risk the lowest lows on the power of your tenacity and skill alone, without having the government shoot you down when you succeed, or put meaningless performative roadblocks in your way.

"American" means understanding that the government is not your friend and it doesn't need to replace your own decision making capability or ability to make choices.

From your dismissive sneering tone you do not understand the American perspective. Honestly, I am not sure the typical European even could. You have not grown up in our culture, so ideas like personal responsibility, self-reliance, and the American spirit are foreign to you - or at least heavily deprioritized.

You simply sneer and scoff at these concepts. You do you - this is why the EU is three decades behind and totally, utterly dependent on foreign tech - yet still somehow convinced it could catch up "if it really wanted to."

Re: Apple and Meta fined millions for breaching EU law

#485

Post by makeitdouble »

switch007 wrote: post #418
xandrius wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Starting somewhere. The US ain't even doing that.

Not really. If citizens see "fines" and think "whew, they got their just deserts", it's almost worse than no fines. But the EU is frequently performative, so it doesn't surprise me. It wouldn't surprise me if they agreed in advance with the EU the fines, behind some closed doors. Nothing less than a billion these days even registers

It could look performative if you only look at citizens.

From other businesses POV though

- this becomes the final decision on this given behavior under the DMA. A precedent is set, that will guide any further enforcement.

- it also sets a stake in the ground for other back and forth litigations: the EU will actually fine the companies. We can argue whether this amount is too low, but on any further fines the question will never be whether the EU will actually do it (compare to the current US tariffs situation and you see why this matters)

- it's easier to expand to DMA adjacent companies as needed. If Bluesky ever had to be scrutinized, this would be a reference point.

Re: Apple and Meta fined millions for breaching EU law

#486

Post by makeitdouble »

xvector wrote: post #484
npc_anon wrote: post #451

The "EU over-regulation" argument is pathetic. The exact opposite is true, 2-3 decades of zero regulation has led to Big Tech empires that can get away with anything. It harms the free market, harms the freedom to compute, creates an asymmetrical extractive relation between mega-corp and average internet user, and omnipresent surveillance. It's anti-American if "American" still means a love of freedom, personal priva…

> The "EU over-regulation" argument is pathetic ... It's anti-American ... I do understand the "new" American perspective. "American" means being able to make your own decisions without government overreach in every aspect of your life. "American" means being able to decide if you want to engage with a business or not, without getting the government involved. "American" means being able to reach the highest highs or…

> You do not understand the American perspective.

Honestly, understanding the USA is a pretty high bar in this day and age.

Re: Apple and Meta fined millions for breaching EU law

#487

Post by nickff »

chgs wrote: post #450
bojan wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Booking.com was European, is not any more. It is now a subsidiary of Booking Holding (formerly Priceline), based in Connecticut.

That’s of course the reason these types of companies are American - Americans are rich and can buy out foreign companies which are successful.

There are plenty of EU companies that buy into new markets or opportunities, they just fall outside of these laws; Siemens is a good example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siemens

Re: Apple and Meta fined millions for breaching EU law

#488

Post by xvector »

disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #292
Workaccount2 wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps the same regulations that US companies keep running afoul of are the regulations that prevent European investors from putting money behind European startup competitors. The EU has some extremely strong consumer protection laws, which is excellent for consumers, but it comes with downsides too.

> Perhaps the same regulations that US companies keep running afoul of are the regulations that prevent European investors from putting money behind European startup competitors. Nah, it's all the capital which gets invested into the US caused by the dollar's role in international payments that drives the US exceptionalism is tech. Like, 65% of world equity value relates to 4% of the world population. That's not sust…

You simply cannot dismiss the omnipresent differences in American and EU mindset/culture as playing a role in each country's entrepreneurial success and ability to build and scale innovations.

There is a huge culture difference: Having spent time in both countries, an entrepreneurial spirit is valued far more in American culture and is far more present than in the EU.

Re: Apple and Meta fined millions for breaching EU law

#489

Post by cruzcampo »

mrangle wrote: post #395
mrtksn wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>the most easily agreeable part of what the EU has been after It's also probably the most dangerous for Apple. It creates a cash incentive to push people outside of Apple's walled garden and show them what's outside. I really really hope Apple gets its act together, they are the greatest "the user experience comes first" company and they actually have great hard tech but they show signs of rent seeking behavior which…

Apple has its act together. Those, who are not Apple, do not in comparison. They are Big Mad that Apple does. You don't understand the term "rent seeking". Because in this case, it's Apple's competitors that are rent seeking by utilizing the force of the government to make Apple give competitors access to its private but non-monopolistic ecosystem. I think that Apple should call that bluff and leave the EU. Which in…

Dude the force of government is us, democratically voting, in a free society. Either respect our law, or don't do business here.

Re: Apple and Meta fined millions for breaching EU law

#490

Post by Henchman21 »

baby wrote: post #384
fc417fc802 wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed with your first point. Regarding TikTok though the argument was never (AFAIK) that they were actively breaking the law but rather that their structure and ownership posed a threat to US interests. That's pretty reasonable and largely mirrors China's stance against the US. If anything the surprising thing is how lenient western governments tend to be towards foreign corporations. They seem to prioritize free tr…

The US is lying about tiktok, the only reason is to mirror China's strategy towards American app. After watching the tit-for-tat video of Veritasum[1] I agree with America's strategy of banning Chinese apps until China allows American apps. That being said, I wish the US was more transparent about why they're doing this instead of lying. I'm guessing the reason why they're lying is that they don't want to scare ALL C…

The reason they’re lying is because they’ve been lying for so long it just happens reflexively. It’s all they know anymore.
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