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Italian Competition Authority Fines Apple $115M for Abusing Dominant Position

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Re: Italian Competition Authority Fines Apple $115M for Abusing Dominant Position

#51

Post by piva00 »

concinds wrote: post #38
piva00 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they are punishing because the ATT pop-up is not enough to comply with privacy rules, requiring 3rd party apps to have a secondary pop-up to be compliant (which Apple's own apps wouldn't need since they don't use ATT). So it's more that Apple's ATT is not compliant with stricter privacy rules, not the opposite...

The "stricter" privacy rules of "Accept all" banners that send your data to 1000+ companies? Or "Accept all", but to Refuse you must tap a small grey link and manually uncheck dozens of boxes? Or worse, banners that force you to choose between accepting all tracking or paying a monthly subscription, blatantly illegal in the EU but ubiquitous in Italy even among large companies and news sites? Meanwhile ATT blocks acc…

> The "stricter" privacy rules of "Accept all" banners that send your data to 1000+ companies? Or "Accept all", but to Refuse you must tap a small grey link and manually uncheck dozens of boxes? Or worse, banners that force you to choose between accepting all tracking or paying a monthly subscription, blatantly illegal in the EU but ubiquitous in Italy even among large companies and news sites?

I don't know, I just stated what is in the decision: Apple makes 3rd party developers have to go through a process their own apps do not have to, hence creating an imbalance in competition since they are also the owners and controllers of the distribution channel.

The blatantly illegal pop-ups also annoy me a lot, it's clear it's not even malicious compliance but a targeted attack against the regulations to make it seem the law is requiring them to make it as annoying as possible. It seems to work since you got incensed by it.

Re: Italian Competition Authority Fines Apple $115M for Abusing Dominant Position

#52

Post by Someone1234 »

earthnail wrote: post #37

Surprised by the negative comments here. Usually HN univocally complains about Apple‘s dominant App Store. Now a government fines them for it and some people are upset?

It is a nationalistic thing. When foreign governments fine "American" companies, they get all up in arms, while constantly asking the US Government to provide better consumer protections and promote competition.

This position commonly ignores that these fines are against these companies position within the market for which they're fined. Meaning that the EU will look at the EU profits and fine relative to those, so they aren't fining the "American" side/profits of the company but rather their "EU" (or Italian in this case) balance sheet.

Re: Italian Competition Authority Fines Apple $115M for Abusing Dominant Position

#54

Post by threemux »

razakel wrote: post #46
threemux wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the EU way. The only area where they produce world-leading innovation is regulatory regimes, so gotta use it to hit up American tech companies like an ATM.

Just an idea - how about not breaking the law?

Oh please. "The law" is a Kafkaesque patchwork that delegates authority to local officials and has enough complexity and wiggle room to make anything possible. We're not talking about a speed limit sign here. Show me the [company], I'll show you the crime.

I've been assured by people in this thread and others that, for example, if you "don't spy on users", you don't need cookie banners, and yet official EU sites have them.

Re: Italian Competition Authority Fines Apple $115M for Abusing Dominant Position

#55

Post by embedding-shape »

dinkblam wrote: post #33

no year goes by without Italy imposing random >100m€ fines for 2-3 american tech companies. whenever they need money, they just hit another one without care whether actual laws were violated. the amount they take has no correlation to what has been blamed, only to how much the companies can afford to pay without threatening to leave the country. the 'Guardia di Finanza' has a long standing tradition of trying to exto…

> no year goes by without Italy imposing random >100m€ fines for 2-3 american tech companies. whenever they need money

Since you apparently know, how large would a 100M EUR injection into the Italian budget for 2026 actually be, relatively to the other things?

You're saying they're doing this because they need money, but wouldn't changing the tax rates be more effective at this? 100M feels like a piss in the ocean, when you talk about a country's budget, but since you seem to imply Italy is doing this survive, would be nice to know what ratio this fine represents of their budget, which I'm guessing you have in front of you already?

Re: Italian Competition Authority Fines Apple $115M for Abusing Dominant Position

#56

Post by next_xibalba »

dinkblam wrote: post #33

no year goes by without Italy imposing random >100m€ fines for 2-3 american tech companies. whenever they need money, they just hit another one without care whether actual laws were violated. the amount they take has no correlation to what has been blamed, only to how much the companies can afford to pay without threatening to leave the country. the 'Guardia di Finanza' has a long standing tradition of trying to exto…

This, I think, is the real answer why this is happening. The motivation behind these huge fines on large U.S. tech companies by EU countries is actually "we need revenue", not "we must protect our users". I would expect this to become another source of strain between the EU and the US as the EU economy continues to atrophy. Especially so if the U.S. economy weakens, too.

Re: Italian Competition Authority Fines Apple $115M for Abusing Dominant Position

#57

Post by embedding-shape »

threemux wrote: post #54
razakel wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just an idea - how about not breaking the law?

Oh please. "The law" is a Kafkaesque patchwork that delegates authority to local officials and has enough complexity and wiggle room to make anything possible. We're not talking about a speed limit sign here. Show me the [company], I'll show you the crime. I've been assured by people in this thread and others that, for example, if you "don't spy on users", you don't need cookie banners, and yet official EU sites have…

> Show me the [company], I'll show you the crime.

Yeah, maybe that floats the people's boat wherever you live, but in other countries where people's health and well-being go above corporate interests, it is not common for companies to break the law.

> for example, if you "don't spy on users", you don't need cookie banners, and yet official EU sites have them.

Which is true, and you can understand that yourself by not relying on others, but reading the regulation yourself. It's actually pretty simple, and I think even someone who don't like regulations would be able to get through it if you apply yourself.

And yeah, even official EU sites could avoid it if they'd chose to not use tracking cookies. Not sure what the gotcha is supposed to be here? There is no inconsistency here.

Re: Italian Competition Authority Fines Apple $115M for Abusing Dominant Position

#58

Post by StopDisinfo910 »

Someone1234 wrote: post #52
earthnail wrote: post #37

Surprised by the negative comments here. Usually HN univocally complains about Apple‘s dominant App Store. Now a government fines them for it and some people are upset?

It is a nationalistic thing. When foreign governments fine "American" companies, they get all up in arms, while constantly asking the US Government to provide better consumer protections and promote competition. This position commonly ignores that these fines are against these companies position within the market for which they're fined. Meaning that the EU will look at the EU profits and fine relative to those, so t…

The EU moved to fining on the basis of global revenues a long time ago to avoid companies using accounting to hide local revenues and avoid fines.

Then again, it could be seen as a tit for tat move regarding how the US applied its laws extraterritorialy using the dollar as a medium so it's bit harsh to complain about the EU when the US started the whole thing.

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