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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

#81

Post by lukeschlather »

dns_snek wrote: post #74
petcat wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people would sympathize more if it was something like "Apple makes choosing a different default browser or email client unnecessarily cumbersome" -- instead of "Apple makes you double-opt-in to sharing your private data with even more advertisers"

But that's not the story here. I hate ads as much as anyone, but this action is a matter of market competition, not privacy. They're completely different fights and intelligent people ought to be able to distinguish between the two. Anti-competitive behavior by Google, Apple, Meta, etc. is what got us into this mess with tracking and privacy violations in the first place.

It's the market for privacy violations. I'd go so far as to say that improving competitiveness in this market probably makes the world worse, by making privacy violations more profitable. If they had fined them for not allowing sideloading, or not allowing third-party payments, it would be a different story. Those are markets I want to see grow and thrive.

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

#82

Post by dmix »

franch wrote: post #77
embedding-shape wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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, w…

Italy's unconsolidated budget for 2025 is projected to be around 700 billion euros in revenue and 900 billion in expenditures: https://www.rgs.mef.gov.it/VERSIONE-I/attivita_istituzionali... So yeah, whoever talks about these fines as a strategy for fixing the budget knows nothing about the actual budget of a G7 state, these fines are completely immaterial to Italian fiscal policy. For perspective, that's roughly equ…

From a post I saw on reddit:

> In 2024 EU fined US tech companies €3.8B meanwhile public internet tech companies paid only €3.2B in income tax

How is it not a major budget contribution to have fines on American companies bigger than revenue from your entire tech industry?

That is a de facto tax, particularly when they announce these new fines monthly like clockwork.

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

#83

Post by tt24 »

HotGarbage wrote: post #69
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…

[flagged]

This comment isn’t helpful and adds nothing to the conversation.

When someone makes an argument regarding ‘x’, the correct response is a rebuttal to the argument on its merits. Not “why are you defending x?”

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

#84

Post by gbalduzzi »

next_xibalba wrote: post #56
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.

European companies are fined all the time as well, you just don't see the news about it, there definitely no ill-intent vs american companies as you are trying to imply

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

#85

Post by tt24 »

lenkite wrote: post #41
vnchr wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or the US tech companies could abandon EU markets

It would be terrific if this happens. Can give room for alternatives to grow in the EU. Even the rest of the world would love it. So far only China has managed alternatives - and only thanks to govt exclusion. US behemoths just eat everyone else up - even in the global South.

I’m sorry to disappoint you but the EU is unable to create any usable alternatives to US tech chiefly due to lack of SWE talent (among other things). Anyone remotely competent sees the 40k senior SWE salaries offered by European tech companies and immediately crawls through glass just to work at a mid-tier company in the Northern California area of the United States.

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

#86

Post by shkkmo »

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?

> Usually HN univocally complains about Apple‘s dominant App Store.

There is a strong population on HN that dislikes walled gardens. In my experience there are also plenty of people who disagree. There's also a large population that doesn't like EU tech regulations.

The ratio between different parts of the HN population can change significantly depending of stuff like time of day and headline draw. I don't find it particularly surprising, it isn't like HN is a monolith with internally consistent views across the entire population.

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

#87

Post by geon »

nradov wrote: post #14

I don't necessarily disagree with this ruling, but it's sad that EU governments now take in more revenue from fining US tech companies than from taxing local tech companies. An entire continent is on the path of becoming parasites instead of builders. Will they ever adopt a growth and abundance agenda again?

> EU governments now take in more revenue from fining US tech companies than from taxing local tech companies

Do you have a source for that, or did you just make it up?

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

#88

Post by jaredklewis »

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?

Ok, but can you give me an example of even ONE specific commenter who has made inconsistent comments on this topic in different threads?

“HN” is lots of different people with lots of different opinions. Different threads select for different commentators. This is not unusual (nor has it been the other thousand times people have commented on the inconsistency of HN).

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

#89

Post by franch »

dmix wrote: post #82
franch wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Italy's unconsolidated budget for 2025 is projected to be around 700 billion euros in revenue and 900 billion in expenditures: https://www.rgs.mef.gov.it/VERSIONE-I/attivita_istituzionali... So yeah, whoever talks about these fines as a strategy for fixing the budget knows nothing about the actual budget of a G7 state, these fines are completely immaterial to Italian fiscal policy. For perspective, that's roughly equ…

From a post I saw on reddit: > In 2024 EU fined US tech companies €3.8B meanwhile public internet tech companies paid only €3.2B in income tax How is it not a major budget contribution to have fines on American companies bigger than revenue from your entire tech industry? That is a de facto tax, particularly when they announce these new fines monthly like clockwork.

The relevant comparison is fines vs. actual budget, not fines vs. some cherry-picked industry segment. EU general government spending (across 27 nations) in 2023 was around €8.4 trillion. €3.8B in fines is 0.045% of that, again, completely immaterial.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1379290/government-expen...

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

#90

Post by dns_snek »

lukeschlather wrote: post #81
dns_snek wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that's not the story here. I hate ads as much as anyone, but this action is a matter of market competition, not privacy. They're completely different fights and intelligent people ought to be able to distinguish between the two. Anti-competitive behavior by Google, Apple, Meta, etc. is what got us into this mess with tracking and privacy violations in the first place.

It's the market for privacy violations. I'd go so far as to say that improving competitiveness in this market probably makes the world worse, by making privacy violations more profitable. If they had fined them for not allowing sideloading, or not allowing third-party payments, it would be a different story. Those are markets I want to see grow and thrive.

They received a complaint, they investigated and issued a fine. You're asking them to selectively enforce laws based on their subjective opinion of some industry, which would be highly illegal.

The entire advertising industry needs to die and I'll support every fight in pursuit of that goal, but this isn't about that. You don't dismantle an industry by picking a winner and letting them get away with crime.

And yes, there needs to be an EU-wide action over all of those other issues you mentioned too but that has nothing to do with this particular case.

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