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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

#111

Post by dns_snek »

GeekyBear wrote: post #98
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.

> this action is a matter of market competition, not privacy Nope. This is literally about apps having to ask the user for permission before they can track them.

Can you do me a favor and familiarize yourself with the executive summary document instead of just replying "nuh uh" out of ignorance? See paragraphs 5, 10, and 12 in particular.

They broke competition law. The fact that did so in the advertising industry as opposed to any other is irrelevant to this case.

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

#112

Post by wqaatwt »

esperent wrote: post #23
runako wrote: post #11

This looks like it's targeted at the relationship between Apple and Italian developers. I guess this means Apple could also comply by kicking Italian developers out of the iOS developer program?

Unlikely because services in the EU have to be offered without barriers to everyone across all member states.

Yet plenty of companies are not doing that. Sony and MS amongst others..

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

#113

Post by like_any_other »

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…

> When foreign governments fine "American" companies, they get all up in arms

Which is ironic, because Apple is more aligned with China than the US:

Apple CEO Tim Cook "secretly" signed an agreement worth more than $275 billion with Chinese officials, promising that Apple would help to develop China's economy and technological capabilities - https://www.macrumors.com/2021/12/07/apple-ceo-tim-cook-secr...

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

#114

Post by stronglikedan »

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's almost like HN is a (semi-)large community with many different viewpoints!

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

#115

Post by port11 »

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?

This one's getting negative reception because the optics are crap. I've ranted plenty about Apple, but ATT is a great thing and I don't see how it's “abusing market position”. Like, just don't track people across the web and then you don't need to show the ATT pop-up?

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

#116

Post by mk89 »

Lapel2742 wrote: post #64
lioeters wrote: post #2

OK now slap the wrists of Alphabet and Meta.

> OK now slap the wrists of Alphabet and Meta. Google is probably next (Antitrust case(s)). AFAIK the EU is currently probing a case. And before the Nationalists get mad again: If I sell in the US I'm naturally obliged to follow US rules and regulations. I wouldn't even think twice about this. The same is true in other markets. So for the Single Market: If you play on European turf, you play by European rules.

The weirdest thing is that all fines from EU countries are about privacy and anti-competitive behavior, which literally every citizen can benefit from. The implementation might be something questionable sometimes, but this hatred is totally nonsense.

It strikes me as odd that the land of opportunity has become the land of bigX that must overtake everything and everyone just accepts it. This isn't the spirit of the Americans I know, who actually challenge and see opportunity everywhere. How can you just choose to bend to Apple/Google/Meta etc? I understand they are great companies, but they do really ugly things to push competitors out, to allow scam/phishing, etc.

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

#117

Post by smegma2 »

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?

I think comments on pretty much everything skew negative. There’s not much to say if you support the fine.

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

#118

Post by macbr »

joe_mamba wrote: post #62
esperent wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlikely because services in the EU have to be offered without barriers to everyone across all member states.

Which EU law say that exact thing? Because now I live in an EU country that had (and has) foreign products and services, typically of US origin, that are not officially available in my home EU country, like for example Xbox GamePass for console. Was same with Nextflix till a few years ago. Same with AMEX cards. So NO, you can definitely provide your services only to specific EU member states if that's what you wish,…

You're right but there has been some progress in that matter.

I.e. streaming providers can't stop you from watching Germany exclusive Netflix content when on holidays in Greece using your German Netflix subscription (only free/ad supported services are allowed to do that)

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

#119

Post by jaredklewis »

amelius wrote: post #93
jaredklewis wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

These posts should really have a poll on HN, so we know what HN thinks about the case.

Polls would be just as inconsistent as the comments. Individual contributors would be consistent, but different polls would select for different contributors.

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

#120

Post by wkat4242 »

petcat wrote: post #10
concinds wrote: post #9

> The Authority found the App Tracking Transparency (“ATT”) policy to restrict competition. [...] > In particular, third-party app developers are required to obtain specific consent for the collection and linking of data for advertising purposes through Apple’s ATT prompt. However, such prompt does not meet privacy legislation requirements, forcing developers to double the consent request for the same purpose. > The…

EU privacy regulations and the GDPR are a complete farce. You'll notice that the EU's own government websites are littered with cookie banners. They want the data just as bad as everybody else. The goal was not in any way to protect privacy, but rather to extract rent from American tech companies.

No the goal was to give users that want privacy an option to get it. Even the EU site allows users to say no to tracking. That's a good thing.
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