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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

#131

Post by stavros »

pjc50 wrote: post #122
stavros wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because that's how we like it, and that's the end of it. The people of the EU have said that these are the rules for doing business there, and saying "I should be able to murder people in my own house, if you don't want to be murdered, just don't come here, there's no need for anti-murdering laws" is rather irrelevant.

> saying "I should be able to murder people in my own house, if you don't want to be murdered, just don't come here, there's no need for anti-murdering laws" The Americans call this "stand your ground".

Well, half "touché", half "precisely".

Re: Apple and Meta fined millions for breaching EU law

#132

Post by iwontberude »

ThatMedicIsASpy wrote: post #106
zpeti wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can buy an android or huawei phone. Just because the ecosystem you like to use doesn't have certain features doesn't make it a monopoly.

You can leave the market if you dont like the rules of the market.

Consumers should have greater and greater access to markets with more favorable conditions. It’s not acceptable to have consumer hostile markets in many respects e.g. healthcare. It would behoove us as consumers to demand access to markets as mundane as cellular phones. Accepting market manipulation by oligopolistic companies to reduce choice and walking away from phone ownership altogether seems counter productive for everyone.

Re: Apple and Meta fined millions for breaching EU law

#134

Post by fidotron »

alxlaz wrote: post #112
fidotron wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is like arguing McDonalds has a monopoly over food sold in McDonalds outlets, when you have a choice to not go into McDonalds.

This is: 1. Not about any monopoly (in fact the word "monopoly" does not appear in the press release at all). 2. Nothing like McDonalds, whose business model is completely different from an app store's. 3. Not about Apple can do to consumers who aren't in the Apple ecosystem but about what it can do to developers who wish to sell their applications and services for Apple devices. If you really insist on making an ana…

> If you really insist on making an analogy that involves McDonalds: that's like arguing that McDonalds should not be allowed to prevent Coca-Cola from telling Coca-Cola customers that they can buy Coca-Cola in places other than McDonalds. Which, yeah, they're not allowed to.

Neither the App Stores or McDonalds have any control over what you do outside of them. That's your problem, individually and collectively.

Re: Apple and Meta fined millions for breaching EU law

#135

Post by sussmannbaka »

zpeti wrote: post #95
tiborsaas wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the fine is exactly about giving people a more fair chance to vote with their wallets. This is from the Yahoo article: "The EU competition watchdog said Apple must remove technical and commercial restrictions that prevent app developers from steering users to cheaper deals outside the App Store."

You can buy an android or huawei phone. Just because the ecosystem you like to use doesn't have certain features doesn't make it a monopoly.

Or I can buy an iPhone and Apple doesn’t break the law :)

Re: Apple and Meta fined millions for breaching EU law

#136

Post by dabeeeenster »

iagooar wrote: post #127
dabeeeenster wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Over regulate and tax"? What? Have you done any reading on how almost all US tech companies go to extreme lengths to avoid paying tax?

Most companies in the world do exactly that. Prove me wrong.

Thanks for proving my point that they need more taxation.

Re: Apple and Meta fined millions for breaching EU law

#137

Post by kubb »

iagooar wrote: post #96
skummetmaelk wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a lot of emotional words without a single bit of context from the actual article. Your comment is better suited to FOX news' website.

I don't see how your comment is adding value to the discussion besides claiming emotionality and an absurd reference to FOX news, which implies that my opinions are not welcome here and I should go elsewhere with them. My post is my opinion, offering an entry point for a discussion to those who might have a different opinion from mine.

The opinion is so detached from reality that it’s not going to result in a useful discussion.

There’s nothing about America in the consumer protection laws. It doesn’t matter if the service provider is a corporation or a non profit.

You can have any opinion you want but if you don’t ensure the quality of it, people will call it out for what it is.

In some circles you can defend lack of intellectual rigor with „any opinion is valid” and „you just don’t like my politics”, but that’s useful for electoral politics, not for intellectual inquiry.

Re: Apple and Meta fined millions for breaching EU law

#138

Post by LunaSea »

fidotron wrote: post #120
LunaSea wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Europe could easily have had a homegrown alternative to the Play Store on Android. In fact at one time it had several, only the users had no interest at all, and this was before Google went through their phase of locking things down more. So why should users not have the option anymore because years ago the existing options were worse than Google's? Should you be forbidden to buy an iPhone because you used until An…

The problem is European users are too cheap, and European regulators too short sighted. It makes them hilariously prone to product dumping, where WhatsApp is "free" of course, except it isn't. They then mass adopt the "free" option and act surprised pikachu when it's not actually free. What you are advocating is forcing a market option to change what it is, when a critical mass of their customers have chosen it preci…

> The problem is European users are too cheap, and European regulators too short sighted.

This seems to be a common issue for all countries, the US included.

(See the Chrome spin-off talks currently taking place.)

> What you are advocating is forcing a market option to change what it is, when a critical mass of their customers have chosen it precisely because of what it is.

Incorrect, users have chosen it for what it precisely was. After a certain size that choice does not exist anymore and the option is also very different compared to the initial choice (between the different app stores available at the time) made by users.

You're also mistaken in thinking that the hardware should automatically imply a specific software. This is not the case and we're going to slowly move to a place where the hardware is independent of the software and vice-versa for smartphones.

Re: Apple and Meta fined millions for breaching EU law

#139

Post by fidotron »

guappa wrote: post #105
fidotron wrote: post #35

Earlier 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.

I mean microsoft paid off the CEO of nokia to sink it.

Nokia was worthless by that point.

Even had they run with a wild pivot to Android it would have required the strategic vision to also build an Android app store, which would have upset the various European telcos that made a few extra euros that way.

Re: Apple and Meta fined millions for breaching EU law

#140

Post by Arkanum »

onli wrote: post #32
drooopy wrote: post #3

I don't understand meta's statement that this handicaps american businesses while allows European and Chinese companies to operate under different standards.

It's not completely unwarranted. According to the article, Facebook was fined for their model of asking for pay or accept tracking. Which is exactly what almost all publishers do, e.g. all big German newspapers. It's absolutely clear that this is against the law - they could show ads, but can't invade the users privacy for that, so no tracking ads - but they do it anyway and got away with it in various decisions. And…

I agree, except the DMA specifically only applies to companies over a specific size. I think if the German newspapers were at FB/Apple scale, in terms of number of users, then the DMA would apply (i.e. they would be designated gatekeepers or similar) and they could also be fined. Although I think pay for no ads is also a violation of GDPR maybe?
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