Italian Competition Watchdog Fines Apple, Amazon $225M (go.com) 11
Italy's antitrust watchdog has fined Apple and Amazon a total of more than 200 million euros ($225 million) for cooperating to restrict competition in the sale of Apple and Beats branded products in violation of European Union rules. From a report: An investigation found that provisions in a 2018 agreement between the U.S. tech giants limited access to Italy's Amazon marketplace to selected resellers, the Italian Competition Authority said Tuesday. The watchdog slapped Apple with a 134.5 million euro ($151.32 million) fine and Amazon with a 68.7 million euro ($77.29 million) penalty. It also ordered them to end the restrictions and give resellers access in a "non-discriminatory manner." Both Apple and Amazon said they would appeal.
Counterfeit Prevention (Score:3)
appeal on what basis? (Score:4, Informative)
âoeThe proposed fine is disproportionate and unjustified,â Amazon said.
Yeah, repeat offenders always say that. We know the earlier fines levied against them for similar behavior didn't work, because they're still doing it.
âoeWe reject the ICAâ(TM)s suggestion that Amazon benefits by excluding sellers from our store, since our business model relies on their success.â
That is literally irrelevant. The law doesn't prohibit it because it provides a benefit to the cartel limiting market access, but because it harms others.
Apple said it respects the Italian Competition Authority "but believe we have done nothing wrong."
Yes, abusers often or probably in fact usually construct a narrative that allows them to engage in abuse while believing that they are in the right.
Teaming up with selected resellers helps customer safety because it ensures products are genuine, Apple said.
No, it does not. It's very simple to only permit specific resellers to claim to sell specific authentic products, once they have demonstrated that their goods are not counterfeit. Meanwhile, if Amazon actually cared about not delivering counterfeits (the statement was from Apple, but the behavior was engaged in by both companies working together) they wouldn't put all products supplied by various vendors together in the same box, or they would at least mark the packages somehow so that they knew which came from where so that when a counterfeit is reported they'd know where it came from and could cut off that particular reseller.
Since Amazon doesn't do this, we know that they give zero fucks about counterfeits except when forced to, e.g. by a massive conglomerate like Luxottica which can file lawsuits against them in enough venues to make it unprofitable to sell the counterfeit products.
Re: (Score:2)
I'd like to know why such fines apparently never have a "per <time-period>" associated with them; for example, instead of fining a single lump sum of $225 million, why not fine them a lesser amount but per day, say $10 million per day, until they fix the issue.
Re: (Score:2)
The gears of justice grind sufficiently slowly that by the time they catch up to them, they have to deal with their past behavior.
Re: (Score:2)
Amazon is literally branding counterfeits of popular brands as "Amazon Essentials".
Re: (Score:2)
A knockoff is not a counterfeit. If it's branded as Amazon Basics, and not whatever they copied, then by definition it's not a counterfeit. Thanks for playing, though.
Uniforms (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Not necessarily hard, but you have to realize you cannot run your business in an other country like you do in is home country.
Even within the US, there is a big difference doing business in say New York vs. California vs. Texas vs. Montana.
There is a difference in Laws and Regulations (and it isn't that the Blue States have more restive laws than the Red states, they both have good and bad laws on the books that makes running different aspect of the business easier and harder. ), Cultural norms, are you lat
Re: Uniforms (Score:3)
Being late 5 minutes before your start time sounds eerily like labor theft...
Re: (Score:2)
Perhaps from where you live, but for other areas, if you punch in right at the click, they would consider it seconds late, and if you are punching in, those 5 minutes should be applied to your hourly rate.