Apple, Meta Fined as EU Presses Ahead With Tech Probes (yahoo.com) 42
Apple was fined 500 million euros ($570 million) on Wednesday and Meta 200 million euros, as European Union antitrust regulators handed out the first sanctions under landmark legislation aimed at curbing the power of Big Tech. From a report: The EU fines could stoke tensions with U.S. President Donald Trump who has threatened to levy tariffs against countries that penalise U.S. companies. WSJ adds more details: The commission also issued cease-and-desist orders that could have a bigger impact than the fines. One order targets Apple's App Store and the other takes aim at Meta's use of personalized ads -- important revenue streams for each company.
[...] The EU's action against Meta focuses on the company's effort to get users to agree to seeing personalized ads on Instagram and Facebook -- its main source of revenue. The commission ordered Meta to stop requiring users to either agree to those ads or pay for a subscription. It said it was still evaluating whether a "less-personalized ads" option that Meta introduced last fall complies with that order, raising the specter of further changes.
The Apple case deals with the company's App Store rules. The commission said Apple had failed to comply with an obligation to allow app developers to inform customers, free of charge, of alternative ways to purchase digital products.
[...] The EU's action against Meta focuses on the company's effort to get users to agree to seeing personalized ads on Instagram and Facebook -- its main source of revenue. The commission ordered Meta to stop requiring users to either agree to those ads or pay for a subscription. It said it was still evaluating whether a "less-personalized ads" option that Meta introduced last fall complies with that order, raising the specter of further changes.
The Apple case deals with the company's App Store rules. The commission said Apple had failed to comply with an obligation to allow app developers to inform customers, free of charge, of alternative ways to purchase digital products.
Re:Fine monthly (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe the EU can just have a regularly scheduled monthly fine for the "Mag 7" companies.
Well if those companies are going to regularly violate rules/laws, then I'd say that's a "fine" idea.
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You can not avoid breaking laws because the laws are onerous, ambiguous, conflicting, and market-breaking.
Citation needed.
What do you honestly expect Apple to do? Limit the number of iPhones they ship to Europe to remain under thresholds? This is a matter for the US Administration to wrangle with. Europe should not be punishing American companies because it has no real tech sector to speak of. No one wanted Nokia phones anymore.
Not relevant to anything.
Don't feed the bot saloomy (Score:1)
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My experience has been different. For whatever reason, nobody ever held a gun to my head and ordered me to do business in Europe or else.
As a result, even though I completely ignore EU laws, I also fail to violate them, because I did not ever opt in to the huge, complex, strategic decision to sell to Europeans.
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You can not avoid breaking laws because the laws are onerous, ambiguous, conflicting, and market-breaking.
Of course you can. Evidence: The majority of companies who do.
What do you honestly expect Apple to do?
Follow the law. Duh.
The question you should be asking is to yourself: Why, exactly, are you so fine with certain companies breaking laws all over the place?
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Re: Fine monthly (Score:4, Interesting)
Or, and hereâ(TM)s a wild idea, the companies could comply with the law if they want to keep making money from EU customers?
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or... These companies could pull out of the EU. This would be preferable. If the goal is to foster a competitive environment, then the EU could build competing offerings.
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These companies could pull out of the EU. This would be preferable.
Would it? I doubt the consumers agree.
If the goal is to foster a competitive environment, then the EU could build competing offerings.
In a competitive environment, "the EU" will not have to build competing offerings. Some other business will do it. Isn't that how capitalism is supposed to work? The EU is only trying to make capitalism function sustainably, not become communist.
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In a competitive environment, "the EU" will not have to build competing offerings. Some other business will do it. Isn't that how capitalism is supposed to work? The EU is only trying to make capitalism function sustainably, not become communist.
If the European governments had done their jobs correctly, they never would have let Microsoft buy Nokia. They could have even subsidized Nokia to help them catch up.
The best way to foster competition is to prevent corporate mergers. Did they stop the Microsoft Activision acquisition? No. Did they stop the Microsoft GitHub acquisition? No. Did they stop the Facebook Instagram acquisition? No. Either they don't give a damn about fostering a competitive capitalist market or they're inept at it. Everything the
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Either they don't give a damn about fostering a competitive capitalist market or they're inept at it.
I'll readily agree with the second thing. However, they seem to be learning.
Everything the EU has been doing looks like crony capitalism because it is.
*scoff*
Now let's go back to something you said earlier, to support my scoffage:
If the European governments had done their jobs correctly, they never would have let Microsoft buy Nokia.
If the American government had done its job correctly, they would have never let Microsoft buy a whole long list of companies whose products they absorbed into their empire and then not only enshittified (which I know ain't illegal) but also made interdependent.
Barring that, they would have broken up Microsoft after finding they abused a monopoly position
Re: Fine monthly (Score:4, Insightful)
You can always tell republicans in these threads. Sure, give up billions in sales because you don't like following consumer protection laws. I'm sure the share holders will love that idea.
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This seems to be the common defense but it's written as if the law existed first, and then Apple created a business model that intentionally broke the law. What happened is the law was written so that Apple would be forced to choose between breaking their business model or paying massive fines.
The EU has entered Catch-22 territory with these regulations, where they're basically saying to these companies, "You have two options, take a big loss this way or take a big loss that way." I find the whole App Store
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This is literally what the EU does. Fines escalate for repeated non-compliance with laws.
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If Europe did that then they'd be great like Russia.
Re:Fine monthly (Score:4, Informative)
Trump is such a "great" deal maker and business man, if he would have just invested his money from daddy he would be richer today. https://www.forbes.com/sites/d... [forbes.com]
Here's a list of his failed businesses. as a note, he can't even make money with a casino:
Golden Nugget Atlantic City
GoTrump.com
Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Atlantic City
New Jersey Generals
Paradox Hotel Vancouver
Plaza Hotel
TD Trump Deutschland
Trump Entertainment Resorts
Trump Ice
Trump magazines
Trump Mortgage
Trump Ocean Resort Baja Mexico
Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino
Trump Productions
Trump Shuttle
Trump Steaks
Trump University
Trump World's Fair
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Come on, dude. For almost anyone else, owning a casino is essentially a license to print money. And he went bankrupted one.
The Grand Master Plan of Crypto (Score:1)
Trumps "rule book"? You mean repeatedly declare bankruptcy, leaving contractors and workers holding the bag? Or ignoring court orders? Or threating to crash the global economy with repeated escalating tariff wars that bring down the US financial markets, increase treasury rates and devalue the dollar all in one swoop?
Yup, that's the grand master plan - and use crypto in the process; why else do you think the Orange Tard has been pushing bitcon, the original shitcoin?
Re: Fine monthly (Score:2)
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Re: Fine monthly (Score:1)
So? (Score:3)
U.S. President Donald Trump who has threatened to levy tariffs against countries that penalize U.S. companies...
U.S. President Donald Trump has levied tariffs on unpopulated islands. I'm sure the EU cares more than those islands do, but I'm also sure that it cares less than the President imagines. And Europe cares less and less with each passing week.
When you tariff everything and everyone in sight, and you do it in a punitive way, people start to become immune. They suck it up, find other trading partners, and get on with life. This is already happening in much of the world. Trump is steadily making America - as a consumer AND as a supplier of goods and services - irrelevant to other countries.
Spotify has a pay-or-hear-ads model (Score:2)
Has Spotify's pay-for-ad-removal model just been declared illegal? Or are they exempt because they're below the DMA revenue threshold?