EU to Fine Apple $500M+ for Stifling Music Competitors Like Spotify - Slashdot
source link: https://apple.slashdot.org/story/24/02/19/0011214/eu-to-fine-apple-500m-for-stifling-music-competitors-like-spotify
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EU to Fine Apple $500M+ for Stifling Music Competitors Like Spotify
EU to Fine Apple $500M+ for Stifling Music Competitors Like Spotify (theverge.com) 21
Posted by EditorDavid
on Sunday February 18, 2024 @07:15PM from the stopping-the-music dept."Apple will reportedly have to pay around €500 million (about $539 million USD) in the EU," reports the Verge, "for stifling competition against Apple Music on the iPhone. Financial Times reported this morning that the fine comes after regulators in Brussels, Belgium investigated a Spotify complaint that Apple prevented apps from telling users about cheaper alternatives to Apple's music service.... The EU whittled its objections down to oppose Apple's refusal to let developers even link out to their own subscription sign-ups within their apps — a policy that Apple changed in 2022 following regulatory pressure in Japan. $500 million may sound like a lot, but a much bigger fine of close to $40 billion (or 10 percent of Apple's annual global turnover) was on the table when the EU updated its objections last year. Apple was charged over a billion dollars in 2020, but French authorities dropped that to about $366 million after the company appealed. The Verge cites an Apple spokesperson who said a year ago that the EU case "has no merit."
Reuters that the EU's fine "is expected to be announced early next month, the Financial Times said."
More from Politico The fine would be the EU's first ever against Apple and is expected to be announced early next month, according to the FT report. It is the result of a European Commission antitrust probe into whether Apple's "anti-steering" requirements breach the bloc's abuse of dominance rules, harming music consumers "who may end up paying more" for apps... The Commission will rule that Apple's actions are illegal and against EU competition rules, according to the report. "The EU executive will ban Apple's practice of barring music services from letting users know of cheaper alternatives outside the App Store, according to the newspaper."
With the overarching demand to regulate, it stifles EU creativity.
And oh, apparently the Leaders in the EU believe that their citizens are mentally challenged, and have no idea that Spotify or any other music streaming sources exist. Apparently too stupid to do a Search with whatever browser is permitted their citizens.
Using a VPN
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If you want to do business in other countries. Obey their laws and regulations.
For example, if any US company wants to sell (most) stuff into other countries, it MUST be in metric.
If it is electrical equipment it MUST conform to local electrical regulations, eg voltage and frequency, colour coding, etc
The US ALSO have rules and regulations that people who wish to export to the USA must conform to.
This is NOT a hard concept.
The main difference is that other countries have far better consumer centric-
And despite the common narrative, just about everything here is metric - I haven't had an imperial standard car since 1987. The metric wars are over, except when we can trigger people.
How about we stop here? Of course electrical equipment has to conform to a country standard. But you are tying to have an argument I am not making.
Unless you are claiming that there is a fundamental difference in the bits and bytes of Apple and the EU.
This is quite pure and simple a claim that EU citizens are not capabl
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Apple and Google have been fighting tooth and nail for years to preserve their cash cows I mean app store fees. It's been thanks to regulators in different parts of the world that they have to make concessions at all. As written in the fine article, Apple finally has to accept that you can use externally paid subscriptions without paying the Apple tax. But they still try to forbid app developers that they can inform their users about it. This is in fact similar to various best price clauses, which have been
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The US is 15% of global GDP and is the world's biggest importer by far.
If the rest of the world wants to go into a global depression then feel free to walk away from us.
% of world population is irrelevant when it comes to trade values and gdp.
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Would be cool if you could use that same VPN connected to Germany to replace Safari. I'm guessing non-EU phones will still be locked to the App Store, VPN or not.
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It sounds like a tourism boost.:)
Fly to Europe, eat a currywurst in Hamburg, or whatever your fancy, then purchase the latest iPhone with 'freedom' firmware.
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We can jailbreak Apple phones here if we wish - It's a pity that there are no other smartphones than Apple - funny how the EU has to claim Apple has a monopoly when they obviously do not.
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I've owned a jailbroken iPhone myself. Cydia was great, but keeping it all working with updated IOS required regular maintenance that is really only for enthusiasts. To be fair LineageOS takes some work too, but at least you are not constantly fighting a company that hates you.
F-droid is great on Android, but what makes it work is you don't need to install it from the Play Store. Apple requiring other app stores to be obtained from them kills much of the freedom they rather poorly pretend to support,
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I know you're American and don't have the best reading comprehension, but you could try reading the article.
a Spotify complaint that Apple prevented apps from telling users about cheaper alternatives to Apple's music service
Apps, you know the things slashdot continually complains about because Apple has too much control over?
Apps under the control of Apple prevented users from being informed of alternatives. In other words stifling competition.
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