I would love to see the EU swiftly put down the law and make an example of Apple in this case. I'm sure it won't take too many 10% of global revenue-fines before they get in line.
Why should the EU fine 10% of Apple's global revenue when they're violating an EU-specific law? Shouldn't they just fine 10% of EU revenue?
> I'm sure it won't take too many 10% of global revenue-fines before they get in line.
I'm sure it won't take too many of those before Apple just decides to leave the EU wholesale, as it only accounts for around 10% of their own annual revenue.
It's global revenue (all the way up the ownership structure) because that closes one of the world's most obvious loopholes, where you create an EU-based subsidiary that takes a tiny commission for selling products/services from non-EU companies, therefore having minimal revenue to fine. The GDPR fine structure works the same way. Though, 10% is a limit, fines usually start smaller.
If you've read up on BEPS, or most forms of tax-minimization that occur in EU countries, it makes perfect sense that they'd expect that to happen.
That's true, I forgot about the subsidiary sneakiness that corps do all the time. My thought process when asking the question was that yesterday I'd read a discussion here on HN about the US District Court testimony where Tim Sweeny/Epic said that they had deliberately flouted and broken Apple's developer agreement; the argument was that this testimony "doesn't count" because it happened outside of the EU – despite Epic and Epic Sweden being the same business run by the same guy.
The problem with the DMA's "free of charge" language is that the DMA sits below the WIPO treaties [1] in terms of its legal authority.
> Under this treaty, authors are provided with the exclusive rights of distribution and rental and with a broader right of communication to the public of their works in the digital environment. Computer programs are protected as literary works and the arrangement or selection of data or other material in databases is also protected. Specific protection is also provided for technological measures and electronic rights management information used to identify and manage works.
The DMA's "free of charge" doesn't mean what everyone wants it to mean :-/
Apple's entire answer to the DMA will be destroyed, just like how they rolled back on PWA.
It's super weird because it feels like they were dealing with the US public instead of EU : they are FAR from the same market share here, and the public is much more not only tolerant but asking for regulations.
It can't be that simple because they have a lot of very smart people dealing with those things, but I still don't get what they thought they would accomplish trying to weaponize their customers like that.
It reminds me of the GDPR and companies making threat, culminating with Meta saying if the GDPR is passed then facebook and instagram would leave the EU market, which got answer by the french and german gov by "okay, you go right ahead". We know how that one ends. You earn a lot more dozens of billions by complying than by leaving out of spite.
