They think they’re above the fray, but there’s a reason Google and Meta are taking DMA way more seriously than GDPR - it’s basically a speedboat loaded with explosives in regulatory terms.
It’s designed to move fast and take out targets with extreme prejudice. It is crafted to explicitly overcome the barriers that prevent GDPR being enforced (eg Ireland).
Apple is fucking around with the EU, and will very shortly find out why the DMA is written the way it is.
When Apple stops selling their shitty hardware here, can they take home Google and Facebook too?
There are 450 million people in the EU, nobody thinks Apple is just going to casually walk away.
Aka never. First off because they would get shredded by their investors, and second because the competitors emerging in that void would end up being threats in the future.
Because DMA was designed not to be explicit so relies on interpretation.
But my point is that you can't say "just comply with the law" when compliance has been a much more interactive process.
In Apple's case, the edict was to create competition by opening up the app stores. Apple "opened" its app store in a way that failed to actually allow competition and so it is subject to the fine. This is exactly why laws work this way - to prevent what is now called "gaming" the system.
It’s a law that establishes no measurable compliance guidelines, while providing absolutely no limitations on what the EU can decide counts as a violation retroactively. It’s basically “We’re not going to tell you what we want you to do. You need to guess what we want you to do, and fuck you if you guess wrong.”
You may think you are defending Apple, but in truth you are just saying they are horribly incompetent. If that is the case, they deserve to keep being fined.
My comment was about how under the EU's framework, Apple's behavior is totally rational. If Apple complies more than necessary, it could cost them far more than the fine, so obviously they undershoot compliance, accept the fine, and then proceed with minimal compliance. If the commission were simply upfront with about specifics of compliance, it could all be avoided.
-> Irate American complaint about how it's a stealth tax
-> equally irate European rebuttal that US companies should just follow the laws if they want to do business here
-> Follow up irate American reply
... Repeat until 3 or 4 comments down it's somehow become:
-> European: but quality of life is better here because of free healthcare etc, GDP isn't a good measure, I went to the US once and saw poors on the street!
-> American: something angry about socialism
... And so on. It's the same tedious argument on every single article about EU privacy laws or taxes, and I could also copy/paste these exact comments from a Reddit post about the same issue and nobody would be the wiser.
So what I don't get is the quasi-reflexive need to shill for corporations who make it harder for outsiders to rise up in the market. I know what they say about Americans seeing themselves not as poor, but as temporarily embarassed billionaires, but how are you going to have a cut at the american dream by shilling for quasi-monopolists?
I'm also European and my rule of thumb is that if something triggers me enough to make my blood boil, the absolute least useful thing I can do, both for other people reading, and for my own mental health, is to start a pointless argument.