Apple fined a record $1.2 billion by French antitrust authorities
French antitrust authorities ordered Apple on Monday to pay a 1.1 billion euro ($1.23 billion) fine for anti-competitive behavior.
The French competition authority said the iPhone-maker was guilty of creating cartels within its distribution network and abusing the economic dependence of its outside resellers.
Two of Apple's wholesalers were also fined for agreeing on prices: Tech Data and Ingram Micro received fines of 76.1 million euros and 62.9 million euros respectively. Both companies were not immediately available for comment when contacted by CNBC.
The French authority said this penalty — totaling 1.24 billion euros — was the largest ever handed down in one case.
"Apple and its two wholesalers agreed not to compete and prevent distributors from competing with each other, thereby sterilizing the wholesale market for Apple products," said Isabelle de Silva, president of the French Competition Authority.
[ . . . ] Monday's announcement is the second fine that French authorities have imposed on Apple in two months. The regulators hit Apple with a 25 million euro fine in February over its software updates, which were concluded to have slowed down older iPhones.
Maybe they should have kept the headphone jack.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Monday March 16 2020, @09:09PM (5 children)
My response would be that I'm surprised that France has a functioning government at all anymore. I guess they have their priorities straight, like the rest of Western Europe, making a business model of nickelling and diming American businesses to death. Must be to feed all those migrants in ghettos, because Europe sure as shit doesn't give a flying fuck about it's own people.
I never understood the toilet paper thing going on here, though. You can jump right off the pot and into the shower and save yourself the trouble of using toilet paper that still leaves your asshole fetid and stinky (to the credit of the French, they have bidets, but for how much longer?!). I always considered toilet paper to be a luxury item, a stopgap measure you would use if you were too lazy to rinse after a shit and didn't care about getting the itchy-ass in a few hours afterward.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 16 2020, @09:16PM (3 children)
https://dyn1.heritagestatic.com/lf?set=path%5B1%2F3%2F6%2F0%2F3%2F13603737%5D&call=url%5Bfile%3Aproduct.chain%5D [heritagestatic.com]
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Monday March 16 2020, @09:51PM (2 children)
Change your underpants once a week? What underpants? You don't even need underpants when you have a pristine shower-fresh asshole after every shit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 16 2020, @10:15PM
That's not enough. Stank will find a way.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday March 17 2020, @02:16PM
What? So those are now in short supply like everything else?
Is it because of COVID-19?
Or is it because of the business plan . . . .
1. Collect underpants
2. ???
3. Profit!
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 4, Touché) by PartTimeZombie on Monday March 16 2020, @09:51PM
How the hell would you know?
You've never been to France, or anywhere else outside your tiny little provincial bubble.