Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:
Apple has a month left to make its App Store rules compliant with EU Digital Markets Act antisteering provisions, or the fines will keep coming.
On April 23, following multiple reports that the EU was delaying the issuing of fines against Apple and Meta, Europe finally pulled the trigger. It announced that it would fine Apple and Meta millions of euros for failing to comply with the Digital Markets Act.
Over a month later, on May 27, the European Commission published its full ruling on the matter. The 67-page document also outlines exactly what the punishment is to Apple, for failing to follow the regulation.
The bottom line is that Apple was fined 500 million euro ($567 million), with Apple being given three months to pay it to the European Commission. If it doesn't pay on time, it will have to pay interest on the due funds.
Apple also has to fix itself and end the non-compliance with the Digital Markets Act within 60 days of the April notification. If Apple does not, it faces the prospect of "periodic penalty payments" of an unspecified amount until it does comply.
The ruling covers how Apple is not complying with the DMA based on how its anti-steering rules are implemented. Originally, Apple prevented developers from telling consumers about ways to make payments for services and features that didn't go through Apple's systems.
Apple did change its rules under regulatory pressure, but did so in a way that didn't meet the requirements of the Digital Markets Act. These changes included allowing developers to share an external link with users, but with limitations.
Since Apple wouldn't get its 30% cut for usage of its In-App Purchases mechanism, Apple added a new requirement, effectively taking a 27% fee from these transactions outside of the App Store system.
In its ruling, neither the old nor new business terms complied with the regulation, since they restricted the ability for developers to promote their off-App Store offers in their apps. Forcing a fee instead of doing so free of charge was also seen as an issue, as is limiting links to one URL per app.
Repeatedly, Apple's arguments are denied in the ruling, such as its definition of "free" as its read in the regulation when taking into account nuances in different languages.
As for the fine, Apple argued that it should not be fined at all, due to the relative novelty of the regulation and taking into account Apple's "good faith efforts to engage" with the European Commission.
"None of Apple's arguments for not imposing a fine, or for reducing the fine, are convincing," the ruling reads.
While the final ruling's publication in full seemingly brings to an end legal action that started back in May 2024, that's far from the reality of the situation. Like many other high-stakes lawsuits, the appeals process will take years to conclude.
Apple said at the time of the original ruling that it will appeal against the fine. Apple also took the opportunity to accuse the EU of discriminating against it, and of requiring Apple to hand over its technology to rival companies for free.
It is unclear if Apple has formally appealed, nor if Apple has made its 500 million euro payment.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by KritonK on Thursday June 05, @06:54AM (4 children)
So, they are fined for not complying, they will be fined if they don't pay in time, and they will be fined if they don't make the requested changes.
Given that the only penalty for not paying the fines are fines, fines, and more fines, without any other consequences, what would be the incentive for Apple to pay a single Euro cent?
If we could prevent them from doing business in Europe, until they pay, now that would hurt, but can we? The most common DNS servers, such as Google's, are US-based, so their app store will remain reachable, and payments are made using credit cards, and Visa and Mastercard are also US-based.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by FunkyLich on Thursday June 05, @08:10AM (1 child)
That's why I see "pay till you comply" an easier way also as a solution. How I see it is that they can not just refuse to pay, the pay will be taken and held electronically form the bank systems, electronic revenue collection, and so on. It is not that Apple is being asked to pay, it will be made to pay. In the same way that someone can not stop a bank from substracting money from an account if the bank did that and put a comment there "because of court ruling for the fine you have to pay".
Got to love the wonders of a cashless economic system.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by c0lo on Thursday June 05, @08:40AM
I'd love to see how Apple Store would handle payments in cash.
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Thursday June 05, @08:38AM
Block any payment to Apple Store at the source? That is, assuming the source is an European bank.
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Informative) by gnuman on Thursday June 05, @09:01AM
It's like when court imposes fines when you don't show up to court to pay your fine. They issue an order to collect it from your bank accounts.
And, eventually, the directors become liable personally...
(Score: 5, Insightful) by janrinok on Thursday June 05, @09:21AM (1 child)
There is some discussion about how to make them pay...
Why don't Apple just comply with the appropriate EU law? What makes Apple, Google, Meta et al special?
If a European company broke the law in the US, they would be put in front of a US court, and quite rightly so. Apple and Meta have lots of businesses in Europe, as do the other US giants. They also have IT infrastructure in Europe - not everyone logs in directly to the US. They go through European peers. The EU courts can seize their European assets or simply prevent them from trading if they wish.
Does Apple want to keep its low-tax perks?
Want to buy an Apple Mac computer? Buy direct from the US and pay the (soon-to-be-imposed-if-Trump-doesn't-come-to-his-senses) EU tariffs - see, it works both ways.
"We didn't start the fire...." Billy Joel.
[nostyle RIP 06 May 2025]
(Score: 4, Funny) by Undefined on Thursday June 05, @01:08PM
Corporations are like people... and the people they are like are the sociopaths and the psychopaths.
--
I use a dedicated preprocessor to elaborate abbreviations.
Hover your mouse over any abbreviation to see any you are unfamiliar with.
(Score: 1, Troll) by DadaDoofy on Thursday June 05, @12:21PM (3 children)
I guess the only reason Apple still does business in Europe is, in spite of the EU having devolved into a mafia-wannabe extortion racket, there is still a profit to be made. If Tim Cook was in possession of a set of testicles, Apple would have stopped selling products there when this whole thing started. If Europeans couldn't get their precious i-stuff, the random fines would have suddenly evaporated.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by janrinok on Thursday June 05, @01:06PM (2 children)
They can always go and get their tax perks somewhere else then, can't they? They also like the relatively cheap power that they can get in Ireland. They like the low price of real estate too, and the lower wages than they would have to pay in the US.
They like the perks, but not our laws. Make your mind up Apple, you cannot have your cake and eat it.
These laws were not written by the Mafia. They are there to protect European consumers from being ripped off and to protect our personal data from being exploited by the very same US companies who are now complaining. Nobody has to move their company to Europe if they don't like the laws that we implement.
[nostyle RIP 06 May 2025]
(Score: 2) by DadaDoofy on Thursday June 05, @05:03PM (1 child)
"They like the perks, but not our laws."
Gee, I wonder why Apple doesn't like the laws?
Let's look at the EU's $2 billion fine for Apple's "harm" to music streaming providers as an example. From Forbes:
"The European Union fined Apple $1.95 billion (€1.8 billion) Monday after ruling that the company abused its market dominance to harm music streaming providers on its iPhone and iPad app stores, the latest in a series of regulatory clashes between the bloc and the iPhone maker."
This is an outright lie. European music streamer Spotify dominates the market with with a 33% share. Tencent is next, with just under 15%. At number three, Apple Music has about a 12% share, less than a third of the market share claimed by the top two players. https://explodingtopics.com/blog/music-streaming-stats [explodingtopics.com] [explodingtopics.com]
"The European Commission, the bloc’s executive body, said its probe found Apple 'applied restrictions' on app makers that prevented them from informing iPhone and iPad users about 'alternative and cheaper' music subscription services available outside of the app.”
This argument is patently absurd. When was the last time you went to the store and found products with labels on them advertising the same product on sale at the store down the street for less money. Yeah, never! Don't be ridiculous.
"The regulator said Apple’s conduct 'lasted for almost ten years' and it may have forced iOS users to pay more for streaming subscriptions because of the company’s commission fee on all in-app transactions."
Nope. Another lie. iOS user's aren't "forced" to pay anything. They pay for streaming subscriptions and in-app purchases of their own free will. The fee Apple charges recovers the cost associated with the infrastructure and human resources required to run an App Store and earn a profit for the shareholders.
"Apple takes a 30% cut of all transactions—including subscriptions—purchased from inside an app on iOS and iPadOS devices, which causes app makers to charge higher subscription fees for users who choose to subscribe to their services from within the app."
It is standard practice for any business that sells things on consignment to take a percentage of the sale when an item sells. Whether the seller ups the price to recover that cut, or eats the cost to reap the benefit of Apple's worldwide distribution network, it's still a choice made of the seller's own free will.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2024/03/04/apple-fined-nearly-2-billion-by-european-union-for-abusing-its-dominance-to-harm-music-streamers/ [forbes.com]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by janrinok on Thursday June 05, @06:20PM
"... the fine represented 0.5% of Apple’s global turnover.
It could have been as much as 10% - they would probably have noticed it in that case."
Unless the way that they do it is illegal - which in this case it was.
They have interpreted the EU law selectively in their own favour. The courts have now slapped them down for that.
I don't care what they do elsewhere - if they want to operate in Europe they must follow European laws. If they want to operate anywhere outside of the US, then they must comply with local laws. It isn't a difficult concept. US law does NOT carry any weight anywhere else in the world.
As far as I am concerned, it doesn't matter if EU law says they must all wear swimsuits and hop on one leg - if that is the law that they are required to obey in order to do business then they should obey it or leave, as long as that law is applied equally to all businesses including European. No amount of your attempted justification can change that. We don't really care what you think.
[nostyle RIP 06 May 2025]