by Aldipower on 4/23/25, 10:01 AM with 595 comments
by madeofpalk on 4/23/25, 11:04 AM
To me, this is the most easily agreeable part of what the EU has been after. It is unfair that Apple restricts Netflix from telling it's users that they can sign up and pay for Netlifx on their own website. It's unfair that Netflix can't even tell its users the rules that Apple enforces on them.
It's telling that Gruber is pretty staunchly against EU/DMA interferance in Apple, and broadly thinks they're wrong. But this is the one thing he agrees on
> If Apple wants to insist on a cut of in-app purchased subscription revenue, that’s their prerogative. What gets me, though, are the rules that prevent apps that eschew in-app purchases from telling users in plain language how to actually pay. Not only is Netflix not allowed to link to their website, they can’t even tell the user they need to go to netflix.com to sign up
https://daringfireball.net/2019/01/netflix_itunes_billing
https://daringfireball.net/2020/07/parsing_cooks_opening_sta...
(I think Apple now has their 'reader app' carveout for apps like Netflix, but it's still pretty obtuse and inconsistent)
by WhyNotHugo on 4/23/25, 1:59 PM
> The European Commission is attempting to handicap successful American businesses while allowing Chinese and European companies to operate under different standards.
But this is wildly untrue. The EU isn't hand-picking individual organisations and fining them because they're American, they're fining them because they're in breach of existing legislation. The same legislation applies to local companies.
Ironically, it's the US who takes stances like the one they claim the EU is taken. E.g.: The US required that TikTok be sold, without actually proving that TikTok was in breach of any actual law.
But repeating the same claims gets those claims out into the media, and that's what people hear. So we see a dissonance between what the media says (and many people believe) and what's really happening.
by pjc50 on 4/23/25, 10:25 AM
> The EU regulator also dropped Meta's Marketplace's designation as a DMA gatekeeper because the number of users fell below the threshold.
Now that's interesting. I think the threshold is 45 million? Falling EU userbase?
by phtrivier on 4/23/25, 12:26 PM
> The procedural fines fall short of the two giant penalties issued by the EU executive under its antitrust laws last year: €1.8 billion to Apple for abusing its dominant position while distributing music streaming apps, and €797 million to Meta for pushing its classified ads service on social media users.
Really honest questions: are those fines actually paid, in practice ? Is there a way for a citizen to know ? (As in, do they appear in the public budget of the UE ?) Or are they somehow deducted from subsidies, added to taxes, etc... ?
I know who collects taxes in France ("Le Tresor Public"). I don't know of a EU version of a treasury. Is it collected by one of the member states (Ireland, I would guess ?)
by tossandthrow on 4/23/25, 10:37 AM
by paxys on 4/23/25, 2:00 PM
Meta complaining about getting tariff'd is objectively hilarious.
by hadrien01 on 4/23/25, 10:49 AM
by drooopy on 4/23/25, 10:33 AM
by mentalgear on 4/23/25, 11:04 AM
by popol12 on 4/23/25, 11:16 AM
by iagooar on 4/23/25, 12:11 PM
At the same time, most governments, public offices, agencies and businesses in Europe would not be able to operate normally without access to American software.
The problem is that it is way easier to (over)regulate and tax, than to create a strong environment for business and innovation to thrive, in order to grow your own tech giants.
by izacus on 4/23/25, 10:52 AM
by mapcars on 4/23/25, 12:37 PM
Wait, isn't pretty much all web content is like this nowadays? You have to buy youtube premium to avoid ads, how is it different?
by alexfromapex on 4/23/25, 4:29 PM
by mleonhard on 4/24/25, 6:50 PM
> The EU regulator also dropped Meta's Marketplace's designation as a DMA gatekeeper because the number of users fell below the required threshold.
The EU government explains this in their press release: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_25_...
> Today, the Commission also found that Meta's online intermediation service Facebook Marketplace should no longer be designated under the DMA. The decision follows a request submitted by Meta on 5 March 2024 to reconsider the designation of Marketplace. Following a careful assessment of Meta's arguments and as a result of Meta's additional enforcement and continued monitoring measures to counteract the business-to-consumer use of Marketplace, the Commission found that Marketplace had less than 10,000 business users in 2024. Meta therefore no longer meets the relevant threshold giving rise to a presumption that Marketplace is an important gateway for business users to reach end users.
by p_ing on 4/23/25, 11:45 AM
by mrankin on 4/25/25, 1:57 PM
by gorgoiler on 4/24/25, 1:47 AM
I met a member of an EU pact
Who said: two vast and fruitful suits of law
Prevail in the courts. Near them, in their acts,
Half won, a shattered victory lies, whose maw
And wrinkled smile, a sneer of bitter spite,
Tell that its makers well those voters fed
Which yet survive, in those politic corps,
The lips that lied, the hearts that bled
And on the cover these words, in bold, underlined
“My name is Brussels, Home of Kings:
Look on my rules, ye Mighty, and be fined!”
No thing beside remains. Around the court
Of that great parliament, in open plans, Aerons reclined
The ever mighty FAANGs endure.by npc_anon on 4/23/25, 8:17 PM
It harms the free market, harms the freedom to compute, creates an asymmetrical extractive relation between mega-corp and average internet user, and omnipresent surveillance. It's anti-American if "American" still means a love of freedom, personal privacy and fair competition.
But I do understand the "new" American perspective. These companies are money printers some of which produce as much as $30B of pure profit in a single quarter. If such companies are to exist, they best be American I guess.
by llm_nerd on 4/23/25, 11:14 AM
Mark Zuckerberg, in his appearance on Joe Rogan's podcast, specifically noted this as his goal for falling in behind Trump. That Trump would be the big-stick man that would protect Meta and other cos from foreign interference. Where "interference" is anything restricting that American exceptionalism "do anything we want, however we want".
Only then Trump started a trade war with quite literally the entire world -- aside from, predictably, Russia -- and now he holds, as he likes to say, no cards. The EU and anyone else can do whatever they want and Zuck and co can cry about the millions they wasted trying to buy a protection racket.
Of course Meta could just withdrawn from the EU. I wish they would withdraw from Canada. Their garbage misinformation platform is a massive net negative for humanity and has offered nothing but harm for the planet.
by silexia on 4/25/25, 2:21 PM
by ENGNR on 4/23/25, 10:46 AM
by josefritzishere on 4/23/25, 2:45 PM
by samdung on 4/23/25, 3:47 PM
At this point it looks like governments want the money and companies are gleefully willing to pay.
by yupyupyups on 4/23/25, 11:00 AM
by rini17 on 4/23/25, 12:06 PM
by supernova87a on 4/24/25, 12:11 AM
Why is is against the law?