European Union watchdogs fined Apple and Meta hundreds of millions of euros Wednesday as they stepped up enforcement of the 27-nation bloc’s digital competition rules.
The European Commission imposed a 500 million euro ($571 million) fine on Apple for preventing app makers from pointing users to cheaper options outside its App Store.
The commission, which is the EU’s executive arm, also fined Meta Platforms 200 million euros because it forced Facebook and Instagram users to choose between seeing ads or paying to avoid them.
Too little
Cost of doing business They should start skimming 20% from these companies war chests
The important part of these are the “do, don’t” orders of business conduct. Then on top small fine. Hence it isn’t merely cost of doing business. The real stinger is “you can’t offer choice of tracking or pay up. You must offer free choice to decline for consent based operations”.
If they ignore the “do’s and dont’s” compliance order, then the big fines come out.
Name one.
Don’t worry once all the kickbacks and bribes are in place the actual sum should come down considerably 🫠
Small fines for how huge these companies are. My mega wealthy Chinese father-in-law was fined 2 billion yuan for tax evasion and money laundering as an individual…
Fraud is punished in the free world too buddy.
He was fined €240M? What had he done?
My bet would be tax evasion and money laundering. ;)
It’s hard to wrap one’s head around just how freaking rich the mega wealthy are. The 1% is not even the enemy at this point, they are closer to most of us than they are to the billionaire class.
I was more meaning “on what scale?”. I assume he wasn’t a few hundred short.
Evaded taxes and laundered money.
Obviously. How much?
A few billion yuan. As he’s well connected politically he managed to get away with just this fine (which is not even that much relative to how much money he made out of the shtick). No prison time or anything. Paid the fine and moved on as if nothing happened.
Interesting that it’s just a cost of doing business in China as well.
Steal a little, and they put you in jail. Steal a lot, and they make you king.
Not a huge blow to companies this large sadly.
I think it must be seen not in light of the monetary blow, but in light of the fact that the EU is pushing hard for these actors to change directions and to end some of their abusive behaviour.
Traffic fines are made to bankrupt drivers or to finance the state, but to encourage people to drive safely.
Traffic fines are made to bankrupt drivers or to finance the state, but to encourage people to drive safely.
Yeah that really depends on location…in Denmark the minimum fine for speeding is 160€, and that’s if you’re just more than 3kmph above limit…it just increases from there and ends with something like a 1000€ fine and them withdrawing your drivers licence (a new licence is going to set you back 2000€). If you’re above 100% speeding the take the car too.
Not huge, indeed. It is possible, and desirable, that the EU is playing strategy with them. Maybe they hit softly now, just to show they mean to go on this regulation-path they choose, and to give a “warning”. Maybe they considered a too aggressive fine could make things worse. I’m not sure, just thinking.
