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Big Tech to EU: "Drop Dead" (www.eff.org)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] 131 points 2 years ago (20 children)

To this articles question on why apple should care about EUs 500 million citizens when they have trillions of Dollars. Well given that the USA only has 333 millions I would say they should care a lot.

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  • [–] 156 points 2 years ago (11 children)

    Apple needs to realize that the EU doesn’t care if they left. They barely pay any taxes in the EU and don’t even create much economic value. Since most Apple jobs in the EU are in retail, businesses administration and tax evasion. They don’t produce shit here.

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  • [–] 127 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Meta tried to do the same. The EU response was to ask when they'd leave to plan the going away party. Meta was a lot less confrontational after that.

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  • [–] 14 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (7 children)

    But what about the blue chat bubbles?!

    edit: /s

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  • [–] 26 points 2 years ago (4 children)

    At least in germany, nobody cares. We are using WhatsApp over here most of the time

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  • [–] 20 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    “Don’t blame me, I voted for Kodos!”

    WhatsApp is owned by Meta.

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  • [–] 10 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    We know, the EU also told meta to behave. Meta then threatened to leave and everyone was like "ok, when?". Because we'll just switch to the next best thing. So meta behaved. Sort of, it's an ongoing thing.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago

    Meta’s not behaving in the slightest. Their entire business model is illegal under the GDPR. They will continue maliciously complying for as long as they can. Just like Apple. Fight tooth and nail for as long as it takes.

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  • [–] 49 points 2 years ago (7 children)

    As of the second quarter of fiscal year 2024, the Americas held around 41 percent of the revenue, whereas Europe came in second with roughly over 26.5 percent.

    source

    As the second largest revenue generator, Europe has a powerful voice.

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  • [–] 11 points 2 years ago (5 children)

    The EU is only one chunk of Apple’s “Europe” segment, which is defined as “European countries, as well as India, the Middle East and Africa.”

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Most companies group MENA separately. They must sell so few devices there that they don’t want to show the numbers separately

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    They’ve used the same segments for a long time and presumably maintain them for consistency, so I think it really just tells us that they used to sell very little there. India, in particular, has been a large growth market for Apple in the past couple of years, but is still just thrown in with “Europe.”

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago

    I can’t speak for Apple, but every company I’ve worked for has split their region reporting as soon as one of the traditionally smaller regions gets big enough

    It creates hype and a boost to their stock price

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago

    And I think a lot of that revenue is in the Middle East to be honest. Those are poorer parts of the world, but with very bad culture of demonstrative consumption.

    Still, how big this is for Apple is important only for Apple users. While creating a culture of not fucking around is important for everyone.

    So I'd say the EU should cut Apple down right now. They've made a lot of bad faith and faux compliance actions. Just ban them. I'm confident there's much more than one reason justifying that legally. No, that company doesn't help innovation, education and whatever else.

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