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Apple hit with $2 billion EU antitrust fine in Spotify case (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 6 months ago by ForgottenFlux to c/technology

35 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Apple has been fined €1.8bn ($2bn) by the EU after an investigation found it had limited competition from music streaming services such as Spotify.
The European competition commissioner, Margrethe Vestager, said a smaller fine would have been nothing more than the equivalent of a parking fine and the €1.8bn was designed to act as a deterrent against a repetition of such practices by Apple or others.
“Apple’s rules ended up harming consumers. Critical information was withheld so that consumers could not effectively use or make informed choices. Some consumers may have paid more because they weren’t aware that they can pay less if they subscribed outside of the app,” Vestager said.
Vestager said consumers may have paid two or three euros a month more for music streaming because of the lack of open competition. However, she conceded that the fine would not be distributed to customers who had been allegedly exploited but to individual member states.
She said the fine represented 0.5% of Apple’s global turnover.

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[–] ma11en -1 points 6 months ago (2 children)

How much goes to those that were affected?

A big fat 0!

[–] [email protected] 13 points 6 months ago

That depends on how you define who's affected. The fine is part of EUs budget and the fees paid by member states will be reduced by the same amount for next years budget. Every* member of the EU profits from this. And since anti competitive behaviour affects the entire market, the involved parties got compensated.

*Except perhaps apple users... And one might argue they're the ones affected. But it's also self-inflicted.