The EU has a bunch of reciprocal trade agreements with the USA to not engage in punitive harassment of each other’s companies. Of course they still can, but that’s what’s called a “trade war” and it’s generally not a good thing for all involved. Public perception of these changes in the US is also very important, since if the US government chooses to view these actions as punitive harassment calculatedly targeted only at US companies, it will respond with tariffs etc on EU goods.
Yeah. That has been going on since 2005, and the US started it. It even adopted the whitepapers of think-thanks that advocated that exact trade war, elaborating how to sink the Eu's economy. This has been escalating since then.
This law basically says that the Eu is going full-out.
It would seem so, yes. But in fact they need to convince the US government that the issue is worth exercising some pressure on the EU. And the USA has a wide array of options here.
When Chelsea Manning released her cables, there were too many of them for any journalist to read or even glance not to mention understanding what is going on. But I spent several weeks grepping and reading many fragments. My conclusion is that the US government cares a lot about their business in other countries, especially in Europe. Ambassadors reported a great deal about how things are going for American companies, what threats are (like European citizens realizing what's better for them), how to neutralize them and so on.
If the US was able to exert sufficient influence on the Eu, the trade war that the US itself started in 2005 would not reach such a point in which the Eu basically placed a kick in the balls of the US tech monopolies.
Which should never have happened and those companies should have never been let to dominate the Internet and everyone's lives to this extent. Especially considering how they are private tyrannies that decide whatever is the best for them, not their users.
Wow. All of those points that you listed ARE the reasons why nobody in Europe will take Apple's side when left-wing European MPs start telling their constituents about all those stuff.
Actually they do - thats the reason why that law was passed. That kind of thing may fly in the US, but not elsewhere.
Of course. But these points aren't aimed at the EU (they don't have a leg to stand on, at most they can say they need more time but they can't really find good arguments against the new law). The way I see it, Apple has 3 options:
1) Appeal to infinity, using all resources they can.
2) Comply but make things so difficult for the user that they effectively retain the control over the device as before. (Anybody remembers browserchoice.eu?)
3) Convince the US government the law goes too far and they should intervene. Given the war in Ukraine, it would be extremely easy to convince the countries bordering with Russia, Belarus and Ukraine they should support the USA in this case.
1. EU bureaucrats are threatening one of the most successful business models ever.
2. Jealous EU tries to punish successful American tech companies as they can't compete with them in the market.
3. The EU attempts to lower the value of tech stock, threatening pensions of millions of Americans.
4. Apple will need to fire thousands if the malicious plan of EU bureaucrats succeeds.
Etc. etc.