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Comment by keymone | Hacker News Reader

it's a tax. as long as apple's walled garden is so much better than anything else - no reason to worry.

The EU is already investigating Apple management of the App Store. Regulation is coming and one has to wonder much walled and profitable the garden will stay.

The EU is investigating an awful lot of US companies.

The EU would need to demonstrate that it's teeth are sharp and big enough to actually break the skin on those companies.

Most likely result is Apple/Google/Amazon/Facebook buy them off for some trivial (for them anyway) amount of money.

Just like German car makers bought the EU, in exchange for protectionist measures and to get away with emissions that have destroyed a continent's climate? How come the EU is not looking more inwards, or into Chinese company practices, but instead it focuses on American tech giants? Politics perhaps?

Apple has had a 13 billion Euro tax bill out of it. Google is adding browser and search selection in Android in a pro-active move. I would say this is certainly a show of teeth.

Apple is going to be forced to allow other app stores onto their phone like Android does (although Android did it without any laws forcing them to).

If you're an Apple shareholder I would be very worried about anti-trust concerns on this point in Europe especially but also the US.

I would actively price in this going away in Europe, never mind being a risk.

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