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Comment by _ZeD_ | Hacker News Reader

>>> How about the rest of us?

you can ask for an European citizenship.

Or you can ask your government to protect its citizen from monopolies

I don’t think either option is actionable. I live in Australia, with a population so negligible and ignorant of privacy that even if someone in government somehow did give a shit, even major entities like Apple might find it more economical to just pull out entirely.

And ‘just asking’ for citizenship is a little bit of a stretch, as is relocating to Europe.

And to add, this isn’t about where I live or my government, this is about apple choosing to be monopolistic assholes.

They have some excellent engineering, as does Microsoft, but the unscrupulous business side leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Citizenship is not enough, you have to live in the EU.

So then even a resident permit would be enough, because you don't need citizenship to be able to live in EU.

Maybe. I’m actually curious how they are going to gate it. Because I’m originally from the US, I have access to US things still (like Apple Cash). I’ve migrated my account years ago, and my phone’s region is set to my EU one.

I read somewhere that Apple ID region will be part of it. Given they don't let you transfer your purchases from one Apple ID region to another, it'll be a nightmare for people living in the EU but using a US Apple ID account.

I feel like that’s a bit disingenuous to what actually happens when you change regions. As they explained to me before I switched:

1. All my content would stay in the old region. If I ever go back, I will still have all that content.

2. In my new region, content will be matched. If there is matching content, I will have a license for it. Otherwise, I will lose access to the content until I change my region back.

I accepted and that’s what happened. Some of my old playlists are full of content I can’t play here (for the better playlists, I just got the EU version of the song and deleted the US version). I still see most of my apps and movies/shows in library. Some apps that are US only stopped updating until they eventually stopped working.

Interesting. It's been a decade since I looked into this but unless I was just unlucky and no content matched, your second point is a big improvement since then.

I did this in 2018, and I had to do it over the phone because my account was bugged (stuck in an infinite loop, and even on the phone I was eventually handed off to someone relatively high-up in the corporate ladder, after six hours of being passed around to various departments) and I remember her mentioning that it was relatively new.

App Store Account (ie. billing address) country isn't enough this time around, Apple enforces via "on-device processing" of physical location

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/118110#:~:text=Availability%...

There's some investigation as to how Apple uses countryd to determine what jurisdiction you're in.

>[countryd] combines multiple data such as current GPS location, country code from the Wi-Fi router, and information obtained from the SIM card to determine the country the user is in.

https://9to5mac.com/2023/04/25/ios-16-restrict-features-base...

Since I imagine you have a European Wi-Fi router, SIM card and GPS location, there's a good chance you'll get the EU features.

Dual sim, actually. One is a US sim, the other an EU sim.

Wifi router isn't set to an EU jurisdiction to get higher power and get through some walls.

There's so many edge cases, there's no way they'll get it perfectly the first time. It's like asking for getting sued.

I don’t even believe that would be required. Providing proof of residence or citizenship would likely be considered excessive under the GDPR.

I anal but I understand that in the US, it is unlawful to falsely claim to be a US citizen. I don't know if the EU has something similar?

I am also not a lawyer, but asking if someone is an EU citizen is probably not acceptable in and of itself.

The DMA Chapter 1 Article 1 section 2 makes it clear that the requirement applies to services offered to users “established or located” in the EU.

You can be located in the EU without a residence permit or citizenship perfectly legally (and it’s not even clear whether being LEGALLY located or established in the EU is a requirement).

The exact wording is "end users established or located in the Union". I haven't looked up exactly what "established" is defined as in this case, but it may have broader implications than merely "living in the EU".

> Or you can ask your government to protect its citizen from monopolies

that’s one take. i got a different one:

the ship has already sailed almost two decades ago. that’s when these kinds of solutions should have been implemented.

today euro politicians decided to micromanage US tech companies because they don’t have any themselves. they’ll use the fine money to promote truly innovative companies such as France Telecom.

meanwhile in the real world i just got an email from one of my european clients to not use anything other than safari and to not install any 3rd party app stores or apps due to security concerns.

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