No. of Recommendations: 16
So if Apple refuses to transfer Air Drop tech to Europe so some European startup can copy it, you're cool with AAPL paying a $40 billion or so fine? That's a pretty big local rule.
They can always choose not to sell phones in Europe, after all. Interoperability is a fairly defensible goal for technology regulation, so it's not that much of a stretch for them to require Apple to do what's necessary technically to achieve that goal. It's not that big of a local rule - except to companies like Apple that wants to keep access to its devices proprietary. It's easy to see why they want to do that (it's a huge competitive advantage to them) and easy to see why regulators don't want them to be able to do that (because it thwarts interoperability.
You don't think it's in the US' best interest to watch out for potential abuses?
Sure. But one man's legitimate regulations are another man's abuses. I'm pretty sure that most of the world regards Trump's proposed tariffs as abuses - they clearly violate almost every trade agreement we've ever signed - but he seems to thing they're legitimate. Europe has every right to establish the rules for selling devices and services in their markets, and to prohibit practices they deem anti-competitive. If they want to regulate the software equivalent of a standard headphone jack size, so that third-parties can make peripherals that can "talk" to the devices, they can do that - and it's not an "abuse" just because Apple would prefer that only its own OEM or licensed devices can ever talk to their cellphones.
