Business

Europe is coming after Apple… again

Europe hates Apple so much it’s making me think they dislike the fruit too. On Monday, the European Commission accused Apple of breaching the “online gatekeeper” law under the new Digital Markets Act (DMA). This is the first time European regulators have used its latest digital antitrust rules against a tech company, and it could be the worst regulatory mark in history for Apple.

What’s the DMA? The Digital Markets Act is regulation developed by the European Commission “to address the dominance of big tech,” and hold them to an elevated standard of antitrust and consumer protection.

Don’t be a crab apple

According to the EU, developers now have a harder time convincing users to use non-Apple App Store payment options, such as independent websites or app stores that don't take a large share from digital purchases like Apple does.

• Apple usually takes a commission on App Store purchases that ranges between 15% and 30%.

• Additionally, regulators plan to launch a second noncompliance probe into new costs that Apple has started levying on EU developers.

While Monday’s accusations are the EU’s “preliminary view” on the situation, if they end up being confirmed and the tech giant doesn’t respond to its liking, it could mean big trouble for Apple:

• Under the new DMA, the EU can impose fines of up to 10% of a company’s annual global revenue (Apple’s was 383 billion last year).

  • This means Apple’s fine would likely run somewhere between $40 and $74 billion. Yikes.

• In March, the EU fined Apple $2 billion for violating another set of anti-competition regulations that had to do with music services, although they plan to appeal.

  • Additionally, under the DMA, if the EU finds “repeated infringements” it can charge companies up to 20% of yearly revenue.

From Apple’s POV… it claims that because the company began enabling third-party app stores and downloads in the EU before to the DMA's adoption in March, and it is "confident" that it's complying with the new regulations.

In addition, Apple said last week it won’t release its new AI feature on the latest iPhone models in the EU due to regulatory concerns. Apple better hope there isn’t a worm among them.

Finance

Should credit card giants have control over swipe fees?

That’s a question for Judge Margo Brodie, who thinks businesses should still have to pay the fee. On Tuesday, New York judge Margo Brodie rejected a 20-year-old settlement between retailers and credit card behemoths Visa and Mastercard.

Four merchant groups claimed that Visa, Mastercard, and the banks who partner with them have too much control over swipe fees, which are the costs that merchants have to pay in order to accept credit card payments, and filed an antitrust class action complaint against them in 2005. This spring, a settlement was reached.

The settlement

The settlement called for the average swipe fee to decrease at least 0.04 percentage point for three years, and stay at least 0.07 percentage point below the current average for five years.

• Currently, the fees range from 1.5% to 3.5% on each transaction.

  • In total, revenue from swipe fees amounted to nearly $72 billion in 2023.

Despite the rate reduction, the result of the settlement infuriated a number of major businesses, who said that the projected $30 billion in savings over a five-year period simply wasn’t good enough.

Retailers are not happy

The "honor all cards" requirement is one regulation that retailers wish to do away with and that was not covered in the settlement. This implies that a business that wishes to take a certain kind of credit card must accept all cards that fall under the Visa or Mastercard brand, regardless of the bank that issues them or the higher swipe costs associated with them.

The “honor all cards” rule's survival may have had some role in New York Federal Judge Margo Brodie's decision earlier this month that she would not be approving the deal.

We still don't know why she turned down the opportunity, partly because her reasoning wasn't disclosed along with her decision on Tuesday.

Sports

The first Olympics (without air conditioning) 

The only thing warmer than the Olympic athletes rooms will be the Seine river (which people plan to poop in). Following worries that athletes performance may be hampered by France's intentions to utilize eco-friendly cooling pipes in the athletes' village, Team USA and a few other nations have decided to bring air conditioners to the Olympics next month.

Air condition-less

Less than 10% of European homes have air conditioning, according to the International Energy Agency, and Paris is even less of a fan of AC if that says anything. 99% of apartments in the city of love don’t have air conditioning.

• In addition to the US, Australia, Great Britain, Canada, Greece, and potentially China are all intending to send air conditioners to the Olympics.

In a world class event like this, sleep is vital to the athletes performance, and having ACs might offer them an advantage over nations that don't have the resources to do the same.

Grab Bag

Amazon is getting rid of 15 billion plastic pillows

Everyone’s favorite packaging items to stomp on are getting the ax. Amazon announced last week its getting rid of nearly all of its “plastic pillows”, or single-use box fillers, from its packaging in North America and will be void of them by the start of 2025.

The mini fireworks will be replaced with recycled paper, which the e-commerce giant claims is not only easier to recycle, but is also better for item protection.

Plastic paradise

The e-commerce behemoth produced an estimated 208 million pounds of plastic garbage in the US from product packaging in 2022, according to a recent study by nonprofit conservation organization Oceana.

On top of all of that, Amazon used 10% more plastic packaging in the US that year, even as its overall usage decreased 11.6%. The company has already gotten rid of all plastic packaging in its European and Indian divisions.

Big commitment: The announcement marks the biggest pledge Amazon has made to dispose of plastic waste in its history. The e-commerce giant claims it will scrap almost 15 billion plastic pillows from its shipping lanes anually.

Space junk comes with a price

Have you been targeted by space debris? You may be entitled to compensation. A family is requesting NASA pay them after a peice of space junk crashed into their home in Naples, Florida, earlier this year.

The nearly two pound metal piece that plunged through Alejandro Otero’s home was a fragment dropped from the International Space Station, according to NASA. Although the debris didn’t injure anyone, the space agency said it wrongly assumed it would burn up in the atmosphere.

The case could set a new precedent for those impacted (figuratively and literally) by space junk falling back to Earth.

Pause on produce

The family is suing for damages over $80,000 under the Federal Torts Claim Act, according to their attorney Mica Nguyen Worthy, who spoke with the Washington Post. They assert that they have experienced mental distress damages, business interruption damages, and non-insured property loss.

• According to Worthy, the Oteros wish to create a simplified procedure for Americans to receive reimbursement from NASA for events involving space trash.

• Currently, governments are liable under the Space Liability Convention for damages caused by space junk, but only for incidents that occur on foreign soil.

As you can see in the image above, space junk is only getting more prevalent. And due to increasingly common launches from NASA and private space companies like SpaceX, space debris falling to Earth will only become more common.

Fast Facts

Airborne Aliens: Scientists may have found a way to find aliens… if there are any.

Total Recall: Tesla recalled Cybertrucks again on Tuesday for the fourth time since they went on sale at the end of November.

Parasocial People: The University of Essex research team found people can get more emotional fulfillment from parasocial relationships with online creators rather than relationships with casual acquaintances.

Pacific Play: A study published in Chronobiology International analyzed more than 25,000 NBA games across 21 consecutive seasons and found that teams based in Pacific Time had a significantly higher win percentage when traveling to play a team in ET, rather than vice versa.

Plane Problems: See what Americans think is acceptable or unacceptable on the airplane.