apple pay open EU
9 months ago
Published October 6, 2021 by

Reuters: EU wants to crack open Apple Pay

From “EXCLUSIVE Apple to face EU antitrust charge over NFC chip – sources” posted Wednesday:

Apple will be hit with an EU antitrust charge over its NFC chip technology, people familiar with the matter said, a move that puts it at risk of a possible hefty fine and could force it to open its mobile payment system to rivals.

The iPhone maker has been in European Union antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager’s crosshairs since June last year when she launched an investigation into Apple Pay.

Preliminary concerns were Apple’s NFC chip which enables tap-and-go payments on iPhones, its terms and conditions on how mobile payment service Apple Pay should be used in merchants’ apps and websites, and the company’s refusal to allow rivals access to the payment system.

My take; Vestager seems determined to dismantle the walled garden, one anticompetitive brick at a time.

7 Comments

  1. Jeff Galanti said:
    It is very ironic that Europe’s efforts to prevent harm to consumers just create harm to consumers. The bureaucrats are all holding hammers and running around looking for nails. I highly doubt that there is a groundswell of voices begging for universal chargers and universal access to NFC chips. At some point, some of these regulators need to wonder why Europe doesn’t have any Apples, Googles, Facebooks, Teslas, etc.

    17
    October 6, 2021
    • Fred Stein said:
      Yes and upvoted.

      AC power is already a century old and we don’t have global standards. Ordinary power tools for cooking, carpentry, and yard-work don’t have universal nor interchangeable charging devices.

      As for opening up payments, she must be mad.

      6
      October 6, 2021
    • Gregg Thurman said:
      The bureaucrats are all holding hammers and running around looking for nails.

      Vestager is a bureaucrat that is out of control. She is the epitome of a regulator with an apparently boundless budget and an agenda that serves her, not the public. Of course having someone like that in charge only demonstrates that the EU is out of control and rapidly becoming dysfunctional. I used to think proponents of Brexit were crazy. Not any more.

      6
      October 6, 2021
  2. John Blackburn said:
    To get another Golden Goose, do not first dissect the one you have to determine its secrets.

    3
    October 6, 2021
  3. Michael Goldfeder said:
    Her hatred of Apple has no bounds. She even had the temerity to attack the long standing corporate tax code of Ireland. That decision against her baseless fine is now at the EU’s highest court awaiting a final ruling.

    She fails to understand the compelling language utilized by the Federal District Court Judge in the Epic v. Apple case that said: “Success is not illegal!”

    3
    October 6, 2021
  4. Jonny T said:
    “One anticompetitive brick at a time.”

    Really PED?!

    1
    October 6, 2021

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