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Apple Faces Billions in Losses as EU Comma Interpretation Ends External Purchase Fees (substack.com) 58

Posted by msmash from the billion-dollar-comma dept.
Apple will lose the ability to collect commissions on external iOS purchases in Europe starting June 23, following a European Commission ruling that hinges on the grammatical interpretation of a single comma in the Digital Markets Act. The dispute centers on Article 5.4, which requires gatekeepers to allow business users "free of charge, to communicate and promote offers, including under different conditions [...], and to conclude contracts with those end users."

Apple contends that "free of charge" applies only to communication and promotion activities, not contract conclusion, allowing the company to maintain its commission structure on external transactions. The European Commission interprets the comma before "and to conclude contracts" as creating an enumeration where the free-of-charge requirement applies to all listed activities, including purchases made outside Apple's payment system.

Under the new ruling, Apple can collect commissions only on the first external transaction between users and developers, with all subsequent purchases and auto-renewed subscriptions exempt from fees. The company faces daily penalties of up to $53.5 million for non-compliance and has already been fined $570 million. Apple's internal forecasts estimate potential annual losses of "hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars" in the US alone, though Europe demands stricter changes than those projections assumed.

Apple Faces Billions in Losses as EU Comma Interpretation Ends External Purchase Fees More | Reply

Apple Faces Billions in Losses as EU Comma Interpretation Ends External Purchase Fees

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  • what about that core fee will that be banned?

  • It's not the comma's fault (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Tony Isaac ( 1301187 ) on Friday June 06, 2025 @12:58PM (#65432082) Homepage

    The dispute centers on Article 5.4, which requires gatekeepers to allow business users "free of charge, to communicate and promote offers, including under different conditions [...], and to conclude contracts with those end users."

    A rational reading of this sentence would not pair "free of charge" with only first phrase "to communicate and promote offers." If the "free of charge" were meant to apply only to that first clause, the second clause would have been separated into a different sentence altogether.

    This is nothing more than Apple trying to wordsmith their way around EU law.

    • Re:It's not the comma's fault (Score:5, Insightful)

      by laughingskeptic ( 1004414 ) on Friday June 06, 2025 @01:10PM (#65432104)
      This is how all American businesses interact with the law. They pretend like the law doesn't say what it says until they get hauled into court. Most of the time they are never hauled into court, so law breaking behavior is strongly reinforced. When they are hauled into court and a judge enforces the law as written, republicans scream "activist judge".

      Couching the end of "free money" and fines as hundreds of million dollars of losses is simply Apple's way of getting Trump's attention. Trump will in turn state that he is thinking about doing something about this, and "oh by the way he is having a $1M a plate fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago". Someone from Apple will attend said dinner and promise to buy even more Trump coin and then Trump will impose more tariffs on Europe.

      • Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)

        by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 )

        This is how all American businesses interact with the law. They pretend like the law doesn't say what it says until they get hauled into court.

        And, apparently, U.S. Presidents ...

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        It's not how EU rules work either. The court will go with the intent of the law, not some grammatical argument.

    • Exactly. Apple understood the new law perfectly. They know the intent. They just don't like it and are trying to find any excuse for it not to apply.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        like every single other business in the world.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Sebby ( 238625 )

          like every single other business in the world.

          like every single other large public abusive businesses in the United States.

          There FTFY.

          • Abusive business practices aren't the sole domain of the US. EU drug manufacturers (who control large portions of the industry) overcharge Americans who need medication for no other reason than because they can. They can't take advantage of people in countries with stronger laws, where people are poorer in general and can't afford exorbitant drug costs, or where the country doesn't give a damn about pharma IP and makes their own versions of the drugs (India). That leaves them with countries like the US t

    • The dispute centers on Article 5.4, which requires gatekeepers to allow business users "free of charge, to communicate and promote offers, including under different conditions [...], and to conclude contracts with those end users."

      A rational reading of this sentence would not pair "free of charge" with only first phrase "to communicate and promote offers." If the "free of charge" were meant to apply only to that first clause, the second clause would have been separated into a different sentence altogether.

      I agree. In addition, I've noticed, and rewritten, sentences like this in things I've written, like letters/emails, as the single list would have been misleading.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Entrope ( 68843 )

      The problem is that the EU writes terrible English. The alternative -- and bow legally binding -- interpretation is just as bizarre and illogical:

      Under the new ruling, Apple can collect commissions only on the first external transaction between users and developers, with all subsequent purchases and auto-renewed subscriptions exempt from fees.

      So a developer can charge a user a $1 introductory fee, and then $100 for the next fee, and apple gets a commission only on the first $1?

      • My whole point was, the English wasn't the problem. The EU ruling is absolutely in line with the intent of the law. The intent was that Apple has no right to collect a commission on sales that occur within an app.

        If that doesn't work for Apple, maybe they should switch from a commission-based pricing model, to a fee-based model, where every app listing costs a set fee.

    • Seems like you're doing the extreme word-parsing as much as Apple, and I have little patience for any of it. There's a good reason that I'm not a lawyer.

      Many people view the law this way : perfect, absolutely immutable and unchanging for all eternity, with zero room for interpretation. A flawless determination of the ethics and morals of the people, delivered perfectly by perfect lawmakers, perfectly, onto paper. Oh, and every person needs to follow every law, absolutely every second of their lifetime, p

      • Europe is doing it's own version of that against the US, passing massive taxes that only hit big US internet companies. That's what Apple is fighting here.

        Except that the law in question here also affects Chinese and European companies. That's just not reported much in the (I assume) predominantly American media that you consume.
        It's the same situation when the EU levies fines against US companies for breach of regulations: A certain kind of people starts to complain that the EU is doing that just for US companies. Yet the EU is fining EU companies all the time for similar misbehavior, it just flies under the radar of these people as it isn't reported in thei

      • My point was that the problem isn't the parsing of the English grammar here. The court's ruling was in fact in line with the intent of the law, which was that Apple doesn't get to collect a commission on in-app sales.

  • Thank goodnes (Score:3)

    by PPH ( 736903 ) on Friday June 06, 2025 @02:20PM (#65432284)

    Slashdot is safe from such nonsense. We don't support such esoteric characters as âoecommas.â

  • These are the same idiots that use a comma instead of a decimal point.

    • Re:Screw the EU (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Brandano ( 1192819 ) on Friday June 06, 2025 @02:40PM (#65432344)

      You know that the numbers you use are arabic, right? I mean, except the zero, that was an Indian invention. Guess what's the arabic decimal separator?

      it's (U+066B)

      • The other "Arabic" numerals also originated in India. They are called that because they found their way to Europe by way of the Middle East.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by keltor ( 99721 ) *
        The Arabic decimal separator is of course still not a comma and in cases where it's not convenient, you'll see full stops. Thought it's fun when you get people who cannot decide which they want to use and you end up with documents with all three in one paragraph.
    • Sufficient grounds for war, if you ask me. lol

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by abulafia ( 7826 )
      I will happily commify my numbers forever more if that comes bundled with the metric system.

      Sorry, Liberia and Myanmar, it is time.

    • Yeah, well the US is still using (mainly) the ridiculous imperial system instead metric system, the imperial system just doesn't make any sense. To us europeans, the decimal comma makes perfectly sense vs a dot, but it is a shame there is a difference, it would have been better if we all used the same notation.
      • I would suggest we replace periods and commas with Tabs. And that the tabs are equivalent to 3 spaces, not 8 spaces.

        There. Fixed that. Now we can all agree and get along nicely. All the muricans, rearopeans, and Python programmers.

        <glances around nervously, looking for exit>
  • There was a case where a bunch of truckers sued about overtime based on the plain reading of a statement. This is the same issue, the comma is not entirely clear because, the comma can be understood in multiple ways. Let's not argue which understanding is correct because it doesn't matter, the writing is sloppy, and leaves the intent open.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Kokuyo ( 549451 )

      Doesn't ambiguity usually mean a contract is interpreted by default in favor of the party that did not write it?

    • What do you mean sloppy - the comma does exactly what is intended.
      Lawyers (almost exclusively) write laws
      Very vaguely
      Then companies pay lawyers a LOT of money to interpret those laws
      When two companies interpret the law differently than each party hires VERY expensive lawyers to fight it out in front of a judge - that is another lawyer getting paid a lot of money.
      In the end it is the lawyers creating a problem and benefiting from the problem that they create.

      Ever hear the joke about a small town having 1 law

      • You could assume the comma is doing the right job, I could assume the comma is doing the appropriate job, but, if they wanted to make it exceptionally clear, beyond any personal understanding, they could have written it differently. I read a metric butt load of policy documentation, it's seldom written clearly, and usually very poorly. You should never have to argue about the intention of a statement, based on grammar, and if you do, it's not written properly.
  • Apple will be better off if it opens up the platform. New app stores will have a very hard time to keep the offerings clean and to weed out malicious software. As a result, they will be discredited very quickly and users will return to Apple's app store. The barrier to entry is REALLY high here. Ensuring user safety is extremely expensive to implement across millions of apps. Apple's is legitimately concerned that such outcomes will hurt its brand, but that is a very unlikely outcome. Witness the fact that

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by msauve ( 701917 )
      >Witness the fact that very, very few Android app stores have survived.

      But app stores aren't a necessity for Android, which allows sideloading apps from anywhere. Apps can be distributed with no need for an app store.
      • I was ignorant of that fact. What percent of apps are distributed that way?

        • I'd wager very damned few apps are ever distributed via sideloading. meta makes Facebook and Messenger available via sideloading, mainly to get around some locked-down non-Alphabet Android devices, but for the vast majority of users, if it's not on the default app store on their device, it might as well not exist.

          • Thank you. Thatâ(TM)s what I suspected. In the end, the majors will just because they are known and trusted, even though theyâ(TM)re not trustworthy. Itâ(TM)s the same reason why people take uber and lyft even when they can hop in a nearby cab for half the price of surge pricing: they have forgotten about cabs.
        • While considerably smaller market there is a legitimate use case for android, just the modding and development communities share billions of forks , see GitHub ...

          But the next layer of users use Droid-ify or F-droid.. you can't be too careful but, I trust them well enough. Everything has links back to GitHub, for the source and release notes. You should know what you want though, aimlessly browsing is not only tedious and time consuming , but nearly everything is pretty user friendly from there. Apkmirror.c

  • What do you call a bus full of lawyers going over a cliff with three empty seats?
    A total waste of space!

  • Making less profit is not a loss (unless one assumes that Apple is entitled to a certain amount of profit), the title is highly misleading.

  • ...hoisted by their own petard. I guess this is what happens when you spend your living hours writing increasingly convoluted legal terms. Sometimes you forget that English grammar can undo your legalese.
  • Why does this need to be interpreted at all? The writers of this legislation are most likely still alive.

  • Ridiculous (Score:3)

    by SuperDre ( 982372 ) on Friday June 06, 2025 @03:39PM (#65432494) Homepage
    It's completely ridiculous that any external purchase would go to Apple in the first place.

  • They probably had some marketer come up with the text. This would not have happened with a tech writer. They'd have asked questions before blindly letting that hit the streets.

    Precision is everything.

  • A very American argument (Score:4, Informative)

    by Local ID10T ( 790134 ) <ID10T.L.USER@gmail.com> on Friday June 06, 2025 @04:05PM (#65432570) Homepage

    In American law, the details of exact wording and comma placement are what counts. We argue over the priority of subordinate phrases and how that could effect the interpretation of a law. (see the arguments regarding the Second Amendment for an example) In America, we can violate the spirit of the law as long as we follow the letter of the law.

    In European law, the intent of the law (as long as it is made sufficiently clear) is what counts. Supporting documents are frequently available to document the intent of the laws. Regulators will provide guidance instead of directions ("don't poison people" vs "less than 30ppm"). Businesses and individuals are expected to figure out the details of compliance.

  • It's not a loss (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    They were stealing, let's call it what it is.

  • They should have introduced the list with a colon, but legal writing is /intended/ to be hard to understand. It creates tons of downstream work for lawyers.

    The "Plain English Movement" is an effort to stop doing the that. Here's a reasonable description:

    https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/... [fordham.edu]

  • Also known as the "Harvard Comma" (EN-US) and "Oxford Comma" (EN-UK) the Serial Comma bedevils people who have split opinions on it. See E.G.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    In Computer Science study we had an entire hour dedicate to how to interpret the following menu item(s):
    Hamburger or hot dog and fries.

    Is it:
    1. A Hamburger by itself OR a hot dog AND fries
    or
    2. Either (Hamburger OR hot dog) AND fries

    The whole "order of operations" thing we learned in school (you know, like PEMDAS) has different o

  • We can agree EU is not good at tech but world class in extracting revenue from syntax.

  • I properly written legal document would have added "in each case" to designate that free applies to everything. Apparently the EU must use interns to write its laws.

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