Items tagged with EU
Google does not plan on going down without a fight in its battle against the European Union (EU). Google has formally rebuffed the EU’s antitrust charges in a blog post entitled “Improving Quality Isn’t Anti-Competitive”.
Google has been accused of exclusively promoting its own shopping services to edge out its...
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Google is in the European Union’s dog house. The EU plans to fine the global corporation for supposed anti-competitive bundling policies. Google has been accused of paying smartphone producers to exclusively pre-install the Google search engine on smart devices. The EU wants to prevent the company from pressuring...
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Qualcomm is a dominant player in the mobile market when it comes to SoCs and 3G/4G basebands. In the baseband sector alone, Qualcomm held a commanding 61 percent of the global market in Q1 2015. However, the European Commission is a bit suspicious of Qualcomm’s dominance and is accusing the American company of...
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At this point, it can be assumed that most tech firms don't like dealing with the EU, and there are many different reasons for it. With Google, it could have to do with the fact that it keeps getting hit with anti-trust charges that it vehemently believes are nonsense. You might recall earlier this year when the...
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It’s hardly been a secret that Google is the European Union’s doghouse, but now the hostility is official. The EU delivered Google with a Statement of Objections that accuses it of skewing search results towards the company’s own services. To top things off, the EU is looking into accusations that Android, Google’s...
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Facing accusations from the Belgian Privacy Commission dating back to February that it is violating the privacy rights of its users, Facebook yesterday confirmed that the watchdog group had uncovered a "bug" that mistakenly tracked people even when they were not on the social media giant's website, but denied the...
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Environmental stewardship may not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think of Apple, but it’s certainly becoming a large part of the company’s self-perception under CEO Tim Cook’s leadership. Today, Apple announced that it will soon build two data centers in Europe to support its online services in the...
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Following an interview with Re/code late last week, president Obama has managed to upset officials in Europe for a couple of rather blunt comments regarding America's success with the Internet. For starters, Obama claims that the EU's actions towards regulating the Internet is 'commercially-driven', and is the result...
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There’s some great news this week for Apple consumers living in Europe. Apple has introduced a new return policy for iTunes, App Store, and iBooks purchases that will allow consumers living in Europe, including Germany, France, Italy, and the UK to return digital purchases.
Apple’s original terms and conditions...
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The EU does not fool around when it comes to handing out fines, and it also apparently does not second-guess itself. The European Commission levied a hefty fine of 1.06 billion euro (or roughly $1.44 billion USD) at Intel for anti-competitive practices back in 2009, and after years of legal supplication, the decision...
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Amid a claim and a denial about Facebook’s plummeting popularity among teens, an EU study has emerged that affirms the former assertion, at least among teenagers in the UK. Professor of Material Culture at University College of London Daniel Miller wrote that his research team is conducting 15-month...
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There’s no denying that in today’s world, data is king, and the Internet is his queen. (Or perhaps vice versa.) In the U.S., there’s been much talk about gigabit (1Gbps) Internet speeds for the masses thanks in large part to the efforts of Google and its Google Fiber projects, but the EU--where...
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The controversy surrounding news of the NSA’s wide-ranging spying tactics is causing ripples in other aspects of U.S. – European Union relations. Based on information released by Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor, the EU voted to support its own commission in the event the commission decides end...
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Google is on the hot seat with the EU over alleged antitrust violations related to its Internet search practices on both the desktop and on mobile devices. After a two-year investigation that appears to find Google at fault, several of the complainants have voiced their displeasure at the pace of the European...
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Google has been fined $7 million dollars in a case over the company’s WiFi snooping, which occurred between 2008-2010 as Google Street View cars crisscrossed the country mapping everything in sight. Google Street View is a gloriously powerful tool, but the fleet of Street View mapping cars were collecting data such as passwords from...
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Microsoft, and everybody else, assumed that a big fine was coming from the European Union over antitrust violations sometime this month; as it turned out, the wait was a short one, because the EU has fined Microsoft $732 million, according to the New York Times. Some expected the fine to be closer to a cool billion...
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A Belgian consumer rights organization has announced it will take Apple to court over the company's failure to satisfactorily disclose EU-mandated warranty terms. According to European Union law, consumers are entitled to a two year warranty, free of charge. Apple, meanwhile, charges for an Apple Care warranty after...
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HP and Oracle have been slugging it out in court over the future of Intel's Itanium for months now. HP has just widened the front by asking the EU to investigate whether Oracle acted improperly when it terminated support for Intel's Itanium. HP claims that Oracle is improperly leveraging its software market to compel purchases of its own hardware,...
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The verdict has come on Apple's filing against Samsung to ban all Galaxy products across Europe, and the results are a mixed bag. A judge in The Hague handed down the ruling yesterday, awarding Apple a preliminary injunction barring Samsung from importing, distributing, or selling its Galaxy S, Galaxy SII, and Ace smartphones in the EU. The...
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When Apple won its initial injunction request against Samsung ten days ago, it was noted that the company had a separate legal proceeding underway in the Netherlands that was aimed at a similar goal. New information suggests that Apple's requests in this case are much broader and aimed at disassembling Samsung's...
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According to Samsung, Apple's request to the EU for an injunction against the Galaxy Tab 10.1 caught it completely by surprise. If that's true, Motorola may be in for a shock as well. Buried within Apple's injunction request is a reference to a similar request related to Motorola's Xoom. Apple and Motorola are...
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When the Department of Justice and Microsoft hammered out the terms of their agreement in 2001, one of the strictures was that the software giant would be subject to official DOJ oversight for a period of five years. In 2006, the DoJ opted to extend the term another five years, but the government body won't be doing the same thing again. On...
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