Italy fines Google, Apple over data collection

[Sauron]

Summary

 

-I corrected an inaccuracy of my original post, the additions are in orange-

 

The Italian antitrust court has fined Google and Apple the maximum amount possible, €10 million, for violations of consumer data protection laws. According to the court, collecting and selling services based on user data for profit is core to Google's business model; Apple also profits from collecting and analyzing their users' data for the benefit of their own services, such as iTunes, even though they do not sell services based on that data to third parties. The crucial violation seems to be the lack of clarity regarding what data is collected and how it is used.

 

Both companies intend to appeal the decision.

 

-adding the following now that I have more time to translate-

 

The specific violations contested by the authority are as follows:

• Google omits a significant amount of information regarding what data is gathered and why during the account creation process. Since creating an account is necessary to access its services, this is considered a violation.
• Apple similarly omits relevant information during Apple ID creation and access to its various online services
• Google selects the consenting option by default in the form asking for user permission to gather and share their data, after which no other consent is requested or required by the company before the data is gathered and shared
• Apple does not provide the user with a preemptive choice on whether their data is shared or not; consent is assumed on activation of Apple services. The user is therefore mislead as they are promised a service without proper disclosure of the "costs" in terms of privacy

 

Quotes

Quote

The authority said in statement the two tech groups did not provide "clear and immediate information" on how they collect and use the data of those who access their services.

 

My thoughts

It should be of no shock to anyone that large tech companies profit off of user data, I'm glad there is at least some institutional pushback. It's not really enough though.

 

Sources

https://www.reuters.com/technology/italys-antitrust-fines-google-apple-commercial-use-data-2021-11-26/

more in-depth Italian article: https://www.rainews.it/dl/rainews/articoli/google-apple-utilizzo-dati-multa-codice-consumo-6d28f436-00b5-45dc-bc27-7f262a08ecb1.html

[EphraimK]

They got what was coming to them.

[suicidalfranco]

looks at how much they gained

looks at how much they're fined

basic math calculation ensues

legit worth it

still going to appeal just because 

[Mihle]

Fines not big enough, that is only about 0,33 € per person living in Italy.

[Sho2048]

On 11/26/2021 at 4:02 PM, Mihle said:

Fines not big enough, that is only about 0,33 € per person living in Italy.

Unfortunately I am pretty sure fines never scale with revenues 

[porina]

I'm not an expert on Italian or any other law, but that will be the ultimate decision factor that will be argued over. What exactly did the court find in violation? Is that really the case? It maty be both sides are kinda right, in their own perspective. It might be a question of drawing the line over what is "enough". 

 

For example, if you use Google search in a browser that is not signed in to Google, nor has used Google before in the past (or has been equivalently wiped), you might get a handful of searches before you get a wall of text to agree or disagree with.

 

Also be careful what you wish for. We had the cookie law in the past, which has led to annoying popups when you visit sites begging for your permission to use cookies. If the Italian ruling holds, then not only Google and Apple will have to make it even more clear what they're doing with data, but everyone else will have to as well. Imagine every website having some kind of agreement for you to agree to before you can even see if you wanted to go there in the first place. Personally I'd lean towards anarchy over excessive controls. Governments by nature are about control.

[Sauron]

30 minutes ago, porina said:

We had the cookie law in the past, which has led to annoying popups when you visit sites begging for your permission to use cookies.

That has sort-of been fixed by more recent clarifications - you must now provide a clear way to decline all unnecessary cookies and the popup must not prevent you from using the website if you decline, at least as far as I know. I'll take it over websites just installing whatever cookies they please without asking.

32 minutes ago, porina said:

Imagine every website having some kind of agreement for you to agree to before you can even see if you wanted to go there in the first place.

Ideally they'd have to provide a simple way to opt out of this tracking. Presenting the user with a giant wall of text would also classify as "unclear" in my opinion.

[sof006]

Anyone with a brain will realise that these fines do nothing, the fines need to be in the billions. Take a significant chunk of money. Enough to make them realise.

[Commodus]

It's somewhat telling that the issue with Apple is really just transparency, where with Google it's the company's very business model. Don't get me wrong, Apple needs to step up its game, but this does speak volumes about the difference between the two companies. I don't mind Apple using data I voluntarily gave them to help improve my use of those products.

 

And yes, whatever the actual offences, the penalty will likely never be enough. Let's just hope there's at least a little reform.

[Salv8 (sam)]

1 hour ago, sof006 said:

Anyone with a brain will realise that these fines do nothing, the fines need to be in the billions. Take a significant chunk of money. Enough to make them realise.

money wont solve this, apple rakes in over $300 BILLION USD a year and as much as we would like a fine to be at least 150 billion, there are rules and limits to the amount that the fine can be.

what there needs to be is punishment, things like restrictions on the services and products they can produce and use. shit thats gonna hurt their revenue, thats when they will start taking this seriously.

[Sauron]

23 minutes ago, Commodus said:

It's somewhat telling that the issue with Apple is really just transparency, where with Google it's the company's very business model.

You misunderstand - in both cases the issue was transparency. Merely collecting and selling the data is not illegal. While Google arguably goes a step further by selling the data to third parties and Apple's profits are perhaps not as reliant on said data, there appears to be no significant difference in how bad each company is in their violations; I have updated the main post now that I had a bit more time if you want more information.

4 minutes ago, huilun02 said:

The country is just doing this to pinch money. If you know a bad guy is going to keep doing bad things after getting caught, the right measure is not a fine. The right measure is to say "leave for good or die here"

 

Smh

While I believe the fine should be higher, I don't think threatening death is effective or appropriate for something like this... or anything else really.

[Zodiark1593]

29 minutes ago, huilun02 said:

The country is just doing this to pinch money. If you know a bad guy is going to keep doing bad things after getting caught, the right measure is not a fine. The right measure is to say "leave for good or die here"

 

Smh

Given that pretty much all of the bigger tech corporations toe the legal line in some way or another, the likely result of such a hardline stance (unless the country can fund its own development from the ground-up) would be depriving the populace of a lot of tech that is so widely used. 

[suicidalfranco]

4 hours ago, Sauron said:

While I believe the fine should be higher, I don't think threatening death is effective or appropriate for something like this... or anything else really.

maybe not death, but since to the eyes of the law, at least here in italy, a company (any business) counts as an individual, the same as i or you would, then this should end as a penal case and if found guilty, thrown in jail for x amount of year. 

How come a person who commits a crime have to get years of their lives taken away unable to follow trends, activities and be shocked how the world around him has changed when he finally gets released, but for some reason a company has to be above it while comiting far worse

[Zodiark1593]

17 minutes ago, suicidalfranco said:

maybe not death, but since to the eyes of the law, at least here in italy, a company (any business) counts as an individual, the same as i or you would, then this should end as a penal case and if found guilty, thrown in jail for x amount of year. 

How come a person who commits a crime have to get years of their lives taken away unable to follow trends, activities and be shocked how the world around him has changed when he finally gets released, but for some reason a company has to be above it while comiting far worse

This is partly because throwing an individual in jail doesn’t have quite the same knock-on effect as suspending an entire corporation’s operations, which may impact a heck of a lot more people and even other businesses operations (that rely upon the jailed-corporation’s tech) than just themselves. 

[mr moose]

My issue with google and apple in this is that you cannot use a smart phone without creating an account with at least one of them.  Unless I find an actual half decent linux phone, I simply have no options, which makes it anti consumer from the get go.

[mr moose]

4 minutes ago, Zodiark1593 said:

This is partly because throwing an individual in jail doesn’t have quite the same knock-on effect as suspending an entire corporation’s operations, which may impact a heck of a lot more people and even other businesses operations (that rely upon the jailed-corporation’s tech) than just themselves. 

true, but maybe if the CEO and board of directors all had to spend a 1 year in maximum security they might be more vigilant in how their companies treat customers.

[Jaesop]

6 hours ago, Commodus said:

It's somewhat telling that the issue with Apple is really just transparency, where with Google it's the company's very business model.

The original post isn't accurate though. Google isn't selling data. They're serving ads base don that data.

[Fnige]

17 hours ago, Sauron said:

the maximum amount possible, €10 million

thats the max? wow thats low

[RejZoR]

3 hours ago, huilun02 said:

What tech?

Its not hard to live without Google's services

Apple and Google are far from the only electronics manufacturer

 

Close their business, ban the sale/distribution of their branded products, and immediate IP/DNS block of all Google/Apple address by the ISPs in the country.

Done. They can do no more damage. Nary an inconvenience

 

Facebook/Twitter should be shut down this way too

 

Fines are pathetic. Do it like you mean it

Thing is, you can live without Apple easily. And for the most part even without Google. It's incredibly hard to get a phone that's not filled with Google data hoarding junk as all phones come with Android and their Gapps crap on top with exception of dumb phones. You could say there are bunch of ROM's, but then you suddenly limit your selection of phones that support them to a really crappy selection and you subject yourself to garbage experience because of all the problems that brings.

 

Personally, I follow the "rule" of don't put all info to one mega corporation. Even if you have to use Android with Google's stuff, not using anything else from them helps in terms of privacy. For example, I use iPhone, but I don't really use a single Apple service, be it Maps, mail, Safari, none of it. And if I'll go with Android again, I'll continue to use ProtonMail instead of GMail, DuckDuckGo instead of Google Search and Firefox instead of Chrome. The more you spread your footprint between unrelated companies and services, the better, even if you have to use some of them because it just doesn't go any other way.

[Sauron]

11 hours ago, suicidalfranco said:

maybe not death, but since to the eyes of the law, at least here in italy, a company (any business) counts as an individual, the same as i or you would, then this should end as a penal case and if found guilty, thrown in jail for x amount of year. 

How come a person who commits a crime have to get years of their lives taken away unable to follow trends, activities and be shocked how the world around him has changed when he finally gets released, but for some reason a company has to be above it while comiting far worse

We should probably make jail more humane and at the same time deal harsher punishments to corporations that break the law, sure - I would go as far as saying that the people in charge of making these decisions should face appropriate consequences, however for international companies that is extremely difficult. It would only work if every country were on board with it, and unfortunately they are not. Similarly, preventing Google from operating in Italy would probably be less damaging to Google than to Italy, since Google could just keep operating in other countries while Italy would be left without much of an alternative for many important services. It sucks but Italy by itself simply doesn't have the power to meaningfully enforce this.

 

@Jaesopyou're right, I corrected the inaccuracy

[Mark Kaine]

21 hours ago, EDKTech said:

They got what was coming to them.

A peanuts fine..?

 

10 hours ago, Jaesop said:

The original post isn't accurate though. Google isn't selling data. They're serving ads base don that data.

No, they sell the data to 3rd parties too, with the user's "consent"... 

 

 

[Sauron]

4 minutes ago, huilun02 said:

Also there are already many well known alternatives

For a search engine, sure. For web hosting? Not actually that many. Besides, many alternatives are just as happy to harvest user data - are Microsoft or Amazon really going to save us here?

5 minutes ago, huilun02 said:

Ordering business closures and a issuing a directive to the ISPs is not difficult to enforce by any means

Within our borders, sure. Anywhere else, no. Google could just take the hit for not operating in Italy.

[Sauron]

Just now, huilun02 said:

Yes, if Italy says its a problem, then Italy deal with it internally.

Thats the whole point.

Yeah no, it's not fair for a country to have to take itself out of the international economy and suffer a huge economic downturn if they want to do something about corporations violating the law. Meaningful change can only come with international regulation agreements and a fundamental change in how our economy works.

3 minutes ago, huilun02 said:

Again besides the point. Just because there are other baddies other there, is not reason to appropriately deal with the one that was caught

Too bad we've given the "baddies" significant control over our lives and we can't just kick them out now. I hadn't even thought about it earlier but... can you imagine just getting rid of smartphones overnight in today's world? Because by kicking out Apple and Google that's what you'd effectively be doing.

[Sauron]

31 minutes ago, huilun02 said:

Wrong. Huawei phones are far from useless without Google.

What happens when huawei also gets kicked out for breaking the law as all corporations do?

32 minutes ago, huilun02 said:

And take a look at microg

I'll consider it a valid option in this context when normies can walk up to a store, buy a phone running it and run all the apps they use daily on it.

[Commodus]

17 hours ago, Sauron said:

You misunderstand - in both cases the issue was transparency. Merely collecting and selling the data is not illegal. While Google arguably goes a step further by selling the data to third parties and Apple's profits are perhaps not as reliant on said data, there appears to be no significant difference in how bad each company is in their violations; I have updated the main post now that I had a bit more time if you want more information.

You're right, sorry. As you suggested, though, Google's core business revolves around user data in a way it doesn't at Apple. I would expect Apple to use my Apple Music listening habits to improve my album recommendations, for instance... but I'm not sure everyone understands or wants the link between their web searches (or YouTube views, or...) and the ads they see.