USA: The Gang of Four: House Report Cites Monopoly Power Of Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google - by Bobby Allyn, Alina Selyukh, Shannon Bond

n a sweeping report spanning 449 pages, House Democrats lay out a detailed case for stripping Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google of the power than has made each of them dominant in their fields.

The four companies began as "scrappy underdog startups" but are now monopolies that must be restricted and regulated, the report from Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee's antitrust panel says.

"These four corporations increasingly serve as gatekeepers of commerce and communications in the digital age, and this gatekeeper power gives them enormous capacity to abuse that power," a lawyer for the subcommittee's Democratic majority said in a briefing with reporters.

Read more at: 
House Report Cites Monopoly Power Of Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google : NPR

USA: Tech CEOs Invoke the American Dream to Obscure the Nightmare They Created

Getting Rich On Your Personal Data

During the recent  congressional antitrust hearing, the CEOs of Apple, Amazon, Google, and , and Facebook used their opening statements to try and paint themselves—and their companies—as uniquely American success stories with humble origins, heart-warming anecdotes, and impactful lessons for the American people.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ statement wasted no time retelling his origin story: born to a single mother and adopted by a Cuban immigrant, Bezos was inspired in part by summers at his grandfather’s ranch (and a small $245,000 investment from his parents) to become a garage inventor and eventually create Amazon in 1994. Now, Amazon has 1.7 million small and medium-sized businesses selling on his platform, and has created 2.2 million jobs around the world, but Bezos was quick to remind Congress that Amazon accounts for "less than 1 percent of the $25 trillion global retail market" and "less than 4 percent of the retail in the U.S."

Bezos wasn’t alone in portraying his company as representing some aspect of what one might call the American dream, or America itself. Google CEO Sundar Pichai framed the hearing as being about “opportunity” and said that, growing up in India, he didn’t have much access to a computer until he came to America to study. Although Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg didn’t invoke the humble dorm room origin mythos that has given his company so much cover in the past, he said that “the tech industry is an American success story.” Apple CEO Tim Cook described his company as a “uniquely American company.”  

While these CEOs talked a lot about America and its possibilities, and how their companies and even personal histories embody it, it is undeniable that their actions are undermining what they claim to celebrate. 

For years, Amazon’s abusive work policies have made each warehouse into a “colony from hell,” as one employee put it, rife with injuries and mental breakdowns. The pandemic has made this point virtually indisputable given the many outbreaks of Covid-19 in warehouses, retaliation against workers who raised safety concerns, and labor actions by Amazon workers fed up with working conditions.

Just last week, America’s largest unions petitioned the FTC to investigate Amazon’s exploitation of the Covid-19 pandemic over concerns that it was suppressing wages, exploiting data on sellers to undermine their products, and leveraging its dominance in cloud computing to make competitors reliant on Amazon’s offerings.

The company also operates as part of the backbone of ICE’s deportation machine, offered a racially-biased facial recognition software to police departments nationwide, and transmits fear and racist paranoia to suburbs through its Ring surveillance program and its partnerships with over 600 police departments (as of December 2019). These are all functions of its incredible market power, even if they didn’t come up as topics in the antitrust hearing, and they all have the potential to destroy someone’s own shot at opportunity in America and elsewhere.  


A quick glance reveals the same is true for the other companies. Apple and Google are both being sued for using Congolese child miners to secure cobalt and other minerals at minimal cost, resulting in the maiming and death of several children. Apple is also a key player in reducing opportunities for individuals and small businesses in America to repair their devices, leading to calls for right to repair legislation.

Facebook has spent years apologizing and promising to do better after facilitating a genocide in Myanmar, cratering the news industry, harming the mental health of users and content moderators, compromising elections, attempting to remake the global monetary system with it as a key player, spreading hate speech and propaganda, and more.

These companies, and the tech industry at large, are all complicit in racist police violence that has existed long before their arrival but become supercharged in underappreciated ways with their help. It is hard to imagine any company could do any of these actions unless it enjoyed market dominance in multiple industries and leveraged that into control over how each of us went about our daily lives (how we watched videos, conducted searches, carried out commerce, consumed the news, engaged in communication, etc.) —which makes it hard to understand why we should let these companies have that much power in the first place.

These CEOs insist we play on their terms—terms that are incredibly profitable for them—and return to market logic—to the American Dream and its promise of cheap goods, services, and material abudunance. But that promise has been dead for years, a fact that the pandemic has made self-evident. That the technology sector seems to be a bright spot of the American (and global) economy doesn’t actually suggest that they are success stories as much as it reveals that the rest of the world has lost.

Sure, the price we’ve paid for allowing these corporate tech giants to get so large includes real damage to our economy and democracy, but they’ve also suffocated our political imagination and left us arguing on their terms about how much exploitation and how much surveillance is necessary for the ideal levels of economic growth.     

 Read more at:
Tech CEOs Invoke the American Dream to Obscure the Nightmare They Created

Privacy issues: Apple, Google team up to make software to slow down spread of coronavirus

Software developed by two of the world's biggest tech giants will allow users to log other phones they have been physically close to.

Read more at:
https://www.dw.com/en/apple-google-team-up-to-make-software-to-slow-down-spread-of-coronavirus/a-53092203

USA: Dow Jones Today: Stocks Drop On China Turmoil; Apple Algorithm Probed - by A.R. Elliot

Stocks came off their early lows in Monday's Veterans Day trading session, as political unrest in Hong Kong upended confidence across global markets. A slow start to a big earnings week left analyst actions and company news driving early trade. Cisco Systems (CSCO) and Home Depot (HD) lagged on the Dow Jones today, following downgrades. Apple (APPL) traded lower as New York regulators announced a company probe.

Read more at: Dow Jones Today: Stocks Drop On China Turmoil; Apple Algorithm Probed | Investor's Business Daily

France: French finance minister to tax digital giants including Facebook and Apple despite US protests

France dismisses US opposition to tax on tech giants French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said on Friday that France would stick to plans for a tax on digital giants such as Facebook and Apple, despite opposition from Washington.

Read more at:  

http://www.france24.com/en/20190404-pompeo-urges-france-drop-plans-tax-tech-giants

USA - economy: What Happens When the Economy Collapses on Trump’s Watch? – by Ryan Bort

President Trump doesn’t have many tentpole accomplishments to tout as his presidency enters its third year. He does have the economy, though, which has boomed since he assumed office back in January 2017. He might not have it much longer. On Wednesday, Apple CEO Tim Cook warned that the company wasn’t going to earn as much as expected in the coming financial quarter. “While we anticipated some challenges in key emerging markets, we did not foresee the magnitude of the economic deceleration, particularly in Greater China,” he wrote in a letter to investors. “We believe the economic environment in China has been further impacted by rising trade tensions with the United States. As the climate of mounting uncertainty weighed on financial markets, the effects appeared to reach consumers as well, with traffic to our retail stores and our channel partners in China declining as the quarter progressed.”

On Thursday morning, the markets responded as expected. The DOW plummeted over 600 points, the S&P 500 fell 2.2 percent and the Nasdaq dipped 2.6 percent as concern swelled over the impact the president’s trade war will have on the global economy. Since Trump began imposing tariffs last year, economists, politicians and several corporations have warned of their impact, and it’s unclear how much longer the economy will be able to stand the strain of Trump’s trade policy. Over the past year, the president has excoriated suffering companies like Harley-Davidson and, most recently, GM for not having more patience.

As the markets sank on Thursday morning, Trump’s own economic adviser, Kevin Hassett, predicted that the tech giant that in 2018 was valued at $1 trillion won’t be the only American company to experience a downturn. “It’s not going to be just Apple,” he said Thursday on CNN. “There are a heck of a lot of U.S. companies that have sales in China that are going to be watching their earnings being downgraded next year until we get a deal with China.”

Read more: What Happens When the Economy Collapses on Trump’s Watch? – Rolling Stone

Sweden: Apple is working with Ikea to bring virtual furniture to your home

Jim Cook gave a brief mention of plans for a collaboration with Ikea, with the furniture chain bringing 3D models of its various wares into Apple’s nascent augmented-reality platform,

Now, an interview in a Swedish publication has shone a little more light on what shape this partnership will take. As reported by 9to5Mac, Ikea’s digital transformation manager Michael Valdsgaard told Digital.di that the company plans for all of its beds, chairs, cabinets and so on to come in both physical and AR versions.

“This will be the first augmented-reality app that allows you to make reliable buying decision […] When we launch new products, they will come first in the AR app.”

According to Valdsgaard, users will be able to use an Apple device to look around their home, plonking virtual items of furniture on their actual carpet with “millimetre-precise” positioning. Not only with the scale of the virtual object keep in line with its real surroundings, but so will the lighting.

The idea is that you’ll be able to see an augmented-reality layout of your home, to get a better sense of, say, what shade of leather chair looks good beside your enormous stuffed moose.

9to5Mac believes the tool might initially be used in-store, although this seems to defeat the point of the AR app, which is presumably centred on bringing Ikea items (in virtual form) into your own living room. Of course, the heart of all of this is ecommerce, and Ikea is sure to have very obvious links between its 3D models and ways to buy the actual products. What? Did you think Apple and Ikea wanted to make an AR Sims game? Not that that’s completely unheard of...

Valdsgaard said that Ikea is working on a “tight deadline”, so whether or not this tool appears in times for iOS 11 remains to be seen. We wouldn’t be surprised if Apple does a showcase of the tech during its iPhone 8 launch in September

Read more: Apple is working with Ikea to bring virtual furniture to your home |

Computer Industry: Apple has set up a secret office in Berlin to 'cherrypick' mapping engineers from HERE

Apple has hired at least half a dozen employees from Here for a Berlin-based Apple Maps team, according to LinkedIn, but the true figure is likely to be somewhat higher.

A source, who wished to remain anonymous, said that Apple strategically moved in on Here's talent as the mapping company was passed from Nokia to Microsoft to the German automotive group.

"It's a simple story: Here was in disarray after Microsoft's acquisition of Nokia," said the source, who works in the Berlin tech scene. "Apple saw the opportunity and opened an office in Berlin, specifically to siphon Geo Information Systems (GIS) talent."

The person added: "Three people independently complained to me that Apple opened an office in Berlin specifically to cherrypick at Here." This claim was backed up by another source on the ground in Berlin.

Here, which provides mapping data, software and services to the automotive, consumer and enterprise sectors, was "bleeding talent" as Microsoft's deal with the German car consortium went through, the source said. "Things are getting a bit better now, but GIS talent is rare."

Read more: Apple has set up a secret office in Berlin to 'cherrypick' mapping engineers from Here

Global Corporate Takeover: 10 biggest corporations make more money than most countries in the world combined

 69 of top 100 economic entities are corporations not countries

Walmart, Apple, Shell richer than Russia, Belgium, Sweden, and the Netherlands

British government told: stop supporting your corporations, support your people

Corporations have increased their wealth vis-à-vis countries according to new figures released by Global Justice Now.

The campaign group found that 69 of the world’s top economic entities are corporations rather than countries in 2015*. They also discovered that the world’s top 10 corporations – a list that includes Walmart, Shell and Apple – have a combined revenue of more than the 180 ‘poorest’ countries combined in the list which include Ireland, Indonesia, Israel, Colombia, Greece, South Africa, Iraq and Vietnam.  

The figures are worse than last year, when 63 of the top economic entities were corporations. When looking at the top 200 economic entities, the figures are even more extreme, with 153 being corporations.

Global Justice Now released the figures in order to increase pressure on the British government ahead of a UN working group, led by Ecuador, established to draw up a binding treaty to ensure transnational corporations abide by the full range of human rights responsibilities. Campaigners are calling for the treaty to be legally enforceable at a national and global level. Britain doesn’t support the process, and has repeatedly vetoed and opposed such proposal in the past.  

Nick Dearden, director of Global Justice Now, said:

“The vast wealth and power of corporations is at the heart of so many of the world’s problems – like inequality and climate change. The drive for short-term profits today seems to trump basic human rights for millions of people on the planet. These figures show the problem is getting worse.

“The UK government has facilitated this rise in corporate power – through tax structures, trade deals and even aid programmes that help big business. Their wholehearted support for the US-EU trade deal TTIP, is just the latest example of government help to big business. Disgracefully it also routinely opposes the call of developing countries to hold corporations to account for their human rights impacts at the UN. That’s why today we’re joining campaigns from across the world to tell the British government to stop blocking this international demand for justice.”

Read more: 10 biggest corporations make more money than most countries in the world combined | Global Justice Now

Corporate Tax Evasion: "No, Apple, there is no Irish tax fairy"

Hi -Tec Tax Evaders

You wouldn’t think we’d be taking sides against a cool, innovative, imaginative tech corporation, Apple Inc., and standing with one of the world’s most opaque bureaucracies, the European Commission. But we are. And you should too.

Apple’s deserved success doesn’t depend – and never depended – on complex income-shifting and income-tax-fleeing arrangements, including income-tax enticements in Dublin that seemed mutually convenient, back in 1991. But its bottom line was helped by them.

On general principles, a company’s profit is taxed according to where its value is generated. However, Apple created a number of internal arrangements that moved profits around within the company, and across geographies. For example, it stated that much of its intellectual property rights resided in Ireland, and that subsidiaries around the world were required to pay some share of their profits to the Irish subsidiary, as compensation for using Apple’s intellectual property.

But Apple also had an arrangement with the Irish government under which nearly all of those profits notionally sent to Ireland ended up untaxed in Eire, or anywhere else.

The Irish government was quite happy with all this. It levied very little tax on Apple but, without this deal, it might not have collected any tax at all from Apple. The EU, however, says this accounting sleight of hand, and the special tax break thereby given to Apple, weren’t acceptable under European law. It says the deal cost the Irish government 13 billion euros in unpaid taxes. And it has ordered Apple to pay up.

The Irish government seems at least as angry at the European Commission as Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple Inc. But Margrethe Vestager, the competition commissioner of the EU, is surely correct. Her job is to prevent EU countries from giving special advantages to particular companies. Aside from being anti-competitive, such special deals are pointless. Rather than creating economic activity and jobs, they merely shift them from one place to another, with taxpayers in the receiving place picking up the tab.

When it comes to innovation and marketing, Apple has a history marked by genius. But Apple is also one of many multinationals that has devoted considerable effort to, and shown a comparable genius for, tax-code alchemy. The EU was right to call it out.

Read more: No, Apple, there is no Irish tax fairy - The Globe and Mail

EU Taxation Policies: US warns EU over Apple’s tax case

Is Apple cutting corners when paying taxes?

The US government has threatened the European Commission (EC) with retaliation if the body decides to proceed with its plan to demand millions of dollars in unpaid taxes from technology giant Apple.

The US Treasury Department issued a rare warning on Wednesday, August 24, accusing the Brussels-based body of becoming a “supranational tax authority” that poses a threat to international agreements concerning tax reform.

“The US Treasury Department continues to consider potential responses should the Commission continue its present course,” the Treasury said in its strongest language to date.

“A strongly preferred and mutually beneficial outcome would be a return to the system and practice of international tax cooperation that has long fostered cross-border investment between the United States and EU member states,” the warning added.

The European Union (EU) has been investigating a series of tax deals between Apple and Ireland which allow the iPhone maker to pay little or no tax on income earned across Europe.

The EC is expected to rule on the case next month. This is the biggest corporate tax avoidance investigation ever undertaken by the commission.

The EC is the executive body of the EU, responsible for implementing decisions, proposing legislation, upholding the EU treaties and managing the day-to-day business of the bloc.

According to investment bank JP Morgan, if Apple is forced to retroactively pay the Irish corporate tax rate of 12.5 percent on its pre-tax profits, the company might need to cash out as much as $19 billion.

A 2013 report by US Senate confirmed that Apple has paid little to no taxes on at least $74 billion of the profit it earned by exploiting Irish and American tax laws.

Tim Cook, who became Apple’s CEO after the death of its founder Steve Jobs five years ago, has denounced the case as “political crap.”

“There is no truth behind it,” he said. “Apple pays every tax dollar we owe.”

The EU estimates that tax avoidance by multinational corporations costs member states anywhere between $50 million to $78 billion a year in lost taxes.

In addition to Apple, other American companies like Amazon and Starbucks are also suspected of tax evasion.

Note EU-Digest: Hopefully the EU Commission does not cave-in for these US misguided threats and intimidations and tells the US Treasury Department where to shove this warning, which is protective of US corporate tax evaders.   

Read more: PressTV-US warns EU over Apple’s tax case

Corporate Tax Evadors: US 'hits out at EU tax probes'

The United States has attacked high-profile EU tax probes into American companies as unfair and encroaching on the US government's right to tax them, the Financial Times reported Saturday.

The European Commission has cracked down hard on companies, including US icons such as Apple, Starbucks and Amazon, who worked out arrangements with EU member states allowing them to slash their tax bills.

EU Competition Commissioner Magrethe Vestager has made a point of testing these "tax rulings," which are legal in themselves, to see if they breach strict bloc competition rules by giving some companies an advantage over their rivals.

The FT said Robert Stack, a US Treasury official, met EU competition officials in Brussels on Friday to express Washington's concerns.

"We are concerned that the EU Commission appears to be disproportionately targeting US companies," Stack was quoted as saying.

Stack's visit came just one day after the Commission launched plans to stamp out tax avoidance by multi-national corporations.

"The days are numbered for companies that aggressively reduce their tax bills," EU Economics Affairs Commissioner Pierre Moscovici said.

The key proposal is that a company should report its profit country by country, rather than as now be allowed to shift earnings around into lower tax jurisdictions.

The plans were unveiled amid a storm of protest at a British government agreement for Internet giant Google to pay £130 million ($185 million, 170 million euros) in back taxes.

Critics denounced the deal as ridiculously low given Google's size and earnings but the company insisted the settlement was fair and that it complied fully with the tax laws in the countries where it operates.

Italy is meanwhile demanding Google pay some 200 million euros in back taxes and France reportedly wants 500 million euros after an investigation that included raids by police.

Google and Apple have complained they are being unfairly targeted by the European authorities.

Commission officials were not immediately available for comment on the report but Brussels has rejected charges of an anti-US bias in the past.

 Read more: Flash - US 'hits out at EU tax probes' - France 24

Sweden: Ericsson and Apple sign patent deal

Swedish mobile telecom gear maker Ericsson said it had signed a patent licence deal with Apple over technology that helps smartphones and tablets connect to mobile networks.

The deal ends a year-long dispute with Apple, one of the biggest legal battles in mobile technology.

Ericson said it would pave the way for cooperation between the companies on future technologies.

Read: Ericsson and Apple sign patent deal - RTÉ News

Internet: EU lawmakers fight cries of ‘digital protectionism - by Adam Sneed

As Europe’s digital chief heads stateside today, a coalition of EU lawmakers is speaking out against accusations that their continent is engaging in “digital protectionism.” Those claims have come from a number of American officials and executives — including President Barack Obama — in light of Europe’s efforts to unify its digital market as well as regulatory actions against Apple, Google, Amazon and others.

“As Members of European Parliament we are surprised and concerned about the strong statements coming from U.S. sources about regulatory and legislative proposals on the digital agenda for the EU,” they write in a statement to be released today, signed by more than 50 lawmakers. “The political debates on the way forward are not a 'Transatlantic rift' and should not be made into one. Rather they represent different views and beliefs that run right through our societies. We consider close cooperation between the EU and the U.S. as vital in a changing world.”

EU commissioner for digital affairs, told The Wall Street Journal over the weekend. He’s starting a U.S. trip today to meet with government officials and Silicon Valley executives, including Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg and Google CEO Sundar Pichai, where he’ll try to ease concerns that the EU’s actions are targeting the American tech sector (http://on.wsj.com/1Fbpbrw). Oettinger is scheduled to speak more on the subject Thursday morning at the Center for Transatlantic Relations

Read more: EU lawmakers fight cries of ‘digital protectionism - POLI

EU Inquiry Into Apple, Streaming Music Finds No Misconduct - by Dawn Chmielew

The European Commission failed to find evidence of collusion among the major music labels and Apple to quash free music streaming services such as those offered by Spotify, according to four sources with knowledge of the matter.

Investigators examined whether the labels conspired with one another or with Apple on Apple’s new streaming music service in a way that would hurt rivals. The probe failed to turn up any illegal activity, though the EU will continue to monitor the market, sources said.

Separately, the EU has asked Spotify and other music streaming services for information pertaining to Apple’s mobile App Store, according to people with knowledge of the situation. Regulators are seeking information on the restrictions Apple places on apps offered through the store.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission similarly is exploring whether Apple’s treatment of rival streaming music apps in the App Store violate antitrust laws.

Ahead of Apple Music’s launch on June 30, European regulators investigated whether the iPhone and iPad maker had colluded with the major labels to lock out rivals. The EU sent questionnaires to the major label.

Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group — seeking details about their licensing discussions with Apple.

Read more: EU Inquiry Into Apple, Streaming Music Finds No Misconduct | Re/code

Sweetheart Tax Deals: Luxleaks committee demands overhaul of EU tax rules - by Benjamin Fox

Governments that offer multi-national firms sweetheart tax deals should not be allowed to benefit if the European Union orders them to claw back the aid, according to a new report by the European Parliament’s special committee on tax rulings.

Instead, the proceeds should be “returned to the member states which have suffered from an erosion of their tax bases or to the EU budget, and not to the member state which granted the illegal tax-related aid, as is currently the case,” the report contends.

The European Commission is still investigating whether so-called ‘sweetheart’ tax agreements in Ireland, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, involving companies such a Apple, Starbucks and Fiat, constitute illegal state aid. The probe could lead to hundreds of millions of euros in new taxes being paid to the governments in question, despite the fact that they were responsible for offering special tax treatment.

The cross-party inquiry committee was set up in February in the wake of the “LuxLeaks” scandal, in which reporters disclosed the extent of tax-avoidance structures in Luxembourg allowing companies to benefit from significant reductions to their tax rate on income earned from intellectual property.

Also included in the 40-page draft report by Michael Theurer, a German liberal, and Elisa Ferreira, the Socialist group spokesperson on economic affairs, are recommendations that firms which refused to assist the committee investigation should be banned from the EU’s Transparency Register allowing them to access the EU institutions.

The MEPs also call for comprehensive exchange of tax information between European countries alongside a common consolidated corporate tax base.

Read more: Luxleaks committee demands overhaul of EU tax rules

Technology: The Apple Watch Is A Waste of Money Say Users

The Apple Watch doesn’t replace anything. I want less gadgets, not more. But after shelling out between $200 and $400 for the Apple Watch I would still be stuck with all of my current Apple hardware. I will continue to need my iPhone to make phone calls, listen to music and conduct messaging on a screen big enough that won’t cause future blindness. I will need my iPad to read, watch TV shows and movies,

FaceTime with my kids and browse the web. I will still need something to take good photos and videos and get driving directions and tweet and Instagram and Snapchat and do every other ridiculous thing I find myself doing on these devices during my ridiculous day. I can’t do many of these things on the Apple Watch. And, at least for now, I can’t do any of them better than on my iPhone or iPad. Not only that, but I will still need my MacBook to write and do work. None of these devices go away. And by the way…they all have clocks on them.

The Apple Watch adds more complexity to my life, not less. Do you find yourself in front of the TV checking your text messages on your iPhone while reading on your iPad…and then pulling out your MacBook to update a spreadsheet? Yup, that’s me. And now, we’ll have the Apple Watch on our arms to remind us that we’ve only done 8,000 steps today (a fact that can also just as easily be ascertained through a hundred apps on my iPhone). So now we’ve just got another blinking device to make our lives more complex. Another device to constantly keep charged and worry that it will run out of power in a day.

Another device to constantly keep updated, synched and replaced every year when the next fantastic version comes out because you know that Apple’s crack marketing team will make us feel like complete, out-of-touch losers unless we get the latest and greatest Apple Watch. It’s more money that we’ll be spending on hardware and apps. It’s something else that I’m going to forget in a hotel room or lose in transit somewhere. It’s just another headache in my life, and I’ve already got three kids and two pets.

The Apple Watch won’t make me more productive. Smartphones and tablets existed before the iPhone and iPad but those devices and the App Store literally changed millions of lives. They introduced a generation of productivity applications that have enabled us to communicate with others, find things, go places, buy stuff and give and get information faster than ever before and fast means productivity. The Apple Watch, at least for now, does very little of this – or at least nothing different than my iPhone or iPad except being smaller and harder to read. In the end, it’s just telling us the time, with a lot of promises about “the future” of wearables which is a future that I’m not dismissing, or even doubting – just still waiting for.

EU-Digust

Computer Technology: Apple's music streaming under EU investigation

European Union antitrust regulators are investigating Apple's deals with record labels and online music streaming services to see if it is blocking rivals' access to its music planned streaming platform, two people with knowledge of the matter said.

The move by the European Commission comes as iPhone maker Apple expands into the fast-growing music streaming business to offset a decline in iTunes sales.

Streaming music has also attracted the attention of online retailer Amazon.com, while singer Jay Z last month launched the Tidal service, amid stiff competition from Spotify, Pandora Media, Google and others.

Read more: Apple's music streaming under EU investigation

Digital Privacy: Apple CEO Declares Digital Privacy a Human Right - by Dustin Volz

Apple chief executive Tim Cook on Friday laid out one of the most forceful defenses of digital privacy ever given by the leader of a major tech company, likening the fight to protect user data to a new human-rights frontier.

Cook, speaking at a White House summit on cybersecurity at Stanford University just before President Obama's scheduled address, said the failure to protect privacy can have "dire consequences" in a world suffering from discrimination and bigotry.

"We still live in a world where not all people are treated equally. Too many people do not feel free to practice their religion, or express their opinion, or love who they choose—or love who they choose," Cook said, repeating the last part for emphasis. "A world in which that information can make the difference between life and death."

Cook repeatedly insisted that digital privacy and digital security were not mutually exclusive concepts. He also took a thinly veiled shot at some of Apple's competitors, such as Google and Facebook, by noting that his company was not in the business of "selling your personal data."

"We don't sell advertisers any information from your email content ... or your web browsing history," Cook said. "We don't know your credit card number, what you bought, or how much you paid—and we don't want to.

Cook is the only high-profile tech executive to attend Friday's summit. CEOs from several other companies were invited but declined to attend, suggesting ongoing tensions stemming from the Snowden disclosures.

Read  more: Apple CEO Declares Digital Privacy a Human Right - NationalJournal.com

Apple’s Irish tax avoidance schemes come under formal European investigation — by David Meyer

European authorities have launched a probe into whether Apple’s corporate income tax arrangements in Ireland are legal, or whether they qualify as unlawful state aid.

Ireland is the base of choice for many large tech firms’ international operations, largely because of a low corporation tax rate and favorable laws that enabled complex avoidance tricks like the legendary Double Irish arrangement (set to be shut down starting in January 2015 after U.S. lawmakers complained about Apple paying nearly no corporation tax anywhere).

The particular issue here is the “tax rulings” that were issued by the Irish authorities in Apple’s favor, confirming that the iPhone maker could continue with its transfer pricing schemes. If these rulings are found to specifically advantage the company, or indeed a group of companies, then they rulings may be seen as illegal state aid.

The European Commission has also opened similar probes in regard to Luxembourg and the carmaker Fiat, and the Netherlands and coffee peddler Starbucks. It said in a statement:

"If tax authorities, when accepting the calculation of the taxable basis proposed by a company, insist on a remuneration of a subsidiary or a branch on market terms, reflecting normal conditions of competition, this would exclude the presence of state aid. However, if the calculation is not based on remuneration on market terms, it could imply a more favourable treatment of the company compared to the treatment other taxpayers would normally receive under the Member States’ tax rules. This may constitute state aid."

Preliminary investigations suggest the Irish Apple rulings “could underestimate the taxable profit,” hence the “in-depth” investigation that commenced on Wednesday, June 11th.

Read more: Apple’s Irish tax avoidance schemes come under formal European investigation — Tech News and Analysis