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The knock-on effects continue for Apple after a blistering ruling from a federal judge earlier this week that ordered the company to stop collecting fees for purchases made outside the App Store. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers ruled that Apple was using loopholes to circumvent her own ruling against the company from 2021. Companies are wasting no time streamlining payments outside of Apples walled garden, and Spotify is the latest to make these changes. With the latest update available in the App Store, version 9.0.40, Spotify has added external links for subscription purchases, allowing it to advertise lower prices and different tiers without giving nearly a third of its revenue generated back to Apple from those subscription sales. These changes also lay the groundwork for content-specific microtransactions, like audiobooks, taking place outside the app. Spotify expressed its hope that these changes will create seamless buying opportunities that will directly benefit creators. In a blog post shared on the Spotify website, the company was incensed that it took this long for Apple to comply with the same judges previous order in the landmark Epic Games case dealing with the exact same issue. It reads in part: The fact that we havent been able to deliver these basic services, which were permitted by the judges order four years ago, is absurd. The ruling made it clear that Apple deliberately abused its market power to intentionally harm others and benefit only itself. Epic Games, which kicked all this off with its original court case, celebrated the legal victory by announcing a limited zero-commission policy for games sold through the Epic Games Store. The company also announced EGS Webshops to support out-of-app purchases launching next month. While Apple has said it will comply with the judges ruling, the company also made clear it intends to appeal. Its been a busy week for Apples legal team, as this comes on the heels of a separate ruling Apple faced from a patent dispute in UK courts, where the iPhone maker has been ordered to pay over $500 million in damages to Optis.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/spotify-breaks-free-from-apples-app-store-fees-170617269.html?src=rss
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Kuwait is cracking down on cryptocurrency miners throughout the country, as reported by Reuters. Officials have blamed the practice for blackouts and for causing stress on its power grid. The country started this crackdown just before the onset of summer, which experts say could reach scorching temperatures of 125 degrees Fahrenheit. Kuwaits Ministry of Interior said in a statement that it has been conducting a "wide-ranging" security operation that targets homes suspected of being used for cryptocurrency mining. The government agency went on to say that crypto mining is illegal, as the countrys Capital Markets Authority banned the practice in 2023. Crypto trading was also banned at that time. The crackdown has been targeting homes in the Al-Wafrah region of Kuwait, which is located in the southern part of the country. The regions electricity ministry has said that around 100 homes were being used for mining operations, often consuming up to 20 times the normal power levels. To that end, energy consumption in the area dropped by 55 percent following the operation, according to a government statement. Its no secret that cryptocurrency mining gobbles up vast amounts of computing power and, as such, electricity. Kuwait isnt the only country to regulate or outright ban the practice. Russia has banned crypto mining in several regions throughout the country. Kosovo outlawed the practice back in 2022 and Angola did the same in 2024. European countries like Iceland and Norway have strictly regulated the industry due to energy shortages. As for Kuwait, researchers at the University of Cambridge estimated that the country was responsible for just 0.05 percent of the world's bitcoin mining in 2022. Alex de Vries-Gao, founder of a research project that tracks crypto energy use, told Reuters that "it only takes a very small share of the total bitcoin mining network to have a significant impact on the relatively small total electricity consumption of Kuwait." Recent data indicates that crypto mining accounts for almost 2.5 percent of the total energy consumption of the US. Thats approximately half of the energy used by the entire commercial sector of the US economy. But hey, at least we get some fake coins we cant buy anything with for our trouble.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/kuwait-cracks-down-on-crypto-miners-to-cut-down-on-electricity-usage-161200772.html?src=rss
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The Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) has fined TikTok owner ByteDance 530 million ($602 million) for breaching the European Union's privacy laws. The regulator said TikTok sent European user data to China without being able to guarantee that the information was safe from government surveillance. It was reported last month that the DPC was going to slap TikTok with such a fine the third-largest ever for a General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) breach. The regulator confirmed that on Friday. The DPC, which handles enforcement of the GDPR when it comes to TikTok (which has its European HQ in Ireland), also ruled that the platform wasn't adequately transparent with users. Along with the fine, the DPC gave TikTok six months to halt all illegal data transfers. TikTok claimed during the four-year probe that it didn't store data from European Economic Area users on servers in China. However, it told the DPC last month it learned in February that "limited EEA User Data" had been stored there and admitted that contradicted what it previously said to regulators. "The DPC is taking these recent developments regarding the storage of EEA User Data on servers in China very seriously," DPC deputy commissioner Graham Doyle said in a statement. "Whilst TikTok has informed the DPC that the data has now been deleted, we are considering what further regulatory action may be warranted, in consultation with our peer EU Data Protection Authorities." The DPC said that, between 2020 and 2022, TikTok didn't tell users that their data was being transferred to China. The regulator says TikTok met its transparency requirements in 2022 after updating its privacy policy. Still, the breach of transparency rules resulted in a 45 million fine. The data transfers to China led to a 485 million penalty. "TikToks personal data transfers to China infringed the GDPR because TikTok failed to verify, guarantee and demonstrate that the personal data of EEA users, remotely accessed by staff in China, was afforded a level of protection essentially equivalent to that guaranteed within the EU," Doyle said. "As a result of TikToks failure to undertake the necessary assessments, TikTok did not address potential access by Chinese authorities to EEA personal data under Chinese anti-terrorism, counter-espionage and other laws identified by TikTok as materially diverging from EU standards." TikTok said in a statement that it disagrees with the ruling and it plans to appeal in full. It claims that Chinese officials had never requested European user data and that it had never provided such information to the country's authorities. The platform also contends that the DPC did not fully consider Project Clover in its decision. That initiative concerns privacy safeguards, such as setting up European data centers to store data locally. The DPC decision "focuses on a select period from years ago, prior to Clovers 2023 implementation and does not reflect the safeguards now in place," Christine Grahn, TikTok's head of public policy and government relations for Europe, said. However, the DPC said it "considered ongoing changes" related to Project Clover while making the ruling. This is not the first time that the DPC has fined Bytedance. In 2023, it handed down a $368 million penalty after determining TikTok failed to protect the data of users aged between 13 and 17. EU regulators have other ongoing investigations into TikTok over whether it failed to meet obligations to stop foreign interference in an election; age verification and addictive algorithm concerns; and an alleged failure to submit a risk assessment report ahead of rolling out TikTok Lite in France and Spain.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/tiktok-fined-602-million-for-illegally-sending-european-user-data-to-china-154807194.html?src=rss
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