Comment by aspaviento
7 days ago
How would a policy for this only affect EU games? EU has other policies that affect Apple, Microsoft, Google etc. as far as I know, any company that wants to sell/offer a service in EU will need to comply with its policies.
That’s not how it works. The EU does not care about what Apple does in the US. It’s Apple’s choice to either tweak their products to adapt to the laws of their different markets or apply these changes across the board. We’ve seen that with recent iOS versions where EU regulations imposed changes, some of which were done only for devices in the EU.
For some time Microsoft had EU specific versions of Windows.
EULA sometimes differ depending on location because a lot of the bullshit software companies get away with in the US is illegal in other parts of the world.
Another extreme example is the hoops companies have to jump through to sell in China. Again, this generally does not affect the same products in the rest of the world.
It is a problem that we know how to solve.
> The EU does not care about what Apple does in the US.
Well, partially they do. For example when it comes to the Right to be forgotten, there were attempts to apply this also to data which is stored and displayed outside the EU. Only after ECJ ruling (C-507/17) such attempts were stopped.
> For some time Microsoft had EU specific versions of Windows.
Microsoft does have the N (formerly called "Reduced Media") editions of Windows created in response to legal demands from the EU, but these are available worldwide. Other than that it is the same version of Windows, which just behaves differently when it comes to browser choice etc. depending on your location.
> For example when it comes to the Right to be forgotten, there were attempts to apply this also to data which is stored and displayed outside the EU. Only after ECJ ruling (C-507/17) such attempts were stopped.
They care to the extent that the situation in the EU is resolved. They did not make any extraterritorial jurisdiction arguments like the US government did with Microsoft’s data centres in Ireland.
> Microsoft does have the N (formerly called "Reduced Media") editions of Windows created in response to legal demands from the EU, but these are available worldwide.
You are right, I got confused. The browser ballot screen was shown only in the EU, but it was not a separate product. Regarding Windows N, I don’t think the ruling forced them to sell it worldwide; it did not even stop them from selling their usual Windows versions in the EU.
The EU doesn't have to worry about what happens in the rest of the world. The rest of the world can benefit of this anyways.