The European Union has been characterized in recent years by start different crusades against the big software developers, manufacturers of electronic devices, web services ... based in the United States. It is not the first time that a large American company has been condemned to pay a large financial fine for violating some rights that we do take seriously in Europe, but which in the United States seem to go unnoticed.
But not only the European Union is always aware of the operation of these types of companies, since some countries also care about theirs and initiate actions on their own, as is the case in France. French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire has announced that his country take legal action against Apple and Google for their abusive business practices. It will only take action against these companies because they are the only mobile ecosystems currently available on the market.
According to Le Maire, technology companies are taking advantage of French developers with these practices, claiming that fines can reach several billion euros. In an interview that the French finance minister gave to the RTL station, Le Maire affirmed that he had recently learned about the practices carried out by Apple and Google, where companies unilaterally impose their prices and modify other contractual terms with application developers.
This problem comes from afar, since after learning about this practice, in 2015, the fraud office of his ministry began an investigation where he discovered "significant imbalances" in the relationships of the developers who sold their applications in the Apple and Google stores.
Le Maire, states that, despite their dominant position in the market, both Apple and Google, they shouldn't be able to deal with French developers and startups as they do today. According to Le Maire, he will wait to present his case before the Paris commercial court, once the tax loopholes that a large number of American companies are taking advantage of to pay as little as possible in Europe are resolved.