Italy fines Apple, Amazon 200 million for breach of competition

A few years ago, we experienced a major trade war between Amazon and Apple, Apple did not allow the sale of its products on the Amazon marketplace, and Amazon blocked all of its services on Cupertino devices. An absurd war that ended with the entry of an Apple s tore on Amazon

, and with the arrival of Amazon services on Apple devices. But this led to a new problem: Apple is responsible for setting prices on Amazon and has given them exclusivity for their products. Now, the Italian competition body has just sanctioned the two companies with 200 million dollars for fixing prices …

And is that we are facing a violation of competition. Amazon Italy represents neither more nor less 70% of sales of electronic products in Italy, and Apple is the one who sets the prices and does not allow retailers to market their products on Amazon, a discrimination for which these new sanctions are applied. According to the competition regulator in Italy,

It is essential that the application of the competition rules ensure a level playing field for all retailers who use electronic marketplaces, such as Amazon, as an increasingly important place for the development of their business activities, especially in the current context, by avoiding discriminatory behavior that restricts competition.

We will see what happens in other countries since This fine is part of a regulatory framework according to which many other countries in the European Union are intensively monitoring tech giants

the United States to impose sanctions so that it applies good competition practices. That’s why Apple won’t be the only one fined, many more will be penalized in the same way. After all this, one can only think that states are trying to protect us as consumers, and in the end we have to decide what to buy or not, and for them it is essential that there is good competition in the market.