Apple under European antitrust scrutiny

Oops, that last bit should read:

"It's comparable to there being an iTunes store for each US State, and a Californian user not being able to buy from the Texan store because their address is in *California*."

The EU is investigating this because at the moment a user in the UK is blocked from buying songs from the French iTunes store (which is about 20p cheaper). EU law specifies that there should be a common market within the EU, and companies should not refuse to sell something to somebody because of their address.

It's comparable to there being an iTunes store for each US State, and a Californian user not being able to buy from the Texan store because their address is in Texas.

blah blah blah blah

It seems the EU simply just don't like Apple, eg: lets pick a current CD Album from Amazon.com, co.uk and .de

Avril Lavigne - The Best Damn Thing (not saying anything, just know it's a new one ;)

Amazon.com $11.99 (RRP $18.98)
Amazon.co.uk £8.98 or $17.75 (xe.com)
Amazon.de 15,97 Euro or $21.32 (xe.com)

Oh no, it's more expensive than the US store?!? Funny that eh? it's called EXCHANGE RATES!

Someone tell the EU to lay off Apple and focus their energies into important matters for a change >:/

Don't like it don't buy it.

Hay Euro's start your own Apple i-tunes.

I know

You could call it

Sauerkraut Inc
and the Music service i-Oompah

I will now read TUAW forever because Erica said "fooferaw." Well, at least until she stops writing for them. (American Heritage says "origin unknown" - I was thinking Pennsylvania Dutch?)

About time too! The single market was created a long time ago and for this farce to have been forced upon us by mainly (but not completely) American record and film companies eager to keep the European market split up to maximise profit for themselves is simply archaic.

It's wrong that I can buy a CD from a German website and have it delivered within a couple of days to anywhere else in the Union and yet prevented from buying the same CD from the German iTunes site.

Hopefully this can be sorted fast. The average time for anti-trust investigations by the Commission is 6 weeks and this one must be fairly obvious in any practical example.