Is it just me, or are these fines too low for multi-billion (trillion) companies?
Yes, but it’s better than nothing.
Would be nice if Android/AOSP was forced to implement a unified backup solution rather than the current mess, which depends on a Google account.
There is seedvault, I have it enabled (back-up regularly to nextcloud), but I’m not sure I want to test it.
IMO, the best way for governments to fight this behavior is to require that devices and software used by public services, must be based on open standards, data portability, easy to repair, have long support and similar reasonable practices.
Also, offer tax break to private companies only for stuff like that. E.g. if your company is buying iphones or Galaxies for their employees, they have to pay VAT, same as private citizens. If they buy e.g. Fairphones or Frameworks, host their data with Nextcloud, they can get it without it, as it is now for all business equipment.
Fees and regulations will not do much. Loosing customers will. After all, almost all of big tech services and products are based on open-source technologies (ffmpeg, xmpp, web/cal/cardDAV, freeBSD/linux…) which they used to get people on, and then closed it.
Honestly I think they should make the fines based over how long time, they have been violating and the 50 percent of the companies revenue pr year after that. Then lets see if they start to respect people privacy.
Big Tech fines should be set as a monthly percentage of their global gross income, otherwise it just gets added to “cost of doing business” model.
It should be based on the total gross income across the lifespan of the offending product. iCloud+ was released in 2021. Apple should be fined 10% of their total revenue from the past 3 years
It’s not just you.
In the words of an economics professor: These small fines fail to stop these companies from engaging in shady behavior, which can net them billions if the fine is not even equivalent of pocket change for these companies. In Terms of FB’s merger with WhatsApp, Zuck said there is no way to share data between these apps to get the approval from EU, within a year of approval, team at FB found a way of sharing data. EU fined them, but that fine feels like an insurance premium for such merger rather than an actual fine which comes with consequence. (I have paraphrased)
The problem is that governments are also disincentivized from increasing the fines, because if the fines were significant enough to actually make tech companies avoid them and follow the law, then the government would lose out on all that sweet, sweet future fine revenue 
It is worth noting that most big tech companies don’t end up paying even close to the current initial fines. Simply imposing higher initial fines would still be ineffective if the courts’ interpretation of the law continues to result in substantially lowered fines on appeal.
Imo, Apple needs the US market more than the US economy needs Apple. There are plenty of other big tech corps the US can tax/fine but 35% of Apple’s revenue is from the US alone (source).
Because no other country has fallen into the network effect trap harder than US citizens. Mobile phone marketshare in the US is just sad.
This “lawsuit” should be dismissed straight away! Its baseless. Apple does force noone to use any of its services!
It makes using iCloud seemless when you own iPhone, thats true, but thats NOT forcing. You are free to use any cloud storage you want.
@Lukas depends on how you look at it.
And what? Nothing.
@jonah thasts true 
@water Exactly this Thats why fines should be huge. If fine meant closing down business, than wonderfull.
Is this a joke? You have no choice but to use iCloud for cloud backups. A truly competitive system would allow you to pick which cloud provider to use including potentially your own server.
I’m sorry, but April Fools was a long time ago, wait for the next year.
@phnx no, its not a joke. You can configure iPhone NOT to use iCloud at all! Its quite hard to do but still doable.
Sure but that’s not what antitrust means, you must be able to pick competitors, not just disable the first-party service.
This is like this in Europe for violations of DMA or DSA. This is a daily fine though. It can sum up to very high fines. If I recall correctly this was already used in the EU but I don’t recall against which company. This may also exist at the national level in some countries (Netherlands?).